The BEST episodes of Dispatches season 2012

#1 - Secrets of Poundland

Season 2012 - Episode 18 - Aired 9/17/2012

As other High Street retailers struggle for survival, discount leader Poundland is booming. With a new store opening on average every five days, its pre-tax profits are up an astonishing 50% in a year. In this Dispatches investigation, Harry Wallop asks how Poundland sells so cheaply, yet makes so much money.

#2 - Where Has Your Aid Money Gone?

Season 2012 - Episode 27 - Aired 11/26/2012

#3 - Tricks Of The Dole Cheats

Season 2012 - Episode 15 - Aired 8/13/2012

Reporter Morland Sanders investigates Jobcentre Plus, the organisation tasked with getting Britain back to work and cracking down on dole cheats. With the help of jobseekers, undercover filming and a former insider, the programme reveals the shirkers' tricks that make it easy to cheat the system.

#4 - Britain on the Sick

Season 2012 - Episode 13 - Aired 7/30/2012

Using undercover filming, reporter Jackie Long investigates the controversial processes used to assess whether sickness and disability benefit claimants should be declared fit for work.

#5 - Secrets of Your Boss's Pay

Season 2012 - Episode 21 - Aired 10/8/2012

As the pay packets of Britain's top bosses continue to escalate, Channel 4 Dispatches follows the former Greggs chief executive Sir Michael Darrington as he launches a campaign to call a halt to corporate greed.

#6 - The School Dinner Scandal

Season 2012 - Episode 17 - Aired 9/10/2012

After Jamie Oliver's high-profile campaign to improve school meals, millions of pounds were pumped into improving school canteens and tough minimum standards on food and nutrition were set and enforced. Reporter Tazeen Ahmad examines evidence that strategies to improve the food served in all our schools are fast coming undone.

#7 - How Safe is Your Cash?

Season 2012 - Episode 29 - Aired 12/10/2012

During the first four months of the year, the number of fraudulent attacks on credit and debit cards almost doubled on that of last year. Morland Sanders learns about a growing concern that some of the major banks are refusing to accept liability if the account holder's personal identification number has been compromised in some way.

#8 - Beating the Recession - Cash vs Cards

Season 2012 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/21/2012

Personal finance expert Harry Wallop investigates whether cutting up our credit cards and paying for everything in cash could leave us with more money in our pockets.

#9 - Undercover Retirement Home

Season 2012 - Episode 19 - Aired 9/24/2012

Dispatches goes undercover to investigate the multi-million pound retirement property industry.

#10 - Do You Know Your Partner's Past?

Season 2012 - Episode 22 - Aired 10/22/2012

Dispatches investigates a new controversial pilot scheme in which men and women are warned by the authorities about their partners' history of violence.

#11 - Cruises Undercover: The Truth Below Deck

Season 2012 - Episode 20 - Aired 10/1/2012

Dispatches goes undercover to investigate the reality of life below deck for the multi-national workforce who toil behind the scenes of glamorous ocean going holidays. Reporter Tazeen Ahmad, travelling as a passenger on a European cruise, discovers working conditions below the legal minimum in the UK.

#12 - Getting Rich on the NHS

Season 2012 - Episode 23 - Aired 10/29/2012

Under the new health reforms, private firms are being awarded millions of pounds-worth of NHS contracts. One of the major new players is Virgin Care, a global brand more readily associated with planes, trains and record stores. The company is already providing medical services and running entire medical centres and is developing links to GPs across England. Health reforms were meant to improve choice and competition, and put GPs in the driving seat. Morland Sanders examines whether the rapid handover of services to private contractors is really good for the public purse, and good for patient care.

#13 - Nuclear War Games

Season 2012 - Episode 24 - Aired 11/5/2012

In the midst of a turbulent post Arab-spring Middle East, Israel's threats of military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities have raised fears of a confrontation between the two countries. This film, which has obtained exclusive access to Israeli theoretical war exercises, provides unprecedented insight into Israel's internal tensions concerning an attack between Israel and Iran which, if escalates, could have major implications for global stability. The film features exclusive access to a theoretical exercise, a 'war game', conducted by the INSS - an Israeli think tank made up of senior Israeli experts and former political and military leaders - the results of which are fed back to the Israeli government. Dispatches explores the views of those who are both for and against military action and demonstrates how some elements in Israel believe Iran would retaliate - providing a valuable insight into the likelihood of any military attack.

