Tonight on Sunday ` graphic images of our police using the taser. MAN: Move away from him! Get away from him! The first time we've seen it ` Get down on the ground! Get out of the way! ...the taser in a real-life situation in NZ. Get down on the ground now! Get down on the ground now! Taser! Hello, girls. Just look at Daddy, please? The dad who can't be. Hello? I know you can hear me! > The invisible dad. I've been disowned. I'm nothing. It's a destruction of one half of the child's identity to do that. Japan ` the child-custody hot zone. There he is. Oh wow. He's huge. Courting the kings of Congo. OK, now look. Oh my goodness. How cute are you? Captions by Faith Hamblyn. www.tvnz.co.nz/access-services Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012 Kia ora, I'm Miriam Kamo. So, you are about to see video the NZ police didn't want you to see. It's footage of the controversial taser, the first time we've seen the weapon being used in a real-life situation in this country. Now, the police were so adamant they didn't want it shown and the police officer identified, they stalled the ombudsman and producer Chris Cooke two years. But after consulting the Privacy Commissioner, the ombudsman said enough ` the footage must be released in full despite the police. So the pictures we reveal tonight raise a couple of serious questions ` was the taser necessary in this case, and when should the weapon be used? Here's Ian Sinclair. MAN: Move away from him! Get away from him! As he backs up his driveway, Christchurch homeowner Bruce Roulston is about to receive the shock of his life ` Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! DOG BARKS Get down on the ground! Get out of the way! ...a burst of 50,000 volts. Get on the ground now! The paralysing jolt from a police taser, Bruce Roulston claims, was unjustified. I was just standing there. There was no aggression at all. DOG BARKS DOG BARKS MAN: Get down on the ground! Taser! TASER CLICKS For police, a taser can be a lifesaver, a way of stopping dangerous assailants without actually shooting them. Now, there's a 50,000-volt kick in here, but better that, they say, than a bullet. TASER CLICKS MAN: Get down on the ground! Taser! MAN: Get down on the ground! Taser! TASER CLICKS Nevertheless, the tasering of Bruce Roulston raises the question ` was it necessary? Police say yes. When the officers arrived, um, he threw, uh, a brick at them, uh, and also hit one of the officers with a piece of concrete that he had thrown. I am absolutely shocked and appalled at what I have just seen. Lawyer Marie Dyhrberg belongs to a legal watchdog group on tasers. There is no threat at the time he was tasered. It doesn't matter what's gone on before in a case such as this. 33-year-old Bruce worked as a chef and a baker. He says he has no previous history of violence. His wife backs him up. In my opinion, my husband is not... that so aggressive and violent that... night. night. As they have described it? night. As they have described it? Yeah. You have to say at the point that man was tasered, were the guidelines being complied with? And in this case, no. They looked at the, um... at the violent nature, shall we say, of, um... of` of this individual, um, prior to using the taser. And they felt that in all the circumstances, it was appropriate that they could use it. Bruce and Marylu live in Hornby. Life looks quiet enough, but Bruce's problems began long before the police turned up. Now, it's important to understand that Bruce had already suffered a brain injury before he was tasered. About four years earlier, he'd been attacked in the street. He'd been knocked down, bashing the back of his head on the tarseal. It would be a long, hard road back to good health. And what injuries did that leave you with? > That left me with, um, blood on my brain, and, you know, I... I was just vomiting, and, um, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I had to lie there for` it was, like, two or three months before I could really start getting mobile. And it's just horrific, you know? Because of that earlier brain injury, Bruce has been living on a diet of pills for seven years. By now he should be in recovery, but the tasering, he says, has made the injury worse. To understand him is to listen not just to what he says, but to what he is unable to say. I couldn't really walk around much, and I'd walk into walls, and I can't walk straight. Um... Oh, now I've lost myself. No, you're going fine. > Yeah. Um, I've hit my head. When I hit my head then, yeah, I was just recovering from that. And when I'd just started recovering, I was going back to work. < What sort of medication was he on? < What sort of medication was he on? He was on Tegretol... for his epilepsy. Mm-hm. Marylu was a registered nurse in the Philippines. From your knowledge as a nurse, which