A powerful indictment of how society too often fails to take action against bullying in schools, the media and the workplace - sometimes to devastating effect.

Presenter Emma-Jane Cross was bullied at school and saw her brother systemically bullied for five years because he was gay. One day she saw him throttled to the point he turned blue and that was when she decided that she wanted to stop bullying, once and for all. As a direct result of her experience Emma-Jane set up a charity, Beat Bullying, that aims to put prevention work into every school in the UK. She believes she has the expertise to stamp out bullying but she needs to raise four pounds per child to make it happen.

Seventy-five per cent of children are bullied at some point, yet many adults dismiss it as part of growing up. But bullying has serious - sometime fatal - consequences. Last December 11-year-old Ben Vodden took his life after months of bullying on the school bus. His parents, Paul and Caroline, had reported the problem to the school on numerous occasions but tragically nothing was done in time for Ben.

Unlike racist incidents, schools do not have to record incidents of bullying, and so in Ben's case it was seen as a series of isolated incidents and no pattern was spotted. Ben's parents tell the programme that had the school seen the pattern emerging he might be alive today.

Emma-Jane argues that in order to tackle bullying in school we need to look at the way that the wider adult world behaves. On one hand we tell children that bullying, aggressive and confrontational behavior is bad or deplorable but from prime time TV to the workplace to Prime Ministers Questions it is accepted and even celebrated.

Germaine Greer argues that bullying has become ubiquitous on our screens. Gladitorial TV, she says, enforces the image that if you want to be successful you have to act like a bully.

The Insider reveals how one-in-four adults have been bullied in the last five years, costing the UK economy £2 billion annually and 18 million lost working days every year. But in the City of London, few are willing to talk about the issue. One who does is "Sarah", a legal secretary who claims that even though bosses were aware of bullying by her manager, it was she who was dismissed by her employers, not the bully.

Veteran broadcaster Laurie Mayer was shocked to find a climate of fear and bullying when he started at a new job as a newsreader at the BBC newsroom in Tunbridge Wells. He tells The Insider how members of staff were regularly reduced to tears by bullying behaviour that went unchallenged by the BBC.

Both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have campaigned against bullying in schools and workplaces - without specifically pledging any money. Now, Emma-Jane confronts them both and asks them directly if they really will put their money where their mouth is and invest in anti-bullying prevention work in every UK school.

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