Dispatches

8:00pm Monday, February 7 on C4

In the wake of the resignation of Downing Street’s head of communications Andy Coulson, Dispatches charts the unfolding events in the phone hacking scandal. The film examines the controversy, which stretches from Fleet Street to Scotland Yard and on to Westminster and Downing Street. It investigates the wider implications for the tabloids and asks is this a watershed moment for the British press?

7:05pm Saturday, January 15 on C4

As part of the The Big Fish Fight season on Channel 4 championing sustainable seafood, Dispatches investigates the fish sold on Britain’s high street to find out where it is sourced, how it is processed and what is actually in it. Through DNA testing Channel 4 News presenter Alex Thomson discovers the fish in fish and chips may not be quite as advertised, and exposes how one major supermarket is misleading consumers about the sustainability of the cod it sells.

8:00pm Sunday, January 9 on C4

On the night of the Haiti earthquake 4,500 prisoners escaped from Haiti’s terrifying and overcrowded prison, the National Penitentiary. They included many of the hardcore criminals, kidnappers and gang bosses who’d reduced Haiti to anarchy from 2004 to 2007. BAFTA-winning director Dan Reed captures the daily battle for Haiti’s future, filming with escaped gangsters, the beleaguered special police unit that’s trying to capture them, UN peacekeepers, and the despairing and philosophical inhabitants of the slums and tent cities.

8:00pm Monday, November 29 on C4

Every year, thousands of children come from all over the world to Britain seeking refuge from persecution, terrorism and war. But many arrive to find this country is not the place of safety that they hoped. Instead they are met by a culture of disbelief and an asylum system that in some cases causes them profound psychological and physical harm. Through the stories of a 10-year-old Iranian boy, a 16-year-old Afghan and a 22-year-old Ugandan woman, Dispatches explores the experiences of young people who have been brutalized by the British Asylum system.

8:00pm Monday, November 22 on C4

“People in the West have absolutely no idea what terrorism is… we have a 9/11 or 7/7 if not every day then every second day in Pakistan.” – retired army major whose wife was killed in a suicide bomb attack. For one year, Dispatches follows the police and people of Islamabad as Pakistan’s capital battles to overcome an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks, providing a powerful insight into a normally closed world in which everyone battles to survive the daily threat of death with courage and resilience.

8:00pm Monday, November 15 on C4

Tonight’s Dispatches reveals that despite the worldwide credit crunch it’s still possible to get rich out of Europe. The programme details the exceptionally generous package of salary, pension and expenses that MEPs receive and how some have abused the rules to pocket as much cash as possible. While Westminster has tightened up on the expenses system, Brussels still hands out some cash allowances without the need for receipts. The programme also looks at the system of agricultural payments, as Dispatches shows how millions of pounds in grants have ended up going to some of the best known – and richest – landowners in the country.

8:00pm Monday, November 1 on C4

Every day hundreds of children are forced to leave home. Some run away, even more are thrown away: discarded and evicted by their parents. Directed by award-winning film maker Nick Read, and produced by BAFTA-winning team True Vision ( Dispatches: China’s Stolen Children, Chosen ), Dispatches follows four teenagers over six months who are struggling to fend for themselves on the streets. They’re simultaneously at risk and a risk to society, and for all four of them drugs become a way of life, a means of dealing with the stresses and challenges of life away from family and home comforts. All talk candidly and eloquently about why they take flight: family breakdowns, addiction, violence, neglect and abuse.

8:00pm Monday, October 18 on C4

How do the rich avoid paying tax and protect their fortunes? Dispatches reveals the clever devices they use. With more than 20 millionaires in the cabinet, reporter Antony Barnett examines the financial affairs of some ministers and others who have helped the coalition. George Osborne says “we’re all in this together” but are ministers and top Tories paying the same rates of tax as the rest of us? Barnett visits a number of offshore tax havens around the world still under control of Britain, including the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, to find out more about tax avoidance ploys.

9:00pm Thursday, October 7 on C4

In February, US Marines launched the biggest operation since the start of the war in Afghanistan: Operation Mushtaraq. Bravo’s Deadly Mission covers hour-by-hour the entire operation to liberate the strategically vital town of Marjah in February 2010 and contains some of the most intense fighting footage ever caught on camera. Filmed under extremely dangerous circumstances and in the toughest conditions imaginable, this Dispatches special is an extraordinary human story and an unflinching portrayal of war at first hand. Bravo’s Deadly Mission shows just how dangerous and difficult the situation in southern Afghanistan has become, and how hard it will be to turn around.

8:00pm Monday, October 4 on C4

Dispatches examines some of the people influencing, advising and working for those at the centre of the new coalition government. Political journalist Peter Oborne delves into their backgrounds, business interests and current roles with the government.