4 ...proudly brought to you by... Tonight on Sunday, holding on to the one you love. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about him. We put little lollies and marbles in his hand. On his birthday, we tie a balloon to it. She's a stranger who comforts them. You can't just dig your heels in the sand and say, 'This is the end of me because I've lost someone.' What has Jen taught you? You've gotta look at what you had, not what you lost. The Waikato mum who's been called an angel. What death does is it brings people together. (SOBS) # ...place to belong. # Moana Maniapoto's music is the message. I can't help myself. I have to stick my hand up, you know. And sometimes I think, 'Just watch telly. Just watch reality TV or something. 'Oh no, I can't stand it. I have to say something.' Our newest Hall of Fame award winner. # You're living on borrowed time. # I'm speaking to you guys because, obviously, the truth needs to be told. Handcuffed, manhandled and shoved into the back of a car. The botched abduction of two young children in Beirut. We have breaking news about Sally Faulkner and the 60 Minutes crew. Guys! Guys! Get back, guys! Banged up abroad, the man who claims he was betrayed. They just want to keep me quiet. They don't want the truth to come out. To stop you doing this. To stop me sitting here in front of you or anybody else. Captions by Anne Langford. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. Having a baby comes with hundreds of milestones ` their first words, first steps, first day at school. But many parents never get the chance to see those moments. Tonight we meet some incredible Kiwi families who want to celebrate the little lives they've lost. They're doing so with the help of a Waikato woman who's teaching them to replace heartache with hope. Here's Jehan Casinader. My favourite one is this one. You like the blue one best, do you? Yeah. The Ohinemuri River is a place of peace. Woohoo! (GASPS) Whoa! For the Tapps, it's also a place of pain. Here they lost their 3-year-old boy. I've sat on that bridge at 1 in the morning and cried, but you can't do that forever. They're learning to cope with that loss with the help of a complete stranger. Death is a part of life, and what I'm just trying to do is help to preserve that physical memory of that child. She has this way of taking a really dark situation and finding the light. Does this resemble gingerbread men at all? In Jen's kitchen there are four sets of sticky fingers. This level of chaos is normal? (LAUGHS) Yeah, with four boys, it's normal. Who's gonna roll it out for me? ALL: Me! We don't worry about a bit of muck on your hands. I mean, it's life and we enjoy it. Yeah. Whoa! I wanted to do everything I could to hold on to those moments while I had them. So she learnt to make casts of her boys' milestones. It was a hobby. My friends and family asked me to do their babies' casts, and it gave me a lot of joy to do it. One day the joy turned to fear. When I got to the hospital, my heart was beating really fast and I was actually shaking. I did think, 'If I ran away, would they notice?' Jen was about to cast a stillborn baby. 'Will I break down? Will I be an absolute wreck?' But instead of finding this intense sadness that I had expected, I found this really intense love. Although their child had passed, they were still welcoming him as part of the family. It was a life-changing moment. A really great midwife told me that, 'The family's grief is not yours to own. 'You can be sad, you can give a damn, 'you can have road rage on the way home from the hospital if you want, 'but you don't have a right to take their grief.' She realised she could help grieving parents by immortalising their children in stone. They all have their little personalities and I sort of get to know all the little intricate details of the fine lines and wrinkles. Just looking at the casts, I could name what baby it is. There's one name she'll never forget ` Ezra Tapp. He was a beautiful, bubbly, happy, determined, clever boy. Ezra was also autistic. He couldn't speak, he wouldn't answer his name. If you called for him and he was playing a game, he'd hide and giggle and wait for you to find him. One afternoon, Ezra slipped out of this gate. He had run across the street into the neighbour's farm and fallen in the Ohinemuri River. A frantic search led his family to the riverbank. This is where our neighbour dived in, and he was directly across from here. By the time we found him, he had already passed away. The medics tried CPR for nearly half an hour before they stopped. I started a friendship with Jason and Julia on the worst day of their life. My sweet boy. Jason came up and he gave me a big hug, and he said, 'You've got my boy's eyes,' and that made me cry because Ezra had beautiful blue eyes. I think meeting Ezra sealed for me why I was doing this. This was probably my first encounter with a family that had an older child that was also the same age as my child. We noticed her car still sitting up the top of the driveway about 10 minutes after she left, and we went up to have a look, and she was sitting in her car crying. Jen gave the Tapps a gift that money can't buy. We leave them in the sun and they warm up, and it feels like his skin. