Crime, power, and procedure without varnish.
The Crime Agents pairs crime journalist Andy Hughes with ex-cop Neil Basu for blunt, practical analysis of crime in Britain. It moves from listener questions to serious investigations, testing headlines against surveillance jobs, prisons, policing powers, and broken public systems.
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The Crime Agents is a British crime analysis show built around hard public questions and lived operational memory. Andy Hughes brings reporting, challenge, and a feel for the story behind a headline. Neil Basu brings the perspective of an ex-cop who has worked around murder, organised crime, terrorism, public order, and professional standards. Together they make crime feel less like a genre and more like a pressure system running through courts, councils, prisons, schools, streets, and screens. The format can be a special investigation, a case-led episode, or a Q&A built from listener prompts. It is brisk. It is also patient when the subject needs it. Recent episodes have examined unregistered children’s care homes, the risks and limits of Tasers, death threats against police teams, the capture of Levi Bellfield, and the attack on Ian Huntley in prison. Another thread follows the danger of online male grievance, from influencer culture to incel ideology and the point where influence may become real-world harm. The show is careful with procedure. It explains why a weapon is called less lethal rather than non-lethal, why filming police can be both necessary evidence and deliberate provocation, and why youth workers may reach people official systems cannot. It also keeps returning to the public’s uneasy bargain with the state. Who gets protected. Who gets missed. Who is punished, and by whom. The strongest moments often come when a legal principle is tested against an actual job: a surveillance briefing, a prison transfer, a witness threat, a child placed somewhere unsafe, or an officer expected to make a fast decision under pressure. The conversation is plainspoken and sometimes jagged. That roughness suits the material. The show does not chase neat reassurance. It sits with difficult tradeoffs around policing powers, children, violence, terrorism, misogyny, and punishment, then asks what would make people safer in practice.
Made for: For listeners who want true crime grounded in systems, policing practice, journalism, and public policy rather than mystery-box storytelling. It suits people interested in how investigations, prisons, online extremism, youth violence, and state failure work in real life.
What sets it apart: Its edge is the pairing of crime reporting with first-hand policing experience, especially when listener questions turn into practical explanations of what happens on the ground. The show can be blunt and conversational while still taking victims, risk, and institutional failure seriously.
If you want to understand what’s really happening on Britain’s streets, you need to hear this. The Crime Agents, the new podcast from the makers of The News Agents, goes beyond the headlines to uncover the truth behind crime that affects all of us. Why is violence rising? Why is public trust in the police collapsing? And what’s really driving young people to kill each other? Hosted by two insiders who have spent their lives chasing the answers, this is your front-row seat to the realities of crime today. Neil Basu, the former Head of UK Counter-Terrorism Policing, brings unparalleled experience from the front lines of law enforcement. Andy Hughes, LBC’s Crime Correspondent, has spent two dec…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Andy Hughes and Neil Basu turn crime stories into precise discussions of policing, law, accountability, and prevention.
The Crime Agents keeps returning to the machinery around crime, pairing crime journalist Andy Hughes's questions with ex-cop Neil Basu's operational perspective.
Andy Hughes asks Neil Basu if he wanted a child killer executed; your easy answer may wobble.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Blunt Q&A on policing, Iran, and gang prevention, with practical instincts and a few meandering turns.
This Q&A episode frames public safety as a live argument rather than a settled slogan, moving from Iran's risk to the UK to filming police officers and then to how youth workers and gang mediation can help steer young people away from harm.
A prison-justice conversation that keeps faith with custody reality instead of easy outrage.
The Crime Agents treats Ian Huntley's prison assault as a hard look at prison justice, keeping the focus on how one of the most hated men in Britain ended up exposed behind bars and what it means if another lifer was involved.
A blunt, uneasy conversation about where childhood ends and criminal responsibility begins.
Andy Hughes and Neil Basu take on a hard question without softening it: should the age of criminal responsibility be raised? They work through Scotland's age of 12, the UN's recommendation of 14, the James Bulger case, and the possibility of 12-year-olds being convicted of…
Blunt police-world talk that turns public questions into practical, unsentimental discussion.
The Crime Agents keeps the discussion moving from Andrew's arrest and protection team to the harder edges of policing and prosecution, including how chants can become difficult to handle and how free speech blurs the line.
A sober, practical look at prevention, empathy, and the human cost of gang violence.
