The Trapped: Investigating Britain’s housing shame
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Hello, I’m Daniel Hewitt, ITV News Investigations Editor and presenter of a new podcast: The Trapped.
When I stepped inside a council tower block in South London almost four years ago, I didn’t expect it to kickstart an investigation that continues to this day, culminating the release this week of an eight-part documentary podcast series.
Inside Regina Road in Croydon I found families living in conditions unfit for human habitation and at risk of electrocution. Water cascaded through light fittings and into plug sockets; the whitewashed walls had turned black, a furry mould growing on every surface.
It wasn’t living, it was surviving.
The next day, we received hundreds of emails from tenants in social homes facing similar horrors.
That report took me beyond Croydon to properties across the country, where the conditions were barely believable and totally unliveable.
We had stumbled upon a scandal that would lead to a full expose of Britain’s housing crisis - from a rise in evictions to families trapped in temporary accommodation and the homeless children with nowhere to go.
Whenever we thought we had seen everything, witnessed the worst housing imaginable in a rich, developed nation, we would somehow find places that would shock us further.
If you wanted to create a housing crisis, you would do to the letter what Britain has done in the past 40 years.
The Trapped lays bare the heartbreaking consequences - you can see my introduction on ITVX.
You can listen to the series on a bespoke website here.
And the first episode is on our What You Need To Know podcast.
The war hero starved to death
Roland Guy first tried to enlist during World War II aged just 15. He eventually signed up as a Royal Marine at the age of 17.
He served with distinction in a Commando unit under Bond author Ian Fleming.
Mr Guy’s experiences had a severe impact on his mental heath and he died aged 80 under the care of Essex mental health services. His family say he was severely malnourished and dehydrated.
ITV News Reporter Charlie Frost tells his story…
Birmingham pub bombings 50 years on: ‘They know, but they won’t say’
On a dark November day in 1974, 21 people died and more than 200 injured when two bombs exploded minutes apart in two Birmingham pubs.
The IRA is thought to have been responsible, despite never claiming responsibility.
ITV News Midlands Correspondent Ben Chapman has spoken to relatives of two of the victims as they continue to demand justice to the largest unsolved mass murder in UK history. Watch his report on ITVX.
Why inheritance tax on farms could be a good thing
Holly Purdey was brought up on a family farm alongside her six siblings. She and her husband are now tenant farmers at Horner Farm, near Minehead in Somerset.
Holly spoke to ITV News West Country as thousands of farmers marched in Westminster to protest plans to impose a 20% inheritance tax rate on farms worth more than £1million.
“I think there is a possibility that something positive could come out of it, if it was managed correctly," she told ITV News.
What would you give to have a second chance with your beloved pet?
The joy of spending time with your favourite four legged friend for many is priceless, but Tom Rubython knows the exact cost.
In 2014, Tom paid £80,000 to have his beloved cocker spaniel Daisy cloned by a South Korean lab, resulting in Mable and Myrtle.
Now that technology is available in the UK. ITV News went inside Gemini Genetics where pet owners can expect to pay up to £40,000 to clone their recently departed cat or dog.
You can watch the report on ITVX.
We speak to the first IVF baby whose birth inspires a new film
Meeting Louise Joy Brown in person certainly gives you a moment to pause, writes Arts Editor Nina Nannar. You are shaking hands with history, the first IVF baby.
Louise is supporting a new film called Joy which tells the astonishing story of how the three pioneers of IVF battled widespread opposition, not least from religious groups, in their ten-year medical journey to figure out how to fertilise an egg outside the mother’s body and then implant it into the womb.
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On the ‘hotel at sea’ that’s actually a huge gas platform
Ever wondered what it’s like to live and work on a gas rig in the heart of the North Sea?
As part of an ITV Calendar series looking at the climate crisis, reporter Jonathan Brown travelled by helicopter to the Rough B platform.
You can watch his first-hand lookaround the rig on our Instagram page here and see his report on what the future holds for the platform on ITVX.
The women’s running club keeping members going in winter
It’s a chilly November night in Barry and the sun set two hours ago, writes Beth Thomas, reporter with ITV Wales. But the dark and the cold hasn’t stopped the women of Girls Who Run Cardiff who, with their head torches and reflective arm bands, have gathered for an evening 5km.
“I don’t think I would feel that comfortable going in the dark on my own - unless I was with at least one or two other girls,” club co-founder Anna-Lee Powell.
See how the club works together to make it safer for women on ITVX.
What’s coming up…
Monday November 25: Confederation of British Industry annual conference, a month on from the Budget
Tuesday November 26: Latest hearing in legal claim brought by Duke of Sussex and others against Associated Newspapers, at the Royal Courts of Justice
Thursday November 28: Quarterly immigration statistics due out
And finally… the message in a bottle shining a light on history
When engineers discovered a bottle hidden in the walls of Corsewall Lighthouse in south-west Scotland, they were to get an insight into history…
What they found was a perfectly preserved letter from their predecessors describing the work they were doing to install a lens in the lighthouse - 132 years ago.
You can watch the moment the bottle was discovered and here from the modern-day sleuths on ITVX.