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Hello, I'm Matthew Price.

This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

Every day we ask one big question about one big story.

Today, why is it so hard to go under cover?

The woman we're going to speak to today went under cover. She went to expose the abuse that

adults with autism and learning difficulties were facing at a specialist hospital here in the

UK. One of the many outrageous things about this story

is that eight years ago, the program she was working for, the BBC's Panorama, did the same story. Undercover in another specialist hospital. They exposed abuse. They got

promises from the government that it would not happen anymore.

Well, it is still happening, and we know that thanks to Olivia Davies and the journalist

that she worked alongside, Joe Plowman, who's done so many of these undercover investigations over the years.

They came in to tell us what it is like to go undercover and why it is getting harder and harder to do so.

You've got like paranoia that people just know and that they don't know. I tried

to talk myself out of it but I didn't quite get there so we just...

Why not? Because I know that the nature of undercover, any undercover project is so, I mean it's

intense at the time, but you know the greater good of doing it and being able to be used as sort of a utensil to project greater

change is something that is fascinating to me and I think that's probably one of the reasons

that I just couldn't talk myself out.

Did it have to be top secret? I mean could you discuss this whole project with any other people?

Yeah, I told my sister and that was like my one point of contact from like my family side.

So if any, like I could talk to her about anything really.

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