#14 - Chinese Murder Mystery

Season 2012 - Episode 25 - Aired 11/12/2012

An investigation in to the death of Neil Percival Heywood which sheds new light on his relationship with one of China's most powerful families.

#15 - MPs: Are They Still at It?

Season 2012 - Episode 26 - Aired 11/19/2012

Two years after the MPs expenses scandal, Dispatches examines whether our parliamentarians are still abusing the system. The investigation discovers a system still with problems and a lack of transparency, while unearthing evidence that some MPs are still cashing in.

#16 - The Chinese Are Coming

Season 2012 - Episode 28 - Aired 12/3/2012

As China continues to flex its financial muscle by buying into British airports, water and breakfast cereals, Dispatches investigates growing Chinese power in the UK. The programme tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Dalai Lama's visit to Britain, and reveals details of how British politicians from the Highlands of Scotland to the heart of Westminster are influenced by the Chinese government.

#17 - The American School Massacre

Season 2012 - Episode 30 - Aired 12/17/2012

The series reports on how on Friday December 14 a gunman walked into his local primary school in Newtown, Connecticut and killed twenty children aged between five and ten as well as seven adults

#18 - Property Nightmare: The Truth About Leaseholds

Season 2012 - Episode 16 - Aired 8/20/2012

Morland Sanders examines how leasehold properties can expose homeowners to unfair charging, and the government's reluctance to improve regulation.

#19 - Britain's High Street Gamble

Season 2012 - Episode 14 - Aired 8/6/2012

Michael Crick investigates the boom in High Street betting shops and their impact on communities. Have the politicians got the gambling laws all wrong?

#20 - Can You Trust Your Bank?

Season 2012 - Episode 12 - Aired 7/23/2012

The Barclays interest rate scandal, unimaginable bonuses and insurance misselling have put the banking sector firmly in the public spotlight. In this special report, Jon Snow travels around the UK, meeting consumers, businesses and bankers, to ask whether we can trust our banks.

#21 - Myths About Your 5 A Day

Season 2012 - Episode 11 - Aired 7/16/2012

Dispatches investigates what's happened to the five-a-day campaign, which was designed to get us all eating more fruit and veg. Reporter Jane Moore reveals how this vital health message has been hijacked as a marketing tactic, and how the food industry uses the campaign to promote sugary, fatty, salty products like ready meals, soups and drinks. She also looks at confusion over what actually counts as a five-a-day portion and investigates whether the government is effectively regulating what the food industry tells us about the scheme.

#22 - Secrets of the Taxman

Season 2012 - Episode 10 - Aired 7/9/2012

An undercover report partly filmed in the Channel Islands presents new revelations about tax avoidance.

#23 - Cashing in on the Games

Season 2012 - Episode 9 - Aired 7/2/2012

Reporter Morland Sanders goes in search of retailers and businesses out to make a quick profit during London 2012. In addition to investigating hotels planning massive mark-ups, he explores illegal ticket touting, meets people losing their homes ahead of the Games, and examines whether the overall economic benefits of hosting the event have been overstated.

#24 - Undercover Undertaker

Season 2012 - Episode 8 - Aired 6/25/2012

Jackie Long investigates the funeral industry, using undercover filming to discover what really happens to loved ones when they die.

#25 - Let Our Dad Die

Season 2012 - Episode 7 - Aired 6/18/2012

In 2005 Tony Nicklinson had a catastrophic stroke, which has left him utterly paralysed. He has what is known as 'locked in syndrome' and cannot move, talk, feed himself or perform even the most basic function without help. He can only communicate via a computer controlled by his eyes. Tony Nicklinson wants to die, but he cannot kill himself without help, and anyone who helped him would be committing murder. On the eve of a historic and controversial legal bid to demand the right to be killed, he tells his story, comes face to face with his critics, and hears from the Greek doctor who saved his life seven years earlier, who says he wouldn't wish this condition on his worst enemy.