Case Files
Investigations into events where the accepted explanation simply no longer holds together. We trace the surviving paperwork alongside first-hand accounts to establish exactly what broke down. Our goal is to determine whether the failure was a routine administrative error, a wider institutional collapse, or something far more difficult to explain.
The Quiet Return to EU Rules
While political rhetoric promised a bonfire of European regulations, the geographic and commercial reality forced a quiet retreat. The UK has built a legal machine designed to copy EU rules by default.
Why Brexit Regulation Could Not Function
The UK attempted to replicate complex EU regulatory agencies from scratch, but locked itself out of the necessary safety data. The result was a £2 billion bill for industry and the indefinite recognition of the EU's CE mark
The Failed Bonfire of EU Laws
The 2022 Retained EU Law Bill was designed to allow thousands of regulations to expire automatically. This was abandoned months later when the government realised it did not know what it was deleting.
The 1990 Strangeways Riot – The Warnings That Never Reached the Governor
This investigation examines the administrative bottleneck that prevented explicit warnings of the 1990 Strangeways uprising from reaching executive command, resulting in a catastrophic operational failure.
The AlzChem Loop – Inside the Creatine Consensus Factory
Influencers call it a universal brain booster. European regulators rejected the claim. We audited the funding trail to discover why the science on social media doesn’t match the official safety records.
The Vegetarian Gap – The Creatine Intelligence Illusion
The "universal brain boost" claimed by creatine marketing vanishes in clinical trials of healthy omnivores. An investigation into the gap between the vegetarian "deficit" and the omnivore "ceiling."
How the HFEA Licenses ‘Saviour Sibling’ Cases
A small committee decides if families may try to create a ‘saviour sibling’. The law says child welfare comes first. The standards are unpublished. We open the black box and test whether a humane system can also be a transparent one.
The Keeper’s Gamble – Systemic Failure in the Lighthouse Service
Three keepers broke their service's cardinal rule and left their lighthouse unmanned. The official report blamed a freak wave, but this investigation explores a different cause. A system in which the fear of a fine for lost equipment proved deadly.
When the System Breaks – The Yuba County Five Investigation
In 1978, five men vanished in rural California. A stalled search, split jurisdictions, and a missed tip meant one may have lived for weeks. This is how the system failed to hold the case together.
The Orphan Object – The Gold Waltham Watch of the Yuba County Five
On 4 June 1978, a gold Waltham watch was found beside Ted Weiher. Families said it was not theirs. No serial, no forensics, no chain of custody. Our inquiry shows how omissions turned a possible lead into an inert symbol.