one would have the greatest affect if you mixed it with alcohol? The Tegretol. A mixture that would get him into a fight with a visiting cousin on the night he was tasered. With the medication I was on from my head injury from before that, I... I blacked out. I blacked out, and I couldn't... I didn't know what I did. Thinking his cousin had run next door, Bruce gave chase, and he tapped on the neighbour's window. But confused as he was by a mixture of medication and alcohol, he hit the glass too hard, and he broke it. Understandably, perhaps, the neighbours weren't happy. < And somebody called the police? < And somebody called the police? Yes, the neighbourhood. DOG BARKS DOG BARKS MAN: Get on the ground now! DOG BARKS MAN: Get on the ground now! OK. Well, here's the, uh, video. Get down on the ground! Taser! TASER CLICKS Tasers have a video camera that records what happens. After two years of battling bureaucracy, Sunday has obtained the footage. DOG BARKS So, do you remember throwing the brick at the police officer? So, do you remember throwing the brick at the police officer? No, I don't. Do you accept that happened? Do you accept that happened? Oh, of course, you know. I've been told that I've done it. Of course, you know, I... Yeah, I accept it, you know? I apologised, and... Yeah, I do accept it. MAN: That's all right ` he threw a brick at me. Are you all right there, mate? Just calm down. Did he do anything more threatening after he threw that`? Did he do anything more threatening after he threw that`? No. No. Nothing more? Nothing more? Nothing more. He was just standing and just staring. And so what was he doing with his hands? He was like this. He was already calm. He was already calm. And walking backwards? He was already calm. And walking backwards? Mm. < Well, when you saw your husband go down ` you're a nurse ` what was your first thought? I thought he was already dead. < Thought you'd lost him? < Thought you'd lost him? Yeah. During that night. Next up ` Tasers can kill ` would you accept that? Well, overseas, uh, incidents would, um... would bear that out, yes. So should police have tasered Bruce Roulston? Are you sure that he did not fire in anger? I'm positive they did actually comply with the requirements as far as deployment of the taser is concerned. Berocca Focus 50+ ` the new performance multivitamin that helps support alertness, clarity and stamina. MOTORCYCLE ENGINE REVS SPLASH! THUD! TRIUMPHANT MUSIC Berocca Focus 50+ ` the new multivitamin to help support alertness, clarity and stamina. Try and shoot me now! Tell you what ` I might just <BLEEP> shoot you! Tell you what ` I might just <BLEEP> shoot you! GUNSHOTS It may be just a simulation,... Taser! Taser! Taser! ...but for cops in training, the need for fast reflexes is real. We're talking about seconds, really, in terms of what's happened, and, as I say, it's really the officers' assessment at the time that counts. Police! Decisions making a difference between life and death on the front line. Taser! 50,000 volts! Listen to my partner! So at this particular point here, you need to have a firearm in hand, taser in hand and been able to, um, trying to talk him down and at the same time, being able to react. Armed police! Armed police! Taser! 50,000 volts! For the past two years, that taser has been part of the officer's arsenal. It's really given us the` an intermediate step in terms of deescalating situations, uh, without really having to resort to, uh... to deadly force. Put them back. That's the way. The key is knowing when to use it and when not to. Stay where you are. Stay right there. You'll be aware there's a` there was a certain amount of controversy, um, preceding, uh, our issuing tasers. But I think in the last two years, uh, they've certainly... they've certainly proved their worth from my perspective. MAN: Taser! MAN: Taser! TASER CLICKS So what about the tasering of Bruce Roulston? You'll remember Bruce was already suffering from brain damage before the stand-off. Paralysed by 50,000 volts, Bruce was unable to break his fall. Blood shows where the back of his head hit the concrete. I was thinking... that... he might already have an internal haemorrhage in the head that will... lead him to... death. In this case, barrister Marie Dyhrberg believes police have failed to follow strict rules on the use of tasers. The man who got tasered did not pose any sort of threat to anybody nearby or to the police at the time he was tasered. They are the guidelines for when you actually use the taser. He was backing away; he had no weapons in his hands. Given the fact that he'd already, um, thrown items of bricks and` and concrete at them. And the most appropriate, um, step for them to take was then to` was to use the taser, which they did and deescalated the situation quite successfully. But it says