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about him, and having these means that I can always tickle his feet. (LAUGHS) We put little lollies or marbles in his hand on his birthday. We tie a balloon to it so he gets to hold his birthday balloon. But the casts are more than just mementos. What has Jen taught you? You gotta look at what you had, not what you lost. In the Waikato, word spread about Jen's special service. She met more kids who'd died in house fires, driveway accidents and from cancer. It's not something you get used to. I think if you get used to it, there's something wrong with you. You should never get used to this. So how do you deal with it? I go home and squeeze my kids real tight. And that helps? A little bit. These boys don't know what Mum's job really involves. My eldest son is 8 years old. I don't want him to see every time my phone rings that that means a child's died. Hello, Jen speaking. When the phone rings, a little part of my heart skips sometimes. Hi. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Often this happens three times a day. No matter what moment I'm in, that moment can be interrupted very quickly, and it's going to be a very powerful experience. Esse! Like the day she met Maelie... Bring the stick. ...who'd been preparing for the birth of her first child and life as a legally blind mum. At the same time as it being terrifying, it was also incredibly exciting. I'd found out I was having a girl, and I was so happy. That happiness was shattered on an ordinary walk with her guide dog. While I was on a pedestrian crossing, I was hit by a car traveling at 50 K, hit by a driver who wasn't watching where he was going. Maelie had broken bones, but her only thought was for her unborn child. I was used to her kicking and feeling her move, but I couldn't feel anything. What happened next? Probably the worst moment of my life. There was no heartbeat. Having to lie there knowing that she was dead inside me was horrible. Maelie was induced and got to meet the little girl she'd already named Georgia. Every baby should be held by their mother. She'd been a part of me. I wasn't ready for her to be just taken away. Jen was asked to preserve Georgia's memory in a unique way. How do I cast a baby's face so that a mother could see her child through touch? Here's her little face. She is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. I say good morning, goodnight and I tell her about things she would be doing if she was here. How do you feel about what Jen did for you? I remember thinking how brave to just walk into a room full of grief. It's such a beautiful thing to do for someone. I can't thank her enough. But this grim work had begun to take a toll. How can you see 200 children that have passed away and not be affected by that? Hey. Coming up, Jen's own devastating loss. That really tipped my world upside down. And we're there for the moment that makes her sacrifice worth it. What death does is it brings people together. I feel so elated right now. Bit of a high? Yes! Yeah. Hi, Carol. You're here for your hearing test. Yes, I am. Lovely. Come on through, please. (BEEP!) BOY: Hi, Mum. It's Eddy here. Huh! You are the best mum in the whole wide world. But sometimes you don't hear so well. Sometimes it makes me sad. I love you so much. (HEARTFELT MUSIC) I don't wanna be sad about your hearing anymore. CHILD: Something as little as a free hearing check can make a big difference. 5 # You're my special little man and I hope you understand. I haven't experienced the loss of a child and I'm very grateful for that. # ...from your sweet lovin' dad. Your mummy and daddy love you so much more. It's something that terrifies me, actually. # I love you, my Ezzie, my special little man. # But I know what it is to love a child and I know what it is to lose someone you love. Six years ago, Jen lost her big brother, Andrew. He had a heart attack when he was 27, and that really tipped my world upside down. Through losing my brother, I learnt a few things about how to deal with people in loss. It's not a taboo thing. It's not something to be hidden away. Having Andy pass made it easier for me to start doing the angel casting because death wasn't so scary any more. At 2 in the morning, when her boys are fast asleep, Jen's thinking about the many Kiwi kids who never got to grow up. These casts are of a 14-week gestation baby. A person's a person, no matter how small, and even at that very young age, they still have their fingernails and they still have all these little things that make them unique. Some days I do stop and reflect on the sheer number of families that we've seen and the thousands of casts that we've made. Thousands? Thousands of casts. She makes them all for free. It's really important to me that it remains a free service because I don't think parents