A decade after a 60 Minutes crew was arrested and jailed in Lebanon for their involvement in a bungled child recovery operation, many of the key players still bear the scars of the episode.
On Thursday, April 7, 2016, 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David “Tangles” Ballment were detained and charged with kidnapping, assault, hiding information and criminal conspiracy following a failed attempt to snatch the children of Queensland mother Sally Faulkner from a Beirut street.
Ms Faulkner and her estranged husband Ali Elamine, a Lebanese and US national, were warring over custody of the couple’s two Australian-born children.
Elamine had taken the youngsters, Lahela and Noah, to Lebanon for a holiday in May 2015 and failed to return them to their mother.
Ms Faulkner and 60 Minutes hired a four-man extraction team to recover the children for a planned TV reunion, however, the operation was thwarted when Elamine, who was tracking the children via his daughter’s iPad, called in police.
Gerald Stone, legendary former 60 Minutes executive producer, dubbed the failed operation – which had made international headlines – “the gravest misadventure in the program’s history”.
Despite an internal inquiry recommending no individual be sacked, producer Rice was.
A decade on, Ms Faulkner, who was jailed and later released after signing custody of the children over to her ex-husband, has finally been reunited with her kids.
Where they are now?
Sally Faulkner
Having pursued her legal options for a decade, in January 2025, a US court granted the one-time Emirates Airlines flight attendant temporary custody of her children Lahela and Noah so the three might participate in a bridging program to repair their “severely alienated” relationship.
Soon after, she brought the children home to Queensland where she runs a cleaning company with her partner Brendan Pierce, the father of her three younger children.
Lahela and Noah Elamine
Aged six and four at the time of the botched 60 Minutes recovery, the pair, now 15 and 13, were introduced to their three half-siblings, Eli, 9, Izac, 7, and Lylah, 3, in Queensland last year.
The US court had heard Noah had little recollection of his mother prior to the reunion.
In August 2025, the US court-ordered bridging program ended.
The custody battle continued after.
Ali Elamine
A joint Lebanese and US national, Elamine moved to the US state of Georgia in late 2024 following the escalation of the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Following the bombing of his village, the surf school instructor asked Ms Faulkner to sign off on emergency passports for the children’s relocation to the US to ensure their safety.
When Elamine landed in Georgia with the children in November 2024, his ex-wife lodged a temporary protection order in the state.
Tara Brown
After being handcuffed and jailed for her involvement in the 2016 story, Brown and her crew were later released and charges dropped after Nine paid a large sum – it was claimed to have been in the ballpark of $800,000 – to Lebanese authorities.
Ali Elamine denied he was paid by the media company.
Network star Brown, like her colleagues, returned to Australia to face an internal Nine inquiry which dished out formal warnings to Brown and fellow crew members. Brown’s 16-year marriage to Nine executive John McAvoy, father of her two children, ended months later. After a 25-year career, she is still with 60 Minutes.
Stephen Rice
Despite the internal inquiry finding no crew member should be sacked, Rice was promptly stood down by Nine management after the company’s board applied pressure due to reputational damage suffered by the program and network.
Rice later successfully sued the company, winning a settlement in the ballpark of $2 million after his workplace lawyer argued Rice had been made the “scapegoat … solely responsible for Nine’s debacle”.
This was despite the fact Ms Faulkner’s story has been considered by other Nine programs including the short-lived Inside Story hosted by Leila McKinnon and A Current Affair. Today Rice is Sydney Bureau Chief of The Australian.
Ben Williamson
Cameraman Williamson’s account of his arrest in Beirut, made to a journo friend, was the most unsettling insight from a member of the 60 Minutes crew.
Five years after the arrests, gentle giant Williamson’s story finally broke, revealing he had been stripped by Lebanese police, hit with rifle butts and tortured for 72 hours after being separated from fellow crew members.
After returning to work and suffering panic attacks, Williamson took extended leave.
Three years off work battling PTSD followed, before it emerged that Nine’s insurer GIO refused to pay Williamson’s work injury compensation claim.
Nine later reconsidered and expedited the cameraman’s claim.
Elamine would tell media in April 2016 he decided to drop charges against his ex-wife and the TV crew after being moved by Williamson’s anguish at being separated from his children. Since leaving Nine in December 2021 he has worked as a freelance cameraman for Seven, Foxtel and production company Endemol Shine.
David ‘Tangles’ Ballment
Described by colleague Tracy Grimshaw as a “big boofy smiling soundo”, Ballment was also deeply impacted by his arrest and separation from his Australian family.
His spirited wife Laura Battistel, a Nine editor, didn’t mince words at a family briefing with Nine bosses following word of her husband’s incarceration.
“Since when is Channel 9 in the business of child stealing? Is that what we do now?” she reportedly fired at CEO Hugh Marks.
