Four Corners

Monday 31 October at 8.30pm on ABC1

Next Monday on Four Corners, ‘Trial and Error?’ – an investigation that delves into one of Australia’s longest running and most controversial murder cases.

In late 2008, Gordon Wood was sent to jail for 17 years for the murder of his girlfriend, former model Caroline Byrne. The jury accepted the prosecution’s case that Gordon Wood had picked up his girlfriend and thrown her, spear-like, over the edge of a cliff at Sydney’s notorious ‘The Gap’. The case is currently being appealed and key expert evidence given at the trial is being re-examined.

Sixteen years after Caroline Byrne was found dead, the question once again being asked is: did she suicide or was she murdered?

‘Trial and Error?’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 31st October at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 1st November at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays or on iview (abc.net.au/iview) and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Burn Notice, ONE. 8.30pm
Finally new episodes for most markets. Brotherly Love. While Sam and Jesse travel to the Dominican Republic in search of the list, Michael must stay in Miami to help his brother find a drug dealer’s stolen car.

Blue Bloods, ONE, 9.30pm
Hall of Mirrors. When an undercover counter-terrorism agent is shot, Frank assigns Danny to the case because his son is the only officer he can trust given the victim’s involvement with infiltrating a sleeper cell.

The Secret Circle, FOX8, 7.35pm AEDT
Pilot. Cassie Blake’s world is turned upside down after her mother dies in a mysterious accident, forcing Cassie to move in with her loving grandmother Jane in the small town of Chance Harbor, Washington. While trying to adjust to her new life, Cassie is quickly befriended by Diana Meade, a sweet-natured classmate who offers to show her around and introduces her to mean girl Faye, her sidekick Melissa and Cassie’s next door neighbour Nick. Things get complicated when Cassie meets Adam, Diana’s boyfriend, with whom she feels an instant and powerful connection. Upon meeting one of her mother’s childhood friends, Dawn Chamberlain, who is also the school principal and Faye’s mother, Cassie begins to wonder why her mother never spoke of her home town. When strange and dangerous things begin to happen, Cassie’s new friends are forced to tell her their secret: They are all witches and her arrival will complete the Circle. However, the Circle has not been drawn together again by chance; Diana’s father, Charles Meade, has plans of his own for the group. Read our review here.

Four Corners, ABC1, 8.30pm
Trial and Error. Gordon Wood has served three years jail, but did he really kill former model Caroline Byrne by throwing her off a cliff in 1995? Quentin McDermott reports on one of Australia’s most controversial murder cases.

Skins, SBS ONE, 10.30pm
Rich. Metal-head Rich pairs up with Grace in a bid to discover how to chat up his ideal girl. To make it realistic, he teaches her the ways of metal music, but it does not prove easy. Eventually he compromises and allows Grace into his world, but it appears heartbreak is not far away.

Next Monday on Four Corners, ‘Trial and Error?’ – an investigation that delves into one of Australia’s longest running and most controversial murder cases.

In late 2008, Gordon Wood was sent to jail for 17 years for the murder of his girlfriend, former model Caroline Byrne. The jury accepted the prosecution’s case that Gordon Wood had picked up his girlfriend and thrown her, spear-like, over the edge of a cliff at Sydney’s notorious ‘The Gap’. The case is currently being appealed and key expert evidence given at the trial is being re-examined.

Sixteen years after Caroline Byrne was found dead, the question once again being asked is: did she suicide or was she murdered?

‘Trial and Error?’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 31^st October at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 1^st November at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays.

Monday 24 October at 8.30pm on ABC1

Right now there are over 4,000 people held in immigration detention centres across Australia. On average, asylum seekers remain in detention for around a year, but that figure hides a group of people who remain locked away for much longer periods of time. Just over a year ago, the Federal Government announced it would begin releasing children into the community to minimise the harm caused by their incarceration. At the same time, thousands of adults remain locked away in detention centres remote from the rest of the world – a situation that’s concerning to many healthcare professionals. Says one:

“What we’ve observed is people who seem to be in detention for periods of 12 to 15 months onwards, start to develop very significant mental health problems and certainly people who’ve been in detention 15, 18 plus months have very high rates of psychiatric morbidity.”   

Despite a massive debate about Australia’s asylum seeker policy, few people know what life is really like inside detention camps. According to refugee activists, the reason is simple – the Government does not want the broader population seeing the conditions inside and the impact the camps are having on the detainees. Now, reporter Sarah Ferguson has gathered together startling evidence exposing the truth about life inside; how medication prescribed to asylum seekers is being misused and how many cases of self harm are going unreported, giving the public a false impression of conditions behind the wire.

In the wake of the Government’s failure to engineer an offshore processing solution, and with detention centres close to capacity, the Government is now exploring alternatives, such as community detention. But that does not help the people who remain locked inside the camps. With a growing body of evidence that shows detention can cause long term psychological harm, what are the consequences of the current policy? Are people being damaged for life? If they are finally given refugee status, will they ever be able to participate fully in community life – being trained, winning jobs and raising families – or will they simply become a problem that future generations will have to deal with?