should be limited by their bank balance as to what memories they get to keep of their children. But that's come at a cost to her own family. Financially, we've struggled. We've used up all our own personal savings. CELL PHONE RINGS It is exhausting. I've been down at the hospital on Christmas Day, Christmas Eve. It doesn't stop. If the family need me there at 3 in the morning because baby's going away for a post-mortem at 5 in the morning, then I'm there at 3 in the morning. When she returns, her husband, Aaron, is ready for a debrief. He asks me how it went. Yeah, it was tough. And he means it. It's not like, 'How's your day, honey?' He means it. Like, 'Sit down and talk to me.' They're a good team. Aaron makes the frames that protect those precious casts while Jen adds the finishing touches. This frame is for a special Waikato boy. His name's Narayan Kawiti Painting. He was stillborn on the 26th of April this year. When my waters broke, the cord came out first, and, unfortunately, you've only got minutes to get him out, and that didn't happen. Narayan was such a beautiful little boy. He was a gorgeous wee man. His mum, Chayse, had even picked out the letters for his nursery door. So she's given me that lettering to put into his frame because he doesn't have a bedroom door to come home to. I've been very anxious coming up to this day. I was worried about how I'm gonna feel when I actually see the replica of my boy's hands and feet knowing that I can touch them but I can't have him. For Jen, this is the moment that makes the tough days so worthwhile. It's beautiful. There are often tears sometimes. There's big hugs and big thank yous. But then other times there's no words. (CRIES) He's perfect. What death does is it brings people together, and that's something really special. The extreme sadness on that initial meeting, but then the extreme joy of being able to give this amazing gift. I couldn't buy that with money. Oh, it makes it all real. You can't just dig your heels in the sand and say, 'This is the end of me because I've lost someone.' There's hope, there's joy. There's so much to look forward to. Joy is still present in the family of Ezra Tapp. He was only alive for three years. That's such a short amount of time, but what three wonderful years. Look at you, little man. We've had another little baby. His name's Phoenix and he is... Oh, he's the cutest little bundle of joy. (LAUGHS) Jen's given Phoenix a chance to hold his brother's hand. And there's joy in knowing that Ezra's heart valves are being used to save lives. One of them's in a little girl now, so I hope one day I get to see her. Maelie's little girl would have been 1 year old this week. In Georgia's memory, she's planting a rose that shares her name. Maelie dreams of having more children. They will definitely know that they have a big sister. She will always be my firstborn. Now, I have to ask what happened to your guide dog? Esse is a very lucky dog. She had a collapsed lung, other than that she was fine, which is amazing. She's my hero. Yeah. And for Chayse, losing Narayan has given her a whole new perspective. I'm stronger than I ever imagined. Oh, I'm glad. Glad I have this now. The times I do feel sad, it just means that I love him. Sadness doesn't come without love. Boys! Brush teeth! By embracing other families, Jen has grown closer to her own. Look at those pearly whites. We're not a model family. We still yell at our kids. They still drive us bonkers. Our house is still a mess, but I lower my voice a little bit more. I sing them a couple of extra songs or I hold them a little bit longer or read them an extra book. I realise now that everyone's got a story. Everyone's got something going on in their lives. But there's always that little glimmer of light in really dark times. I think she's an Earth angel. Yeah, I think she is too. Jen's charity is named Angel Casts. If you'd like to donate to the charity, you can head to our Facebook page. We've put details there. Well, later, the man who spent 104 days in prison for his part in the botched child recovery operation in Beirut. He slams 60 Minutes for leaving him behind in jail. But next, Dalvanius Prime told her to start writing her own songs, and she hasn't stopped since. Moana Maniapoto about success on her terms. Great family. My Maori-Anglican dad and my Pakeha-Catholic mother. Awesome. # The whole world's watching. # Everyone I know is working to make a difference, so I can't help myself. I have to stick my hand up. 5 Hello again. A woman who's not afraid to speak up and speak out, using her music to unify, educate and advocate. Moana Maniapoto is considered one of the most significant voices in NZ music, and next week, she'll be inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame. While she may be one of this country's great musical exports, despite playing to huge crowds overseas, commercial success here at home has been harder to come by. Here's Sonya Wilson with Moana Maniapoto. # I've come so far. # Journey's been long. # Searching for something. # Place to belong. Do you see yourself as an activist? An artivist. That's the new term. Mixing art with your, you know, kaupapa. # Hope can move mountains... # Everyone I know is working to make a difference, so I can't help myself. I have to stick my hand up, you know. And sometimes I think, 'Don't'! Don't! 