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Strange But True Crime

Strange But True Crime

Written by: BBC Local Radio
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Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers.

Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Wanna get in touch? Email us at behaveyourself@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Rima Ahmed Producer: Luke de Costa Video Producer: Fede Marilotti Researcher: Bethan Davies Executive Producer: Luke Eldridge Commissioning Editors: Gareth Hydes and Alistair Miskin

(C) BBC 2026
True Crime
Episodes
  • Liar, Liar
    Sep 23 2026

    Carrie Jade, a disability campaigner living in Ireland, goes viral after claiming Airbnb guests are suing her because of her Huntington’s disease. But when investigative journalist Katherine Denkinson sees the story, some of the details don’t add up.

    Kat travels to County Kerry looking for answers and finds a trail of people with troubling stories of their own. What begins with questions about one social media claim develops into an investigation involving different identities, elaborate deceptions and a past that stretches back years.

    Kat tells Rima how she pursued the story, what she discovered about the woman known as ‘Carrie Jade’, and how that identity led her back to a woman called Samantha Cookes.

    Get in touch with us behaveyourself@bbc.co.uk

    Presenter: Rima Ahmed Reporter: Katherine Denkinson Producer: Luke de Costa Executive Producer: Luke Eldridge Researcher: Bethan Davies Video Producer: Fede Marilotti Commissioning Editors: Gareth Hydes & Alistair Miskin

    Rima Ahmed explores bizarre true crime, including audacious heists, drug smuggling, elaborate frauds, scams, catfishing, identity theft and cybercrime, alongside BBC reporters who have covered the cases first-hand.

    Show More Show Less
    37 mins
  • The Leeds Hospital Bomb Plot
    Sep 16 2026

    Nathan Newby steps outside St James’s Hospital in Leeds for a vape and finds himself face-to-face with a man carrying a bomb. Nobody else knows what’s happening, and Nathan realises that keeping him talking may be the only way to stop an attack.

    The man is Mohamed Farouk, an NHS worker who has built a pressure cooker bomb and planned an attack on the hospital where he worked. As patients and staff remain inside, Nathan spends more than two hours trying to move Farouk away from the building, understand what he intends to do and persuade him to change his mind.

    BBC Yorkshire’s Home Affairs correspondent Emma Glasby tells the story of the St James’s Hospital plot, the investigation into Farouk and the extraordinary actions that later earned Nathan Newby the George Medal.

    Get in touch with us behaveyourself@bbc.co.uk

    Presenter: Rima Ahmed Reporter: Emma Glasbey Producer: Luke de Costa Executive Producer: Luke Eldridge Researcher: Bethan Davies Video Producer: Fede Marilotti Commissioning Editors: Gareth Hydes & Alistair Miskin

    Rima Ahmed explores bizarre true crime, including audacious heists, drug smuggling, elaborate frauds, scams, catfishing, identity theft and cybercrime, alongside BBC reporters who have covered the cases first-hand.

    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
  • Poison Pen
    Sep 9 2026

    Liverpool councilor Christine Banks starts receiving anonymous poison pen letters at her home. They’re abusive, deeply personal and relentless. At one point, as many as five arrive in a day. And Christine has a strong suspicion about who is sending them.

    She soon discovers she isn’t the only target. Other people connected to Liverpool politics have received remarkably similar letters, and one name keeps coming up: former councillor and prominent community campaigner Gerard Woodhouse.

    BBC journalist Marc Waddington joins Rima to trace the poison pen campaign, the clues that pointed towards its author and the fingerprint that finally gave police their breakthrough. How did a respected local figure become the man behind a campaign of anonymous abuse?

    Get in touch with us behaveyourself@bbc.co.uk

    Presenter: Rima Ahmed Reporter: Marc Waddington Producer: Luke de Costa Executive Producer: Luke Eldridge Researcher: Bethan Davies Video Producer: Fede Marilotti Commissioning Editors: Gareth Hydes & Alistair Miskin

    Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
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