‘Asylum’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 24th October at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 25th October at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays, on iview (abc.net.au/iview) and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Monday 17 October at 8.30pm on ABC1

Next Monday on Four Corners, ‘The Price of Life’ – a story that investigates the ethical and medical dilemmas involved in keeping tiny, premature babies alive. Who decides if they live or die and what, ultimately, is the cost of keeping them alive?

Imagine this. A young, healthy woman is 23 weeks pregnant. Then, for a range of reasons, she goes into labour. She is rushed to hospital and gives birth to her child. It cannot breathe unassisted, its skin is so thin it bruises to the touch and there are problems with its heart. Should the doctors apply massive medical intervention and keep the baby alive, or should it simply be made comfortable so that nature can take its course, allowing the newborn to die peacefully? Twenty years ago this would not have been an issue. Modern medicine simply had no way of saving the baby. Now things are very different, and that creates a whole new set of questions that must be addressed.

In this week’s Four Corners, BBC science and medical reporter Adam Wishart goes inside a neonatal clinic to tell the story of 23 week gestation babies and what keeping them alive entails.

In the emotion-charged atmosphere of a hospital emergency ward, it’s hard to see situations dispassionately. How does a doctor tell a parent that although their baby is alive the odds of it surviving without a major disability, including brain damage and severe heart problems, are close to one in a hundred?

In a situation where a child is born prematurely there are no rules about how much treatment is offered to the infant. Instead, there needs to be a delicate negotiation between doctors and the parents. Few doctors would reject a parent’s plea to intervene to keep the baby alive. That means that major decisions about health care priorities are left to the parents caught at the centre of an emotional maelstrom.

The other issue that cannot be ignored is cost. Keeping a premature baby alive is expensive. It’s estimated that the care for each child is something around $3,000 a day. Every case is different but in Britain and Australia it’s estimated that treating a severely premature baby could cost over $200,000 by the time it leaves hospital.

The implications of a decision to use highly sophisticated technologies to help an infant survive do not end at the hospital door. Most children that survive will need life-long medical treatment and support.

It does seem there needs to be a debate about how and when modern medical intervention is used, but for now it’s a debate that most of us, including the medical profession, are reluctant to have.

‘The Price of Life’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 17th October at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 18th October at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays and on iview (abc.net.au/iview). 

Monday 10 October at 8.30pm on ABC1

“What happened to us was a nightmare. We worked from 11am to 3 or 4am the next morning, and slept only three or four hours. They treated us like animals. We were sexually abused, we were dragged, we were hit.”  – Former sex slave, from Melbourne

Like any business, the trade in flesh thrives on consumer demand. Sex trafficking and sexual slavery exists because customers want Asian women who are reputed to be more compliant to their needs. Many of the Asian sex workers in Australia are here willingly. However some are trapped, humiliated, placed in debt bondage and forced to put their lives in danger by having unprotected sex with hundreds of men.

The Four Corners/The Age investigation begins in brothels in Australia’s major cities. Using public records and information gathered from industry insiders, we investigate the extent of the networks and detail the methods used by the gangs and their standover men to force women to work in this brutal industry.

Following evidence of an international syndicate, reporter Sally Neighbour goes to Asia to track the people who work to snare the women, and discovers a highly organised operation that has trafficked hundreds of women around the world, including scores to Australia.

Once the women arrive here, the owners play a cat and mouse game with authorities, moving their captives from brothel to brothel and even interstate, to prevent police from finding them.

It’s clear that right now in Australia women are being held as sex slaves. It’s also true traffickers remain at large and brothels using trafficked women remain open. Many Australian men are, knowingly or unknowingly, paying for sex from the enslaved women. The question is, what will authorities do to stop this criminal trade?

‘Sex Slavery’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 10th October at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 11th October at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays, on ABC iview (abc.net.au/iview) and at abc.net.au/4corners.

MONDAY 3 OCTOBER AT 8.30PM ON ABC1

It is easy to talk about poverty, easier still to make judgments about why people are poor. Now True Vision Productions take their cameras inside the lives of children so they can tell their own story, as they struggle to survive. 

Sam is 11 years old and lives in Leicester. His mother walked out on him, his sister and his dad when he was just two. His family survives on around $150 a week.

Sam is one of nearly three and half million children in Britain living in poverty. He goes to school but he is forced to wear his sister’s shirts as hand-me-downs and the other kids give him a bad time because of it. Despite his father’s best efforts he and the family can only go out if the entertainment is free. Sam can watch television but, like the electricity his family uses, he must pay for it by dropping one pound coins in the slot. Money is so tight his birthday party is plunged into darkness when the coins run out.

Paige is 10 and she lives in Glasgow. It is the poorest city in Britain and in some districts every single family is living below the poverty line. For Paige her greatest dread is being cold and feeling sick because of the mould that grows like a carpet through-out the flat her family lives in. Her dream is simple; to live in a house that is dry and clean with a backyard.

