''5 Live Report'' was a weekly investigative programme on

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

. It was broadcast live at 11 a.m. on Sundays as part of the

Julian Worricker Julian Gordon Worricker (born 6 January 1963 in Woking, Surrey) is an English journalist, currently working as one of the main presenters of ''Weekend'' on the BBC World Service, as stand in presenter of ''Any Answers'' on BBC Radio 4 and a rel ...

programme, and a recorded half-hour documentary was broadcast on Sundays, schedule permitting. Most reports were produced by the BBC's Radio Current Affairs department, with a sizeable contribution by the independent company All Out Productions, and occasional productions by

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ire ...

. The reports have been criticised by Elisabeth Mahoney of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' for sometimes feeling "too much like sensation and too little like substance".

Notable reports

In 2001 a report uncovered evidence that there had been

miscarriages of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Inno ...

in many cases where parents, including Sally Clark, had been convicted of murdering babies on the basis of unreliable statistical evidence concerning multiple

cot death Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...

s in the same family. Clark was freed on appeal in 2003. A 2002 report about prisoners on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

included an interview with

Kenny Richey Kenneth Thomas Richey (born August 3, 1964), in Zeist, Netherlands is a British-US dual citizen who in 1987 was convicted in Ohio of murdering a two-year-old girl and sentenced to death. He spent 21 years on death row before re-examination of his ...

, who had been convicted of murdering a two-year-old in an arson attack, but whose case was widely considered to be a miscarriage of justice. Richie was also later freed after a

plea bargain A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or '' nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendan ...

. 2003 reports included one on the rise of the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

, and one on the use of illegal drugs in the workplace. In 2004 the ''5 Live Report'' investigated the legacy of the

Bhopal disaster The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Considered the world's wo ...

20 years earlier, finding that concentrations of toxic materials in Bhopal were still up to 500 times the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...

's recommended maximum levels. The report has also featured an interview with Saudi opposition leader

Mohammad al-Massari Mohammad al-Mass'ari ( ar, محمد المسعري) is an exiled Saudi physicist and political dissident who gained asylum in the United Kingdom in 1994. He runs the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) and is an adviser to the ...

, who admitted to having been in contact with

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

and that he would do so again.

References

BBC Radio 5 Live programmes {{UK-radio-show-stub