'Just watch telly. Just watch reality TV or something.' 'Oh no, I can't stand it. I have to say something.' # Just a word of warning. # You're living on borrowed time. Moana Maniapoto has been writing songs that have something to say for 25 years. # The whole world's watching. # The whole world's watching. # But this career musician actually began her adult life as a lawyer. How did a promising young lawyer become a pop star? I don't know if I was that promising, actually. I kept moving away from the law and then into music. And then I stayed there cos it's actually more fun. It was fun. I see some of my mates now who are lawyers, and I don't think they're having a lot of fun. Yeah. They're quite flash, though. (LAUGHS) > Her music career began in the late '80s with Wellington band Aotearoa and this band, the legendary Dalvanius Prime. He kinda said to me, 'You need to write your own songs,' because I'd been singing in clubs and pubs and gang pads and wherever, so, yeah, he kind of kick-started me. He was wonderful. So, 1990 comes around and you record 'Black Pearl',... Yeah. ...and it goes gold. > It does. # Black pearl, precious little girl, # let me put you up where you belong. I had a video. I was eight months' pregnant. I looked like God knows what. Great outfit. Great outfit, though. I think I was channelling, like, Cleopatra. # Black pearl... # A year later, Moana releases another record, but this time it's an original. # A-A-Ako i te reo. It's a blunt message, isn't it, ako i te reo, learn the language. Yeah. Learn the language. Hey, here you go. A E I O U. # A, E, I, O, Uooo.... I was so sick of my name being mutilated. I thought, 'Let's write 'A E I O U'. And then we sat back and waited for, you know, another gold! But not even! Yeah. The radio stations didn't warm to a Maori-language course. # A-A-Ako i te reo. # So 25 years on, does that song still need to be sung? Um, I think that there have been some changes in terms of te reo. More language creeping in. But, yeah, we need to switch things up. (SINGS IN MAORI) While radio play and commercial success in NZ has been hard to come by, since the early '90s, Moana and her band have been touring their music overseas, and the world's crowds have loved it. # Listen up tonight. The world can find a way out. That's right. # ALL SING IN MAORI They love the whole Maori aspect of our performances. It's quite primal, so that appeals to a lot of people on different levels. Reclaiming their identity. Reclaiming their pride. Reclaiming their language. There's not a lot of women that are fronting bands, I realised when we were performing, and as outspoken as myself. Someone told me, 'Could you be a bit more subtle?' I said, 'Um, yeah. Nah.' # Well, when will it end, this circle of insanity? # Travelling the world with her band, which includes her partner, Toby, has been fun, if not always easy. While at home she may have been seen as too Maori for commercial radio, overseas, Moana and her Tribe were sometimes not Maori enough. There's this expectation that if you're Maori or indigenous, you should be chanting as we speak, blowing on flutes, doing the haka, looking a certain way. I don't know how many concerts I've done, come to think of it, where I've talked all about NZ, cos all the songs, you know, are about Aotearoa and Maori and all that, then someone comes up and goes, 'And are you a real Maori?' And you think, 'How useless am I that I didn't quite hammer that point home?' Um, but I often had people come up and say, um, 'You know, it would be good to see more authenticity,' and I kinda wanna line them up. Yeah. I find it very patronising, bordering on racist, this kind of expectation that a Maori musician or indigenous musician has to fit a certain preconception. # They were calling me # across the seas, across the Great Divide. # They were calling... # Moana Maniapoto has been in the business now for three decades, and there's plenty more to come, she says; music with a message for the world with inspiration from somewhere much closer to home. One of my more recent songs I wrote because I saw my son graduate, and all his mates... Oh. Getting a bit waffy now. And, honestly, these kids got up, in their early 20s, and they spoke te reo beautifully and they performed, and I thought, 'Wow. The difference!' So, you know, came home and wrote a song about... It's gorgeous. # Young man, young man, stand your feet on the ground. # Flyin', defyin', strong and so proud. # A very proud mum moment. It was. It was a proud mum moment, you know. That's the things that we celebrate ` that kind of journey from, say, Black Pearl to the song Rangitikei. So much has happened, you know, and he's a good kid. He's a passionate kid. He's a critical thinker. He's