At first glance these children and others like them might be seen as victims of Britain’s latest massive economic downturn. But this type of poverty and the massive gap between rich and poor began many decades ago. Successive Prime Ministers including Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair promised to do their best to break the cycle of poverty but all the latest evidence suggests those leaders and their policies simply cemented the problems or made them worse.

‘Poor Kids’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 3rd October at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 4th October at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturdays at 8.00pm and on iview (abc.net.au/iview).

Monday 26 September at 8.30pm on ABC1

In July this year, authorities in South Australia decided not to proceed with a case claiming sexual abuse of a child with an intellectual disability. The prosecution formed the view that the child could not give reliable evidence. The accused was released. The parents were enraged.

It was not the first time authorities in this country had made such a decision. Now Four Corners reveals the full story of the children and families from St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide. Speaking openly on television for the first time, parents whose children attended the school in the 80s and 90s tell stories of abuse which they say highlight the limitations of the legal system and the apparent incapacity of the Church to openly confront these issues.  

In 1991, police searched the home of Brian Perkins, the bus driver from St Ann’s. They found photographs of several naked children who attended the school. Police moved to prosecute Perkins, but due to a “systems error” he was given bail and absconded.

But this wasn’t the only mistake. Although they knew it was possible that up to 30 children had been abused, the police and the school authorities did not tell all the parents whose children had come into contact with Perkins.

For 10 years nothing was done. Over that time many of the children developed terrible behavioural problems. Finally, as a result of a chance encounter between the parents, the full extent of their children’s abuse was revealed. The parents tell how, in the decade that followed their discovery, they struggled to get justice from the Catholic Church and the police. None of them can understand why the abuse was covered up or why Church authorities have fought so hard – in spite of their offer of a one-off financial payment to some families – to avoid admitting the extent of the abuse.

In light of this, and other cases like it, authorities in South Australia are looking at the law and the way children with a disability can be protected. Whatever happens, it will come too late for the children of St Ann’s.

Monday 19 September at 8.30pm on ABC1

For nearly a decade Australian political leaders have been at war over the best way to tackle climate change. Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull was the first casualty. He lost his job because he supported a price on carbon. The former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was next to go, after his polls collapsed when he dropped his plan to put a price on carbon. Now Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces an electoral revolt led by activists who say she doesn’t have a mandate to introduce a carbon tax. And Opposition leader Tony Abbott is supporting this “people’s revolt”, hoping to force an early election.

There’s little doubt that climate change and carbon reduction has become a deeply divisive issue in Australian politics – scientists and politicians have received death threats, the Prime Minister has been abused, talkback radio hosts have led protests to Canberra.

Reporter Marian Wilkinson investigates the campaign against the carbon tax, talking to Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and other key players. She also talks to the scientists who have been threatened and asks why the issue has created so much division. She examines the facts behind the claims being made about the impact of the new carbon price and the emissions trading scheme that will follow.

The program also examines one of the industries that opponents of a carbon pricing scheme say will be most affected – coal mining. On a recent visit to Queensland, Tony Abbott claimed the carbon tax would destroy jobs in the coal industry. Four Corners goes to the Bowen Basin in Queensland to find out what’s really going on. Will investment stop? Will jobs be lost? Will these regions be devastated?

With the Government’s Clean Energy Bill now being debated in Parliament, the Opposition has vowed do everything it can to thwart its introduction – which means there will be more protests and more political casualties. And inside Labor, there is anxiety about Julia Gillard’s ability to sell the policy and whether her leadership can survive it.

‘The Carbon War’, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 19th September at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 20th September at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturdays, on iview (abc.net.au/iview) and at abc.net.au/4corners.

When Frank Lowy took over the administration of football in Australia he wanted the game to compete with AFL, Rugby Union and Rugby League. His dream was to host the World Cup itself in Australia. Four Corners reporter Quentin McDermott investigates the strategy and the people used by Football Federation Australia (FFA) in its failed bid to win the right to host the biggest sporting event on the globe. Talking to insiders who have never spoken at length about the World Cup bid, he asks how $42 million of taxpayers’ money was spent to win just one vote from football’s international governing body FIFA.

The program raises questions about how taxpayers’ funds were spent during the bid, and asks whether the consultants employed to run the bid strategy were good value for money. Were there conflicts of interest at work? It also looks at the lobbying of FIFA Executive Committee members, some of whom were subsequently banned or suspended for alleged corruption over their dealings with other bidding nations.

The program also raises questions about the role played by AusAID in Australia’s World Cup bid.

While millions of taxpayers’ dollars have been lavished on the failed bid, domestic clubs have struggled, several surviving only because wealthy owners have been able to inject millions of dollars of their own private funds just to keep the clubs afloat. Now, the FFA has requested millions more to help it stage the Asian Cup in 2015.

As Frank Lowy comes up for re-election as Chairman of FFA, the Federal Government is taking a long, hard look at the governance and structure of football, and football fans and clubs are asking, can football survive in its present form, led by its current team of administrators?

“Own Goal”, presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 12^th September at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 13^th September at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 each Saturday at 8.00pm.