in the regulations ` and I quote them here ` 'Under no circumstances must the device be applied to an uncooperative, 'but otherwise non-aggressive person to induce compliance.' And there didn't seem to be any sign of aggression at that point of time. For the few seconds that's actually being shown on the video, uh, he might not be seen to be that aggressive. But certainly they've gotta take it within the overall context of the situation that they're dealing with. And certainly ` and I am sure that you can appreciate in the officers' minds ` um, he would have been seen to have been particularly aggressive, uh, as I say, particularly the officer who had been hit by the piece of concrete that, um, this individual had thrown. um, this individual had thrown. Now, we hear the officer's voice. DOG BARKS DOG BARKS MAN: Down on the ground now! Get down on the ground! Are you sure that he did not fire in anger? I'm positive. As I say, what the actual officer's state of mind was at the time I can't really say. But what I am satisfied with is that they did actually comply with the requirements as far as deployment of this, of the taser, is concerned in those particular circumstances. In Sydney, they now know the potential perils of tasers all too well. WOMAN: To police he is Roberto Laudisio Curti, the latest taser-related death. The 21-year-old Brazilian runs and is tasered in the back by police. Brazilian media outlets are calling Roberto Laudisio Curti's death an assassination. Roberto Curti was tasered on suspicion of stealing a packet of biscuits. The warning that the Sydney case delivers to NZ is, is that we should be vigilant and we should expect our police officers not to fall below any standard that the law allows them to do. That could be anybody's son or brother or father. Tasers can kill ` would you accept that? Well, overseas, uh, incidents would, uh... would bear that out, yes. But what I do believe is that if we do follow and do comply and our officers do follow and comply with the... with the requirements as far as the use of the taser is concerned, we will certainly minimise, um, any potential for that to happen. But to give an absolute categorical guarantee, um, that we won't possibly end up with some` with a fatality as a result of the use of taser ` I couldn't in all good conscience say that, no. But a second video also obtained by Sunday shows how tasers can save a life. On this tape, the vision is obscured, but the sound tells the story. TASER CLICKS He didn't drop the knife, and the, uh... and the taser was subsequently deployed. (PANTS) (PANTS) But for Bruce Roulston, already in recovery from brain damage, the taser has set him back years. By the time you were tasered, what condition were you in? > By the time you were tasered, what condition were you in? > I would say I was... probably about 75%... health, cos I was trying to get back to work. You know, I work as a chef, and... and it's been very hard to get back into it. How has the tasering altered your brain injury? How has the tasering altered your brain injury? Well, um,... how did that alter my...? Well, it didn't really help it, no. (CHUCKLES) Oh, I shouldn't, um... Hang on. (CHUCKLES) It didn't` wasn't very good at all. No. (SIGHS) It's, sort of, really... sort of, um... What would you say? In my life, I'm trying to work, and I was trying to support my family, and I can't. I can't do that. Um,... I try to work, and I end up losing my job because, um, I... it makes me really... it made me really sick, really bad. The kettle, boiled, can stand forgotten. If I'm talking about something and then I think about it 10 minutes later, I won't remember. He always forgets... everything. Now, Bruce, there'll be some people out there who'll think, > 'Well, you threw a brick at a cop; what else is he supposed to do?' 'Well, you threw a brick at a cop; what else is he supposed to do?' Um,... of course, you know, he's... he's gonna try and arrest me. Um,... but I would think, you know, if... I've thrown a brick at him, I... I know I've done it; of course he's gonna retaliate. I don't think` Retaliating with a taser's not the way. MAN: Taser! Well, we wanted to speak to Senior Constable Neville Samson, the officer who tasered Bruce Roulston. He declined. The Independent Police Complaints Authority investigated the incident, but no action was taken. Bruce Roulston, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to charges of wilful damage and assault with a weapon. Now, 96 people were tasered last year, including two teenagers. If you were one of those people and too have concerns, why don't you email us? Well, after the break ` a story of heartbreak and helplessness. MAN: The easiest thing for her to do, Shuta, is to hand over the children this afternoon. And it all goes away. Everything disappears. If your mum