making a difference, so that's what you want as a parent. He's directing some music videos for you too. He's handy. He's messy around the house, but he's damn handy. I pehea, Miss Manawanui? He pai? There's also 8-year-old daughter Manawanui, a little girl who's already been all over the world on tour with her mum and dad. Is life quieter now than it used to be or more frantic? No, it's full on. It's mental. You know, I keep telling people you need to have balance, you know. Say no to things. And then I find myself up at 2 in the morning. You know, we have singles to release and tours to organise. # I wear my pride # upon my skin. # My pride has always been within. # I think the music industry is a very challenging industry to be in, you know, to keep your feet on the ground. And I'm lucky I've got a whanau and a marae to go back to where, you know, it's a good day if I'm allowed to make the puddings, but usually I'm on the dishes. # I've come so far. # The journey's been long. # Searching for something. # A place to belong. # So you have quite a strong sense of belonging? Yeah, I do. I know where I'm from, I know who I am and I know my weaknesses and I know my strengths, and great family, you know ` my Maori-Anglican dad and my Pakeha-Catholic mother. Awesome. # I'm not alone. # Not alone. # I'm coming... # ...home. # Oh, nga mihi nui i te manu tioriori. In 2004, Moana was appointed a member of the NZ Order of Merit. This Thursday she receives the NZ Hall of Fame gong at this year's Silver Scroll Awards. Well, next, it hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons ` a failed child recovery operation in Beirut. In the mess that followed, the man who tried to carry out the child snatch says he was left to rot in jail. It's just so good to be home. That's all I can say. Thank you. After the 60 Minutes guys went, what happened to you? We were in the dungeon for a total of six weeks. It's just one of those places you don't want to remember. If a group of Lebanese had done what you had done in an Australian city, can you imagine the outrage? Absolutely. BARS CLANG Hello again. Any way you look at it, it was a disaster; a disaster for the Australian mum and her kids, who had been taken by her husband to Beirut, a disaster for Adam Whittington, the man who organised the bungled child-snatch operation and a disaster for the TV programme behind it all. Surely this audacious child-snatch was ill-fated from the start. And with the key players banged up in a filthy, crowded prison, it got worse. So what happened and how did it go so wrong? Mike Willesee meets the man who says he was left behind to rot in jail. Adam, have you been paid for this interview? > Absolutely not. No. Received no money. Any money going to third parties, family, charities`? No. Nothing at all. You know why I'm asking that. Sure. Cos it's the history of this whole story. Yes. Absolutely. So why are you doing this interview? Uh, I'm speaking to you guys because obviously the truth needs to be told. Handcuffed, manhandled and shoved into the back of a car... Including reporter Tara Brown... It was the biggest story of the year ` We have breaking news about Sally Faulkner and the 60 Minutes crew... Guys! Guys! Get back, guys! ...the botched abduction of two young children in Beirut. This is the moment an Australian mother and her children were snatched off a Beirut street. The stakes were high and Australia was transfixed as it all played out in the media. TYRES SCREECH So much went wrong. How much of that was your fault? You know, I get that asked often now, and I say the same thing. If we were to do the job tomorrow, the exact same job, same people involved, it would be done the same way. But the police knew about it. Yeah, the police knew about it. And the police were never going to let them get away with it. Arrested and banged up in a Beirut prison, Adam Whittington and his team, the kids' mother, Sally Faulkner, and the 60 Minutes crew filming the snatch, were in for a harrowing experience. I've sat in a Lebanon prison ` the most horrible place ever. Spent four months nearly away from my kids, I missed my 5-year-old's birthday, and I still haven't even been charged. Whittington is speaking out now about the whole ghastly experience because he believes he's been betrayed by 60 Minutes, which bankrolled the botched operation. They just want to keep me quiet. Honestly. They don't want the truth to come out. To stop you doing this? To stop me sitting here in front of you or anybody else. This story began late last year ` a bitter child custody dispute played out on national TV. Mummy loves you so much. A former flight attendant, Sally Faulkner had two children with her Lebanese husband, Ali al-Amin. Even though they had separated, in May 2015, Sally allowed him to take Lahela and Noah back to Beirut for a holiday. Once they got there, Ali refused to send them back. Bring them home. You know they want to come home. You know I'm a good mum. Don't do this to me and don't do this to our children. After being granted an