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Knowl View special school for boys has become infamous as the haunt of Cyril Smith. Prosecutors now say 'Mr Rochdale' should have been charged with abuse of boys while he was alive. But he was not the only one. In the first of a new series, former pupils in the 1970s, 80s and 90s tell File on 4 how a web of abusers, including local paedophiles and other pupils preyed on boys as young as eight while people supposed to protect them looked the other way. Previous police investigations came to nothing. A new probe is underway, focusing on who could be guilty of a criminal cover up. But what became of the innocent? Jane Deith hears from some of those who experienced life in Knowl View. Telling their stories for the first time, they describe childhoods twisted by sexual abuse. Now questions are being asked about whether the failure to end the abuse at Knowl View led to a culture in which the subsequent grooming of young girls in Rochdale was allowed to happen. Alan Collins, a specialist child abuse lawyer representing some of the men who're suing Rochdale Council over abuse at Know View, believes things would have been different had Cyril Smith been prosecuted and convicted: "That would have sent a clear message through Rochdale and much further afield that there was clearly a problem and that problem would not have been so easy to brush away. I think that had a very long tail and that that tail continued right up until recent times."Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Sally Chesworth.

Every year more than 1,500 UK children are diagnosed with cancer. For some the outlook is good but for those struck down by one of the rarer cancers, the prognosis can be a bleak one. Two hundred and fifty children die each year from the disease. Parents have told File on 4 there is a worrying lack of research into new drugs for childhood cancers, with youngsters sometimes offered treatments which have hardly changed in the last forty years - treatments that can have a limited chance of success and which can cause fatal, serious and life-long side-effects for those lucky enough to survive. In the battle to get the most up-to-date treatments for children with some of the most aggressive cancers, increasing numbers of families say they are forced to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to travel abroad to take part in pioneering drugs trials elsewhere. Meanwhile UK researchers say they face a constant battle for funding. They also warn of a loophole in European regulations which they say stops break-through drugs that have been developed for adult cancer sufferers, being developed to benefit children. As science takes the treatment and understanding of disease to new levels, Jane Deith asks whether enough is being done to give children a fighting chance. Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Nicola Dowling.

Last month, in the Queen's Speech, the Government announced a series of measures to support small businesses -- including proposals to deal with the problem of late payment of bills by larger companies.It follows a long history of horror stories about major high street names leaving suppliers and sub-contractors out of pocket because of delays in settling accounts. Figures produced by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills revealed that 85 per cent of small and medium sized businesses said they had experienced late payment in the last two years and that, in total, there was £30bn outstanding to them. But File on 4 has found that it's not just in private business that serious problems are occurring. The programme speaks to business owners who say that that ineffective rules and sanctions have left them badly out of pocket on contracts undertaken in the public sector.Local authorities, the NHS and other Government departments have strict rules about how long they should take to pay their contractors. But Jenny Chryss reveals how some small firms are having to cut back on staff because bills still aren't being settled promptly. And she reveals how big contractors who do get paid on time, often delay before passing the money down the supply chain. So are critics right when they say the Government's proposed new measures still aren't enough to deal with the problem?Reporter: Jenny Chryss Producer: Emma Forde.