Bed of Lies artwork

Documentary · The Telegraph

Bed of Lies

by The Telegraph

A taxi driver is shot dead in front of his children. A high-security room goes up in flames. Then terrorists are unmasked as spies. And behind it all, a shadowy unit of the British Army, who ran the notorious agent Stakeknife. Award-winning journalist Cara McGoogan investigates the biggest cover-up of the Northern Ireland Troubles and asks: is the British state getting away with murder? The first and second series of Bed of Lies are also available to listen to on this feed: Series 2: It was meant to be a miracle treatment, but it became a deadly poison. Cara investigates the biggest medical disaster in NHS history, the infected blood scandal. Series 1: They have the perfect relationship, until one day he vanishes. Her hunt leads to other women just like her - and a web of state-spun lies. Cara investigates the untold story of the "spycops" and the undercover policing scandal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chart trend

Position in the Documentary chart (US), last 90 days.

#12
all-time peak
25
days in the top 50 since Nov 2024

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

Murder in the Masai Mara | Episode 1, SOS

On a cold February day in 1988, Julie Ward sets off on the journey of a lifetime from England, through Africa. She establishes a new life in the bustling capital of Kenya

Nov 28 2025
40 min

Introducing: Murder in the Masai Mara

When Julie Ward vanishes mysteriously in the Masai Mara in 1988, her father begins a hunt for answers that stretches from a safari lodge in Kenya to MI6’s headquarters in

Nov 21 2025
1 min

Legacy | 9

Peace walls, segregated schools and old enemies living on the same street. Cara returns to Northern Ireland to see how, today, The Troubles are far from forgotten history

Apr 11 2025
1 h 09 min

Devastation | 8

A family forced to flee abroad. A young soldier killed by a car bomb. Two teenagers gunned down in a mobile shop. As Cara exposes the cold-bloodedness of both sides in th

Mar 29 2025
1 h 04 min

Cover-up | 7

IRA spycatcher Freddie Scappaticci has been outed as FRU agent Stakeknife – but he’s not going to disappear without a fight. The British state takes unprecedented measure

Mar 21 2025
56 min

License to Kill | 6

Brian Nelson is finally in the dock for his campaign of murderous violence, but will he face justice? The question sends shivers through the British government, and the a

Mar 7 2025
52 min

Handlers | 5

Cara tracks down soldiers from the covert unit of the British army at the heart of her investigation. As these people who handled spies in the IRA and loyalist paramilita

Feb 20 2025
49 min

Touts | 4

The IRA creates a new unit to root out informers – or touts – and kill them. A man known as Scap quickly rises to the top of this ‘Nutting Squad’ and builds up a fearsome

Feb 13 2025
49 min

Agent 6137 | 3

Facing life in prison for murder, a key loyalist makes a surprising confession: he is Agent 6137. When he targeted people for the UDA to assassinate, he was also working

Feb 6 2025
57 min

Collusion | 2

Top detectives race to untangle a web of lies behind the murders. But just as they’re about to arrest a key loyalist suspect, their secure office containing top-secret ev

Jan 30 2025
49 min

Trouble | 1

Three innocent Catholic men are shot dead in front of their families by a brutal Protestant paramilitary group hunting the IRA. Even in the dark days of the Troubles in N

Jan 30 2025
46 min

Introducing Bed of Lies: Conflict

A taxi driver is shot dead in front of his children. A high-security room goes up in flames. Then terrorists are unmasked as spies. And behind it all, a shadowy unit of t

Jan 22 2025
2 min

Final Report

Over the last three years, Cara McGoogan has kept in touch with the people impacted by the Infected Blood Scandal who she spoke to for Series 2 of Bed of Lies. On Monday

May 25 2024
39 min

Introducing Cara McGoogan's Book: Part 2

Listen to this extract from the host of Bed of Lies Cara McGoogan's new book: The Poison Line (UK) and Blood Farm (US). Developed from the second series of this podcast

Oct 11 2023
15 min

Introducing Cara McGoogan's Book: Part 1

Listen to this extract from the host of Bed of Lies Cara McGoogan's new book: The Poison Line (UK) and Blood Farm (US).  Developed from the second series of this podcast

Sep 21 2023
27 min

Introducing: Call Bethel

Brave whistleblowers. A trail of data. A secret system for dealing with allegations of child abuse. Bed of Lies' Cara McGoogan introduces a new podcast from the Telegrap

Jun 20 2022
34 min

Retribution, Part 2

Every month, more names are added to the list of survivors. But with every year, more names on that list succumb to their illnesses. Will the Inquiry bring them justice b

Nov 17 2021
49 min

Retribution, Part 1

A letter leads to a lawsuit – and a big development in our story. After years of feeling silenced, British survivors are making their voices heard. But will those account

Nov 17 2021
35 min

Violation

Plasma is a life saver - and a lucrative industry. One that made fortunes and cost lives. But what was really going on behind closed doors? A whistleblower reveals all.

Nov 9 2021
46 min

Fabrication

If you knock on enough doors, eventually one will open. Tireless investigators trace the infected blood from the arms of people with haemophilia back to the room where it

Nov 2 2021
46 min

Chart positions

Where Bed of Lies ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 13, 2026).

#91 ▲ 6 Documentary US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

Season 1: I still can’t believe this could happen in the UK in my lifetime. The last episode does a fine job of bringing us up to the present, and showing how the tables have turned. Cara is a podcasting prodigy. I’m sure she had help from a good production team. This is one of the all-time best podcasts I’ve heard.

leapingheart · Dec 2023

The stories in both seasons (1 and 2) were horrifying. It’s terrible what our fellow man will justify. Season 1 was a bit hard for me to follow at first because the podcast did jump around a bit. But the story was definitely worth listening to. Season 2 did jump around a bit as well but it was easier for me to follow. I had heard about the tainted blood but I always thought that it was a mistake and things were remedied after the information was discovered. I’m enraged to hear the real story and my heart goes out to everyone affected. I am hoping there will be a season 3 and…!

Bubster 15 · Nov 2023

Thank you for informing people about the bizarre cases of undercover police who lead double lives. I originally heard about this issue from the British Scandals podcast, which directed me here wanting to learn more. The stories of the wives, the other women, and even the officers themselves are all tragic in their own way, and this Bed of Lies podcast does a great job of showing many different sides to this story. I hope Kara will continue to update this podcast as more information is revealed in the future.

littlepieceofsass · May 2022

Great deep dive into a fascinating story. I found this via the British Scandal podcast, which also covered this story wonderfully but in slightly less detail. It’s a testament to how engaging it is that I binged all of season 1 even though I had JUST heard the same story in another pod. Keep it up please!

CedarPine · May 2022

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Here you find the Apple Podcasts chart positions of Bed of Lies, its latest episodes to listen to directly, and reviews from listeners. Rankings are updated daily for the United States.

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