Australian court order giving her full custody, Sally Faulkner commissioned Whittington to do the job ` the former Aussie soldier who grew up in Sydney's west. He set up Child Abduction Recovery International, or CARY, five years ago. CHILDREN SCREAM, PEOPLE SHOUT Whittington claims to have been involved in the successful retrieval of 174 children. Go! Look out! Look out! Adam, you have a most unusual job. What's the motivation? Money, excitement or the rescue? Absolutely the rescue. The satisfaction of seeing these children reunited with their mother or father after a certain amount of period of time away from them. Absolutely. There's no doubt about it. It's like an urge in him to do this; to help this kid. He is a family man and he loves kids. And he loves the rush of being out there and doing these things, so I don't think he will stop. But the Beirut operation very nearly ended it all. From the start, it was fraught with difficulties. The first obstacle was money to carry it out. And that's where the 60 Minutes team comes in. So 60 Minutes paid us directly for us to help Sally. How much? > Uh, $115,000. What did that cover? It covered our fees, boat hire, etc, expenses. In the days leading up to the operation, Adam Whittington sailed the yacht from Cyprus to Beirut. It was to be used as the getaway boat. To work out the kids' daily routine, Adam and his team took surveillance photographs. Here they are with their father, Ali; at times with their grandmother and a nanny. They also filmed the pickup point. This is the actual street where it happened. And, vitally, this is their own surveillance footage of Lahela and Noah being taken to school. Again, they're with their grandmother and a nanny. To me, there were risks you were working in Hezbollah territory. Yes. And they're like a shadow government. They influence the courts and the government. Why did you choose that area? > It was the only area to do it. It was the safest area to do it. On Wednesday, April 6th, just after 7 in the morning, Whittington's team moved in. Adam was at the marina preparing the getaway boat. Adam, there's been a lot said and written about the fact that the pickup was in front of a CCTV camera. And this was the result. Now, it's pretty hard for me to understand exactly what happened. It's a poor picture. Could you explain that to me? Yeah. Sure. As you can see here before I started, you have the grandmother and the nanny. Sally's two children in front. The car is here. There's Sally. Uh, Sally picks up one of the kids. One of my guys picks up the other kid. You can actually see Ben, the cameraman. The grandmother reaching for the kids, falls to the ground. At the time, it was reported she was violently pushed by the recovery team. She was not touched at all. Nobody was touched except the two children. There was no assault. This is the nanny down here, who then throws the handbag at the car. They drove off and out of the area. No one was injured at all. And that's how we do things. Sally and the kids were taken to a safehouse. There they were joined by the rest of the 60 Minutes crew and Adam Whittington. I spent 20 minutes with Sally and her kids in the safehouse. They were so happy. So so happy. All they kept saying was, 'Mummy, we're going back to Australia. 'We're going home.' That's all they kept saying. But this is where the entire plan falls apart. I went back to the boat and we were, sort of, finalising the departure papers with Customs, Immigration and the marina as well. And, um... Yeah. The police just turned up, Hezbollah turned up. The army turned up. Certainly, it wasn't the world's best-kept secret that Sally Faulkner was keen to get her kids back. And I'll do anything to get you guys back. And her regular Facebook posts may have alerted the children's father. Then on the eve of the child-snatch, there was this bizarre interview from the rescue boat in Beirut... - We actually have, uh... Who is it? 60 Minutes with us now, actually. Um, I'm doing a big story, so, uh, you should see that... ...where Whittington discussed the 60 Minutes operation. Adam Whittington was arrested. Within hours, the rest of his crew and the 60 Minutes team were also picked up. Two days later, Sally Faulkner was found in the safehouse. All were accused of kidnapping. They were in serious trouble. Well, up next, while money talks, Adam is left to his fate. You know, as soon as they pulled out that chequebook, everything went downhill for everybody. You were paid and Channel Nine paid you. Absolutely. And the kids' father, Ali al-Amin, is about to get a whole lot richer. 