This episode takes on a hard question: what does it take to interrupt a gang violence cycle once grief has become normal for teenagers? It starts with a young person who has lost three close friends to knife crime, shootings, and gang violence, then moves into the usual answers…
A plainspoken Q and A that tests free speech claims against law, policing, and frontline realities.
The Crime Agents frames a listener question about Sir Jim Ratcliffe's remarks on immigrants as a direct, plainspoken look at where free speech ends and racist hate speech or illegality may begin.
A royal arrest becomes a clear, procedural listen.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest at Sandringham gives the episode its pull, and the discussion keeps the focus on the police work rather than palace noise.
A police shooting story that opens into Brixton, power, and the cost of not being heard.
The Crime Agents treats the shooting of Cherry Gross in Brixton as more than a case file. Lee Lawrence's memory gives the episode its weight, and the show stays at its best when it links Cherry's injury to the anger that spread through Brixton and to the larger fight over race,…
LA Times reporter Christopher Goffard traces con man John Meehan's fraud, abuse, and its Bravo TV adaptation.
UFO disclosure with teeth.
Bleak news, deadpan jokes, no broadcast polish.
Australian investigations, followed from the ground up.
The hosts discuss their Christmas plans and health before transitioning to a Q&A about one host's journey into journalism and specialization in crime reporting.
The Crime Agents looks at gangs targeting millionaires, high-profile sports stars, and other wealthy marks.
The Crime Agents opens with a 999 call made for something that is plainly not an emergency.
Andy says Neil is away, so the show runs with something a little different this week.
Jury trials are under the microscope here.
Andy Hughes and Neil Basu take a listener question about double standards in policing.
Andy Hughes and Neil Basu review the LNER train stabbing near Peterborough and Huntingdon, in which 10 people were injured and Anthony Williams was charged with 10 counts of attempted murder.
Will, a former sergeant in the Met's Specialist Firearms Command (MO-19), says he gave first aid to the Westminster Bridge attacker after the 89-second 2017 attack that killed PC Keith Palmer.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and former counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu ask whether UK support for US-Israeli action against Iran makes Britain a target, citing 20 foiled Iran-backed plots in 2025.
The Crime Agents traces how the News of the World phone hacking scandal, which reached the Leveson Inquiry after The Guardian's 2011 Milly Dowler story, ended direct contact between police officers and journalists.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes investigates the UK's illegal care home crisis, revealing a system where unregistered homes staffed by convicted criminals are abusing vulnerable children.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and former police officer Neil Basu debate whether all police officers should carry Tasers, examining the controversy through real cases including the death of footballer Dalian Atkinson.
Former detective and bestselling crime author Neil Lancaster discusses his career hunting dangerous criminals, including his role in the surveillance operation that captured notorious serial killer Levi Bellfield.
In this Q&A episode, former detective Neil Bassett recounts a chilling personal experience where a gangster he had jailed for murder plotted from prison to kill him, his investigative team, and the prosecuting barrister.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and former counter-terrorism officer Neil Basu investigate the manosphere, exploring how online influencers like Andrew Tate and incel communities can radicalize disaffected men.
Hosts Andy Hughes and Neil Basu answer listener questions on three pressing crime and security issues: the elevated terror threat from Iran following regional conflict, the controversial practice of 'police auditing' and its impact on officers, and the critical role of youth workers in preventing gang crime re-offending.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and ex-cop Neil Basu explore the violent prison killing of notorious child murderer Ian Huntley.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and former senior police officer Neil Basu answer listener questions on controversial criminal justice topics, including whether to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10, how police handle dangerous situations, and the rise of 'auditing' videos targeting officers.
Hosts Andy Hughes and Neil Basu answer listener questions on high-profile crime and justice issues, including the arrest and police search of Prince Andrew, the legality of Hitler salutes, potential flaws in the Lucy Letby conviction, and the disconnect between senior police and front-line officers.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and ex-DCI Neil Bessu investigate youth gang violence in the UK, featuring a raw interview with an anonymous teenager who lost three friends and conversations with the director and a frontline youth worker from London's Violence Reduction Unit.
Crime journalist Andy Hughes and ex-counterterrorism chief Neil Basu answer listener questions in a Q&A format, debating when free speech becomes illegal hate speech following Jim Ratcliffe's immigration comments, explaining the forensic challenges of authenticating Jeffrey Epstein's emails for court, and offering insider perspectives on special constables and missing persons investigations.
A special episode analyzing the historic arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
This episode examines the 1985 police shooting of Cherry Groce in Brixton, which left her paralyzed and sparked a major uprising.