Whatever Happened to People Power? is our look at the concerns people have about their right to stand up and be counted when they demand action on the issues they care about.

We met protesters who do not fit the image of what a lot of people might think an activist looks like.

Peter Harbour worked as a physicist all his adult life without a blemish on his record. Yet when he and other local people decided to challenge a power company's plans to fill in the last of their local countryside lakes with ash, a court issued them with an injunction that stopped them in their tracks.

The company, npower, said it had applied for the injunction because its staff were being harassed and threatened by activists connected to the squatters occupying an empty building on its land.

What's more, that injunction, naming six people including Mr Harbour, appeared on a police website dedicated to tackling domestic extremists - a development that frightened both Mr Harbour and many of the law-abiding locals. Although in the end their campaign was successful and the power company abandoned its plans, Mr Harbour was left shocked by the way he and his fellow campaigners were treated.

We also met Hannah McClure, a 21-year-old student and a veteran of several direct action campaigns. Hannah agrees that protesters are being treated unfairly. She told me that while she's been arrested for taking direct action on environmental issues, she was not prepared for what happened in a squat where about 80 demonstrators spent the night in an empty office building following the G20 protests in central London.

In Whatever Happened to People Power?, we show amateur video footage of the moment when 100 police officers stormed the building - two armed with Taser guns - threatening those inside.

On the tape you can hear the squatters' fear as one shouts out "They're going to kill one of us".

The police told us they behaved with justifiable caution as they did not know what to expect when they went into the building and had information that some inside were violent. In the end, only two of the squatters were arrested and neither has been charged with any offence.

In the programme, we look at these instances and others that raise questions about police tactics when dealing with protesters.

It's easy to understand the frustration and stress officers are put under when confronted by verbally aggressive protesters who scream and shout and swear inches from their faces as they hold a line at a demonstration.

The question I asked the Metropolitan Police's Assistant Commissioner was whether it was ever justified to punch a protester in the face, whack them with a baton or bash them with a riot shield - all examples that were caught on camera and appear in our programme.

The Met told me that officers are trained to use only appropriate force and are held accountable for their actions.

It is the use of force by the police, captured on camera and played out to the public via social networking sites that has damaged the public's confidence in the police - a point made in last week's Home Affairs Select Committee report on the G20.

The committee described the overall police operation as remarkably successful, but added that this was in part down to luck rather than judgement.

To find out more, watch Panorama: Whatever Happened to People Power?, BBC One, Monday, 6 July at 8.30pm.

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I'm looking at the highly charged debate of an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been living and working in this country for a very long time.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is leading the debate towards the idea of an earned amnesty for "irregular immigrants" who've been living in this country for a number of years.

This programme has taken me to meet 'illegals' living among us and in the shadows of our society. Having never reported a story on immigration I was open minded about what I would learn and what I would be able to share with you.

The first piece of information I really wanted to find out was, how serious a problem the Home Office are dealing with, how many illegal immigrants are there? I was able to put this to the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas. All I can say is that what he said surprised me, especially against the backdrop of the recent outcry about British jobs for British workers.

Some of the other stuff I discovered really did amaze me. I'm not giving anything away by telling you ahead of broadcast (scheduled for 9th March) that I could not believe illegal immigrants vote. Yes I said vote. Seems cheeky but they really consider themselves as part of our societies having dodged capture and removal for many years.

And that's likely to continue, if nothing else because of the sheer scale of the problem.

The National Audit Office estimate that the average cost of an enforced return is £11,000. A 2005 Home Office report stated that there were approximately 430,000 illegal immigrants in the UK, which means it would cost £4.7 billion to remove them.

Then of course there's the question of time. Last month the Home Office published figures which showed that for 2008 the total number of enforced removals and notified departures for asylum and non asylum cases was 21,110. So it would take 20 years to clear the 430,000 total.

This is one of the reasons some people are saying we need to try something else with those already here and tighten up the entry so no-one else can get in. Interesting debate.

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I find it interesting that when a programme features predominantly black boys people automatically assume it's intrinsically linked to the black community.

It doesn't matter if that person they perceive to be black is in fact mixed race such as myself, of black Caribbean and white English origin. Most including the black community see me as black when in fact I consider that an insult to my mother who is not and played an important role in my life. But I gave up correcting them many years ago.

I wonder if the new president of America, Barack Obama, who too is mixed race, feels the same?

In my last programme Jailed for a Knife, four of the perpetrators I interviewed were black and one was white but that doesn't automatically make it a black issue. The issue was teenagers and knives. Is it fair to say that most knife crimes are committed by young black boys? Or that most of the teenagers that have died have been black? Those statistics are not readily available, but do we need them? You only have to look at the snapshots of the young men's faces printed in papers to see there's some truth in the argument.

What I wonder is, if the programme had featured four white teenagers and one black teenager would there be the reverse reaction?

Regarding the racial representation in the programme, as I indicated in the programme, I didn't speak to these young offenders on the basis of their race or where they came from. I spoke to them for their insight on why teenage boys and at times girls, are carrying knives. I wanted to meet young people at the heart of this debate - to challenge them about their behaviour, to throw light onto what had led to their crimes and to show other youngsters, who might be tempted to carry a knife, the consequences of doing so.

It was also important that I spoke to young offenders who are current prisoners, not former offenders who committed their crimes years ago. Peer pressure and recognition is a key aspect of the knife environment - the young men had to have an authenticity, if other young people are to take notice and listen to their testimony.

All of these young men put themselves forward as being willing to take part in a programme. In terms of the offenders included in the final programme they were there on the basis of their crime and sentence. It was important we got a range of offences and experiences to show how knife crime is varied in its nature. In no way were the offenders chosen on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

I was struck by the power of the young men's testimonies and how they came across as thoughtful articulate young men - quite the opposite of the stereotypical hoodie / thug which is often portrayed. We felt it was important that these voices - irrespective of race - should be heard and that their articulate interviews shouldn't be discounted either on the basis of race.

My aim for the programme was for other young people to hear the real voices and experiences of people like them, young men who lived in the 'real world' who could speak directly to them. This seems to have struck a chord with the audience as, at this point, more than 2300 requests have been made by schools, youth groups, police officers and prisons for a copy of the programme to be used in their discussions with other young people. So it looks as if the testimonies of the five young offenders have a real chance of making a lasting difference.

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