Ballment shifted to A Current Affair after his detainment and today tends to keep closer to home.
Tom Malone
Malone was 60 Minutes’ executive producer when the Faulkner story was pitched in late 2015.
He approved the story, an internal Nine inquiry found, but failed to raise questions about whether a child recovery operation might break Lebanese law.
The incident didn’t slow Malone’s progress at Nine though.
By the time the 60 Minutes crew was boarding their plane to Lebanon, Malone was ensconced in his latest role, as Nine’s Director of Sport.
After that position, he was appointed head of Nine Radio.
He is now preparing to leave Nine after being recruited to run the recently sold radio division to new owner, publican Arthur Laundy.
Kirsty Thomson
Thomson was chief of staff at the time Rice proposed the story, but by February 2016 was 60 Minutes’ EP.
She also received a formal warning but held onto her role despite having failed to consult Nine’s Director of News & Current Affairs about the wisdom of commissioning the story in the first place. She remains at the helm of the program a decade on.
Darren Wick
Such was the level of autonomy handed to 60 Minutes under Malone and Thomson and previous EPs, Nine’s then-Director of News & Current Affairs Wick knew nothing about the story – nor about the $115,000 payment to a child recovery team – until the 60 Minutes crew was in deep strife.
Wick flew to Lebanon to meet with government officials and lawyers and negotiate the team’s release before chaperoning them urgently out of danger and back to Australia.
He is today semi-retired after resigning from Nine in March 2024 following an inappropriate behaviour allegation.
Hugh Marks
Marks was just five months into his tenure as Nine CEO when he oversaw the entire affair along with the sacking of producer Stephen Rice for whatever part he played in it.
This followed Marks’ decision to sign off on the internal review that recommended no one be sacked.
Addressing the fallout, he said: “We got too close to the story and suffered damaging consequences”.
Marks would deny Nine’s rumoured $800,000 payment to Lebanese authorities had been illegal.
“I don’t know why it would attract any attention. It’s a settlement approved by a court in accordance with Lebanese law,” he said.
Marks resigned from Nine in November 2020 following the discovery of his relationship with former direct report Alexi Baker.
After working for himself for a few years, in December 2024 he took over the reins (and with it, this week’s strike action) at the ABC.
Jackie O’s bestie holds out re ThreeBirds
As speculation about Gemma O’Neill’s continued association with interior design outfit ThreeBirdsRenovations mounts, Jackie “O” Henderson’s bestie has started housekeeping.
Last week, the failed talent agent shuttered her personal Instagram account @GemmyJean.
While O’Neill has at least one other Instagram account, it was on @GemmyJean that O’Neill plugged her status as CEO of ThreeBirds.
This column put the question concerning O’Neill’s association with ThreeBirds to the interiors company and O’Neill during the week via email and text.
We are yet to hear back from either party.
O’Neill joined the company as CEO at the start of 2025.
However, after putting Gemmie Agency into voluntary liquidation in November, she revealed in February she was not in a financial position to make any contribution towards repaying creditors as she has no available personal savings, limited income, and previous attempts to refinance and otherwise raise funds had been unsuccessful.
Given the extent of her severe cashflow problems, it seems possible ThreeBirds may be paying O’Neill in contra or via other means.
Again we put out the question, but are yet to hear back from either party regarding whether the extensive makeover of O’Neill’s Clovelly home might be being covered by ThreeBirdsRenovations.
O’Neill has listed the property as a short stay site and is set to charge $1800 a night for Easter listings, or so says Booking.com.
At that rate, O’Neill could be raking in $12,600 a week for the property.
At last some encouraging news for her creditors, although it must be said there were plenty of vacancies when last we checked.
It seems despite her current predicament – she owes creditors $546,848 – O’Neill still turns up for Henderson.
We have no confirmation as yet (given O’Neill’s reluctance to speak) that Henderson was aware her manager’s talent agency was insolvent when O’Neill pulled up a seat and acted as the broadcaster’s proxy in talks with ARN management last month.
Sources tell us Henderson was a no show at the critical meetings, leaving O’Neill to convey her friend’s career concerns and possibly also to handover written instructions from Henderson’s lawyers.
Rahni’s return a surprise at Seven
Former Seven news reporter Rahni Sadler’s return to the network took many by surprise during the week, with many in Seven’s financially-constrained newsroom convinced its Spotlight program had been parked indefinitely to save costs.
Sadler has been appointed executive producer of Spotlight.
The role means Gemma Williams will be moving into a new role as managing editor 7News.
We expect Williams is relieved with her new administrative role if for no reason other than because it will put an end to columnists speculating about the length of the youngster’s tenure.
EP-in-waiting Phil Goyen, formerly of 60 Minutes and friend to Liz Hayes, apparently said he didn’t want the job.
The role will be Sadler’s first outing as an executive producer.