1 Are you sure it's OK if I get a ride? Yeah, yeah. Dad said it's fine. I'm putting on some music. OK. BOTH CHUCKLE, CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS Dad! OK, I'm gonna change it. Sorry, but... Yeah. OK. Ooh yeah. Yeah. Turn it up. DUB MUSIC PLAYS, PHONE PINGS Hey, the others wanna hang out. Um... Hey! BOTH LAUGH ALL: # It's time to cut and run. It's time to... TYRES SCREECH # It's time to cut and run. It's time to cut and run. # Oh my God. Get off! Yeah! It's so obvious. So wasted. TRUCK HORN BLARES, GIRLS SCREAM, LAUGH (LAUGHS) TV BEEPS I'll probably drop Libby home after dance so she doesn't have to walk home in the dark. Thanks, Dad. I'll be home a little bit after 10, not too late. I love you guys. Yeah, all good, love. 4 Come here. Hold this. Hold this. Hold the handle. After four months left rotting in Lebanese prisons, Adam Whittington is relishing being back home in Australia with his family. But his wife, Karin, is still reeling from the ordeal and the prospect he faced up to 20 years in jail. That was horrible. That was horrible. The first week, I was just walking around shaking. I couldn't handle daily life. For Adam's mum, the only communication she had from her son was the occasional letter. READS: Locked up 24 hours, seven days a week. It must be at least 3am now me writing this to you. He said there were maggots in the water. There's no windows. Nothing. He never had a shower for five weeks. READS: The wildlife consists of rats, rats and, yes, rats. BARS CLANG At this stage, Adam was sharing a cell with the three men from 60 Minutes. Reporter Tara Brown was in custody with Sally Faulkner. Whittington thought they were still very much a team. But behind the scenes, Channel Nine was planning to cut him loose. We were all going through the same conditions. It's just, uh... They were getting a lot of... a lot of good things being brought in. They were getting pizzas, they were going upstairs getting coffees... What can I say? Well, did you get them? No. In the madness outside court... When the kidnap case came to court, media interest was at fever pitch. ...shoved into the back of a car... Whittington began to realise things were starting to sour with Nine, and worse, the kids' father, Ali al-Amin, wanted his pound of flesh. Nine could see a way out. You know, as soon as they pulled out that chequebook, everything just went downhill for everybody. Obviously, not for Channel Nine's crew. Coordinating his own rescue effort in Beirut, was Nine's head of news and current affairs, Darren Wick. And despite his denials, Nine had funded the child-snatch. There was irrefutable proof ` a bank statement that was produced in court. The invoice clearly shows payment from 60 Minutes, Channel Nine, to our account. I mean, everything they said in the media we could prove was a lie. You were paid and Channel Nine paid you? Absolutely. And the bill for Channel Nine was about to get a whole lot bigger, and the kids' father, Ali al-Amin, was about to get a whole lot richer. Nine had forked out to Ali and his mother US$500,000 in return for the freedom of the 60 Minutes crew. This is the cheque presented in the Beirut court. It's clearly a cheque from Channel Nine's lawyer to Ali's lawyer in Lebanon, and it specifically says, 'This cheque is for compensation to Ali, for the working team.' 'The working team'? Yeah, 'the working team'. (CLEARS THROAT) But only four of that working team were released. Exactly. Exactly. DRAMATIC MUSIC Two weeks after being imprisoned, the four members of the 60 Minutes team and Sally Faulkner were allowed to leave Lebanon, leaving four members of the so-called 'team' behind. REPORTER: How much did Channel Nine pay to get you home? They couldn't wait to celebrate. Whoo! I was shocked when they walked out and they had their champagnes, and not a word. It would have been easy for them to just give me a call and just say, 'He's fine. 'We're trying to do everything we can.' But nothing. It's just so good to be home. That's all I can say. Thank you. After the 60 Minutes guys went, what happened to you? We stayed there. We were in the dungeon for a total of six weeks. REPORTER: Tara, was this a bad story from the beginning, do you think? We got transported, strangely enough, to Tripoli, into the worst prison. REPORTER: Tara, do you regret the story? And the prison you arrived at? Yeah. Ebbe Prison. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. It's pretty bad. Violent? It's just one of those places you don't want to remember. Then after 104 harrowing days, Whittington was released on bail. Were you breaking any law? As far as we knew, no. If a group of Lebanese had done what you had done in an Australian city, can you imagine the outrage? Absolutely. I can see their point of view, but if they look behind all that... and-and if they were in Sally's shoes or in other left-behind parent's shoes, um, who received no help from anybody, why wouldn't you try and get your children back? Whoa! (LAUGHS) We're not doing any more jobs like this. > Why not? I'm not risking my family. I'm not doing it any more. So, Channel Nine says Sally Faulkner hired Adam Whittington's company, and they paid her interview fee directly to it at her request. Nine's full statement can be found on our website. We're taking a break next week for our one-hour local special 'I Know This To Be True' featuring 30 prominent Kiwis. We'll be back the week after. That's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter, Sunday TVNZ.