wants to swipe the kids up and run away, then good luck to her. They're the dads who can't be dads and mums who can't be mums ` they're invisible parents. That's because there's no dual child custody in Japan ` the courts award legal rights over a child to one parent. Now, that means the other parent can be frozen out of the child's life completely. And as we discover tonight, it encourages parents to snatch children from the other. And now Japan has become a haven for parents abducting their own children. Englishman Alex Kahney is leaving Japan after 19 years. He's lost his job, he's broke, and so he can't afford to stay, and that means he's leaving behind everything he cares about ` his two daughters. They just love their daddy. They were real daddy's girls. Every time we got in the car, there'd be a fight who could sit next to daddy in the front. Two years ago, with his marriage to his Japanese wife falling apart, Alex Kahney returned home from work one day to an empty house and an empty bank account. I thought, 'Uh-oh, something's wrong here.' I went to the police. I said to the police, 'My wife's taken my kids out of the house without my permission, 'and we're not divorced. There's no agreement in place, there's no court order, 'and she's refusing to let me speak to the children.' The policeman laughed. They both had a good chuckle about it. Alex Kahney says his marriage broke down after his wife reneged on an agreement to raise their children in England for a while. We tried to get his estranged wife's side of the story. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) But like other Japanese spouses we contacted, she refused to be part of this programme. Despite a court order giving Alex Kahney monthly access, his wife hasn't allowed him to see his children since she snatched them two years ago. All right, girls? Girls? Girls, just look at daddy, please? So his frustration has turned to desperation. It's a harrowing scene as the father tries every now and then to connect with his daughters as they leave school. Selena, Kay-lee? Hello? I know you can hear me. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) His daughters don't want to listen. They run from their father without saying a word. And they just ignore me. They just ignore me. You know, a child ignoring her own father. You know, so I've been disowned. I'm nothing. I might as well be a ghost. When we talk about family law in Japan today, it's a slight exaggeration, but there really isn't any. There is no body of law called family law. MAN SHOUTS IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE At this protest in one of Tokyo's busiest districts, so-called 'left behind parents' ` both Japanese and foreign ` have joined forces. We want to see our children! They're a very vocal part of an effort to stop Japan remaining a black hole for international and domestic child abduction. The country's been under pressure from foreign governments and parents to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Japan, sign the Hague Convention! The Convention sets out the rules for the prompt return of kids abducted across international borders by one of their parents. Every top industrialised country in the world, except Japan, has signed it. PEOPLE CHANT IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE Japan says it plans to, but nobody here is holding their breath, and the courts have been very reluctant to break the mould. According to local media reports, there's not been one recorded case of a Japanese judge ordering the repatriation of an abducted child. PEOPLE CHANT IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE Who wants to be the first judge to order a crying child to be taken away from a crying Japanese mother and given back and sent overseas? Nobody. There's nobody in the system, I think, who benefits from being the guy who ordered the crying child to be taken away. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) (SOBS) (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) MAN SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE These parents of abducted children and a handful of Japanese MPs have come today to learn more about the Hague Convention. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) Professor Jones believes Japan could treat the Hague Convention very much like it does the international treaty on whaling ` in other words, by using loopholes to largely ignore it. We've just made a mess, and we just have to clean it up. American mum Regan Haight didn't take long to realise she could never rely on the Japanese legal system to get her children back. How old was I? How old was I? You were 4, and you were 1. Her Japanese husband abducted their son and daughter from their home in Utah and took them to Japan, where the police made it very clear to Regan Haight that they regarded this as a family matter. MAN SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE And then I was told that I could do a snatch-and-grab kind of thing that was,... um, could be traumatic and most likely unsuccessful... and get myself into trouble. Regan Haight turned to this man. Former British military special forces operative Steve Johnson is known in the business as a child-recovery specialist. I am robust, I'm head-on, I'm in the face of anyone I'm going up against, and, um, I don't leave till I get the job done. It gave me confidence, and, you know, what I needed was support from somebody whose main goal was to... help me. Steve Johnson soon joined Regan Haight in Japan, where the case took another dramatic twist. Regan Haight's husband, Shuta, revealed the children had been abducted a second time ` this time by their Japanese grandmother, who was effectively holding them for ransom. At one point she told me that I had to sign over, sign my name off the house and then I could see the kids. You know, so we did that. Then she wouldn't let me see the kids after that. You know, we had to pay her $50,000, and then we could see the kids, and, you know, I didn't... I didn't have that money. Here they come. Morning. After a period of subtle negotiation, Steve Johnson decided to apply the blowtorch at a street-side rendezvous. TV cameras are gonna be here, the police are gonna be called. Then Interpol will take over. The easiest thing for her to do, Shuta, is to hand over the children this afternoon, and it all goes away. Everything disappears. If your mum wants to swipe the kids up and run away, then good luck to her. With that, the ultimatum was delivered and the deadline set. But the odds were well and truly stacked against Regan Haight. Yes. After the break ` how will her ordeal end? And the hired gun reveals his methods. There is only one way to recover children that have been abducted, and that's to get on a plane, to land in country and get on with it and confront people and upset people, ruffle feathers. So Regan Haight has hired a so-called child-recovery specialist to get her kids back. He's a former military operative and is very persuasive. But first, another parent cut out of the family picture in Japan. What we've got here is we've got a, um, home video. Australian Chayne Inaba believes he knows the perils of pushing too hard to right the wrong of child abduction. Just a... a normal day. LAUGHTER As this video indicates, family life seemed pretty happy and contented for the medical trauma specialist. Four days later, his wife abducted their daughter Ai... SAD MUSIC ...and brought her here. The, uh... the family home. The, uh... the family home. Yep, that's the... that's the family home, the home of the Inova family. And if you went to the house, there'd be big problems? Uh, there'd be major problems, uh, which I would say the police would be involved and a lot of nasty things would happen, yeah. Chayne Inaba has already had a run-in he thinks was all about scaring him off. Not long after being warned by his wife's family to stay away from his daughter, he was attacked inside his own home. I walked inside, closed the door, walking down towards the living room, and I was attacked by a brick from the bathroom. I had two black eyes, fractures ` I had a lot. He has his suspicions about who was responsible, but the police weren't interested. The brick had skin and hair and blood on it, and they said ` uh, to my knowledge ` that they told the Australian Consulate that the brick wasn't the weapon. BOTH: Mama. Parental abduction is an effort to eliminate the other parent from the child's life, and the sad cases we see here, uh, repeatedly are the child can't talk to their father or sometimes their mother any more. They're taken away at a young age, they don't get exposed to their foreign parent's native language, they only speak Japanese. The foreign parent doesn't speak Japanese. It's, uh... It's a destruction of one half of the child's identity, uh, to do that. Government MP Masae Ido is a leading sceptic of the Hague Convention and a chief defender of Japan's approach to family law. