The Apprentice (UK series four)

Series Four of The Apprentice (UK), a British reality television series, was broadcast in the UK during 2008 from 26 March to 11 June on BBC One. Production of the series took place the previous year between September and October, with auditions and interviews reported to had taken place in London, Glasgow, Manchester and Bristol during the first two weeks of July 2007, with a record of 20,000 applications made for participation on the show to be on the show that year. Sixteen candidates took part, and the two teams were named Alpha and Renaissance throughout its run, with Lee McQueen winning the series.

Four specials were aired during 2008 - "The Worst Decisions Ever" on 3 April, "Motor Mouths" on 18 April, "The Final Five" on 2 June, and another edition of "Why I Fired Them" on 8 June.

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Following her appearance on the show, Helene Speight alleged that The Apprentice had a bad influence on people who took part, stating her participation had "made her life a nightmare" and that had been the mistake of her life as she nearly "lost her life and sanity". The allegations came after it was revealed that she had collapsed with stress during filming and had to be rushed to hospital, yet still faced Alan Sugar in the boardroom, albeit "wincing in pain". During the eighth task, she began feeling sharp abdominal pains and took painkillers to hold on, whereupon she was later diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome after the producers took Helene to the Princess Grace Hospital in London's West End to be checked over. Commenting on her diagnosis in an interview, she was quoted as saying:

"The doctors said it was all due to the pressure of the show and the diet I was eating. Hours later I was getting a boardroom grilling from Sir Alan after the wedding task. I was shaking with nerves convinced I was about to throw up all over Sir Alan and his sidekicks Nick and Margaret."

After their participation on the show, two contestants claimed that they had received death threats. The first to reveal such threats, Nicholas De Lacy Brown, claimed that they had come from the show's viewers, with the messages threatening to either harm him or give explicit intent to kill him, with one message reported to read as "If I see you, I'll hurt you". However Nicoholas commented that he remained defiant and that he wouldn't be intimated by such messages. The second to receive threats, Alex Wotherspoon, was reported to having one of them, an e-mail, being investigated by the BBC.

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