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) She has a better understanding of this issue than most because, as her political opponents gleefully advertise on the internet, she snatched her three children away from her first husband. (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) (SPEAKS JAPANESE LANGUAGE) This custom of sole custody has torn apart parents and children from all corners of the world. But while local awareness of the issue is limited, Japanese do figure prominently among the victims. Every year 150,000 divorced Japanese parents join the ranks of the dispossessed. MOTORBIKE ENGINE REVS For Regan Haight, there was a happy ending. After months trying to get her son and daughter back from the clutches of her Japanese husband's family, the efforts of her private child-recovery specialist paid off. The children were surrendered. It was... It was amazing. It was a surprise. I didn't expect them to walk through this door. I was expecting, you know, that this was gonna go on for a long period of time, and then the sliding glass door opened and they came through, and it was just... it was a relief. It was just... It was amazing. For the man who helped get her children back, it's proof that kids can be saved from Japan's black hole of abduction. There is only one way to recover children that have been abducted, and that's to get on a plane, to land in country and get on with it and confront people and upset people, ruffle feathers. Sometimes it's hard to watch. Chayne Inaba continues to fight for his daughter in the courts, but he knows he may not get to see her for many years. And she'll know that her father... her father did everything humanly possible to keep the family together and protect her. She'll know that. GIRLS: # Born to be wild. # They once loved to play music together, but for Englishman Alex Kahney, it's sayonara to Japan and the daughters he can't see and who will no longer speak to him. While recently packing up his Tokyo home, he discovered a note left for him by one of his daughters before she was snatched away. He turned it into a song for them called Someday We Can Meet. (SINGS IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE) I didn't want you to be out of my life or for me to be out of yours. It wasn't me that did this to you. I've done my best to get you back. I think about you all the time. If you want anything, I'm here, and I'm looking forward to that day. (SINGS IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE) Well, when we come back ` a story of survival and hope. OK, now look! You see them? Oh my goodness. How cute are you? MAJESTIC MUSIC The mountain gorillas of the Congo may just be the world's most magnificent animal. They're powerful, they act tough, but they're actually gentle giants too. There are only about 700 or 800 hundred left, though. Now, some of the pictures in this story are a bit challenging. I'm in Congo. It really does feel like the heart of darkness,... ANIMALS CHITTER ...the sort of place you'd expect to find King Kong. MAJESTIC MUSIC MUSIC CONTINUES They live in Virunga National Park, ancient forest that straddles Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each family is led by an adult male, called a silverback. BRANCHES CRACK Without his protection, the family is defenceless. MAN: The silverback's role is to defend the family. Can you imagine a young human kid, 6 years of age, dropped into a park and left there forever? That kid wouldn't survive. It's the same with the mountain gorillas. They're very much like humans, and they depend upon their father and their mothers to live. RHYTHMIC MUSIC Paul Raffaele is the author of the acclaimed book Among the Great Apes. In 2007 he came here and discovered a family of mountain gorillas surviving in the midst of civil war. They would have a profound impact on him. GORILLA GRUNTS MAN: There was Senkwekwe, the silverback, 6 foot tall, as heavy as two sumo wrestlers, having to eat all day to maintain his bulk. There were several mothers with their babies and the young brothers playing mock battle with each other, just like kids in the park. The two oldest brothers were Makunda and Kongomani. The baby of the group was Noel. That really tugged at my heart strings to see them happy and peaceful, and little did I know that within four or five weeks the tragedy that was going to grip the world. DRAMATIC MUSIC Unknown assailants entered the park and launched an attack. Witness to the horror was the chief warden, who was camping in the gorilla sector when it happened. One evening we heard very distinctive gunshots coming from deep inside the forest. Um, we... organised a patrol and set out the next morning. GUNS COCK After, uh, several hours of walking through the forest, we came across this, um, terrible scene, which was the massacre of the Rugendo group. SAD MUSIC Seven adult gorillas had been slaughtered. The silverback, Senkwekwe, had been shot eight times in the back. Some of his wives had been doused in petrol and set alight. DRAMATIC MUSIC The spectacle was appalling. It was just terrible, and the sight of seeing so many gorillas killed ` we'd never had, um, a massacre of gorillas on that scale, and it meant that there was this possibility that we were on the edge of an extinction. They were murdered for this ` charcoal. A million people in the nearest city of Goma use charcoal to cook their food. It's worth millions to the rebels and corrupt government officials who control the black market, a charcoal Mafia. If the gorillas were killed, um, in their minds, there would be, um, no more reason to protect the forest, and they would be able to go in and, um, clear this forest and make money. 20,000 soldiers from the vicious rebel army known as the CNDP invaded the gorilla sector, and the park became a no-man's-land. They are just shooting in the gorilla sector. Trapped in the jungle were the three brothers ` Makunda, Kongomani and Noel. They were orphaned and alone. That was four years ago. ENGINE RUMBLES I'd wanted ever since to go back to see if those young ones had survived. Now Paul has returned to try and find the orphaned brothers. To find the family, we have to pass through one of the most dangerous places on Earth. It's a hotbed of armed rebellions, and these brave rangers behind me are armed just in case we get ambushed. Several hours by truck is followed by a tough trek through dense jungle. MACHETE SLASHES MACHETE SLASHES Gorillas have been seen here, but they're constantly on the move. MAN: We've been told by the trackers that Rigenda's family is about two hours ahead, and I'm looking forward so much to see if Noel, Makunda and Kongomani survived. I'm really thrilled and excited. The trackers have told us that we're getting close. The only problem is that they're watching us, but we can't see them. We have to wear face masks because the gorillas share 97% of our DNA, and a human disease could kill them. ANIMALS CHITTER Our guides make grunting noises. They're telling the gorillas we're not a threat. (GRUNTS) GORILLA GRUNTS There he is. (CHUCKLES) That's the big chief. Oh wow. He's huge. DRAMATIC MUSIC It's Kongomani, one of the orphans. WHISPERS: It's terrifying and wonderful at the same time. (SIGHS) And who's down here? It's Kongomani. It's Kongomani. Kongomani?! It's Kongomani. Kongomani?! Yes. Is that Kongomani? Is that Kongomani? Yeah, that's Kongomani. Is that Kongomani? Yeah, that's Kongomani. He's such a big boy now. Yeah. Yeah. When I saw him four years ago... He's a silverback now. He's a silverback now. He looks like his father, Senkwekwe. Yeah. Now he's just taking the breakfast. Oh, look at him now! I can't believe this is the same little fella that I saw four years ago. Now he's more magnificent than King Kong. Noel! Is that Noel? Yeah, that's Noel. Yeah, that's Noel. Oh, Noel! Oh! I can't believe it! The little baby. I can't believe it! The little baby. Yeah. Big one. The tough little baby. Look how big he is now. Amazing how he survived, yeah, how he survived that massacre. Yeah, he survived the massacre. I saw this little fella just before his father and mothers were massacred. He should have perished. And yet now I see him as a big boy, strong, on his way to being a silverback. What a moment for me. This is one of the best moments of my life. PEOPLE CLAMOUR INDISTINCTLY But there was one missing ` the other brother, Makunda. I asked the trackers, and they told me an astonishing tale. Makunda had gone rogue. MAN: He left the group. He became quite solitary. Several times we found him hanging out in the villages, causing general chaos. Um, and we would have to go in and dart him and carry him back into the forest and hope that he wasn't gonna come out again. Because obviously, going in and destroying people's crops and destroying people's houses gets you into trouble. Makunda has injured people, but the only people he's injured have been people with guns, so he remembers. Dr Jan Ramer led a team of vets trained to help the gorillas. Most remarkable to her is not only their survival, but the fact they've started to breed again. There's an adult female up in a nest in the foliage. She's got her 3-, 4-month-old baby with her. She looks pretty content. We don't see any signs of respiratory disease, no signs of illness or injury. She's... She's doing... doing fine. OK, now look. GORILLA GRUNTS BIRD CHIRPS You see them? GORILLA GRUNTS Oh my goodness. How cute are you? POIGNANT MUSIC Thousands of rebels still remain in Virunga Park and threaten to take it over again. A small army of rangers remain, but the survival of the last 800 mountain gorillas left in the world comes at a cost. How many of your rangers have you lost? How many of your rangers have you lost? MAN: Since the war started in 1996, we've lost just over 150, um, of our men. MAN: I consider them as brothers, as sisters. < Is that why you put your lives on the line? < Is that why you put your lives on the line? Yeah, it's why we put our lives, uh, on the line, uh, because of, uh, loving them too much. POIGNANT MUSIC WOMAN: You know, every time you save a gorilla's life, it feels really, really good, and it feels like you're helping. Are they critically endangered? Absolutely. But there's hope. 700 or 800 left ` that's kinda scary. Um, that is it from us tonight. Great to have your company.