“When is mummy coming home?” Tara Brown’s children kept in the dark over their mum’s prison hell

THE families of Nine’s Beirut Four have broken their silence about their “living nightmare,” as lawyers continue fighting to free the 60 Minutes team from jail.

Supplied Entertainment STRICTLY EMBARGOED NOT FOR ONLINE UNTIL MIDNIGHT APR17 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown and produce

“WHEN is mummy coming home?”

For the young children of imprisoned 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, this is a sleepy question asked around bedtime whenever their TV star mother is travelling away on assignment.

But for Brown’s husband, John McAvoy, giving an honest answer to their sons, Jack, 7 and Tom, 5 has proved so difficult in the last week, he has avoided telling the boys anything about their mother’s Beirut prison hell.

As Channel 9’s kidnap saga enters its third week, McAvoy and the other anguished wives, partners and families of the detained TV crew - including Brown, 48, producer Stephen Rice, 58, cameraman Ben Williamson, 37, and sound recordist David ‘Tangles’ Ballment, 55 - have finally shared their private fears and frustration at being so far away from their loved ones during the worst moment of their working lives.

TV producer John McAvoy, the husband of 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, has not told their two young sons about the prison drama their mother is caught up in in Beirut. Picture: Supplied

In a joint statement exclusive to NewsCorp Australia, McAvoy, Denise Alexander Rice, Cara Williamson and Laura Battistel described the group’s long-distance ordeal as: ‘a living nightmare.”

“It’s hard to imagine it could be any tougher. From what we know, they are in good health, keeping their spirits up and are being well looked after by the Lebanese authorities. You can’t imagine how comforting it is to know that. That is all that is getting us through at the moment.”

Sharing the anxiety and desperation over the team’s arrest last week - on kidnapping, assault and conspiracy charges related to the botched child recovery of Brisbane mum Sally Faulkner’s two children, Lahela, 6 and Noah, 3 - the terrified partners and their adult children have turned to each other for support and understanding.

“We’ve formed our own crew back here because we’re all in the same boat. Our natural instinct was to fly over and be there for them. Immediately. But our desire to be over there, possibly see them for ourselves and to give them our love and support has to be balanced against the advice from the people on the ground and that [advice] is to stay here.”

60 Minutes cameraman Ben Williamson with his wife Cara. Picture: Supplied

As an experienced team of legal experts and crisis management specialists hired by Nine continued to work around-the-clock to secure the staffers release, the families explained how they are really coping on the home front.

“Some of us haven’t even told our children what’s happening yet. It’s not an easy conversation to have with a five or seven-year-old who ask as they go to sleep each night when mummy or daddy is coming home. Understandably we are all anxious and worried sick.”

Mother Sally Faulkner speaks for the first time from jail

The young daughters of Ben Williamson, aged 8 and 5, are still unaware of their dad’s detention.

Their mother, Cara, who posted a beautiful family portrait from a recent beach holiday to her Facebook page earlier in the week, is desperate to protect the girls from the painful uncertainty surrounding her husband’s legal fight for freedom - with the next chapter of this horror story to play out in a Lebanese court tomorrow night.

Rice is also a father of three - twin daughters in their early 20s and a teenage son, who have all kept a desperate vigil, with mum Denise, for their dad and husband’s safe return.

60 Minutes sound recordist David Ballment with his partner Laura Battistel.

It is understood Nine News boss Darren Wick, who flew out to Beirut to lead his network’s own rescue efforts last Saturday, took with him letters from loved ones, and special photos - now treasured reminders of home for each of the 60 Minutes crew locked up inside Baabda prison.

The group said: “this notion that we are somehow being kept in the dark or not receiving regular updates is beyond absurd. The updates are daily. And hugely valued. Nine is sharing whatever it knows as they hear about it. It is a day-to-day proposition, complicated by the fact that there is so little to go on and of course none of us are familiar with the Lebanese legal system.”

Releasing some of the frustration which has built up staying silent over the last 10 days, they defended their partners’ professionalism and pleaded for a ceasefire in them brutal criticism being levelled against them back home, over the mission which spectacularly “went wrong.”

60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice with his wife Denise. Picture: Supplied

“People forget that Tara, Stephen, Ben and Tangles were there doing a job; covering a story. As it turns out, a very important story. It’s what they do. It’s what they have been doing brilliantly for years. Obviously, this time, something went wrong. But if we have one message, it’s that people who have been so quick to judge should at least wait until all the facts are known. We haven’t spoken to our partners since before they were arrested. Very few facts are clear at this stage. If we don’t have all the facts, how can anyone else?”

Prepared for the internal interrogation Nine boss Hugh Marks has promised into the scandal only when “everyone is back in Australia,” the family statement added: “the analysis can come later. Right now, the only priority is getting them all home.”

THE BEIRUT FOUR

David ‘Tangles’ Ballment, 55

* married to Laura Battistel, a video editor at A Current Affair

* his first production job at Nine was on Wide World Of Sports more than 20 years ago

* Sydney-born sound recordist has worked on 60 Minutes for six years

Tara Brown, 48

* married to TV producer, John McAvoy [former Nine staffer and now EP of Kings Cross ER, Gold Coast Cops and What Really Happens In Bali]

* mother of two sons, Jack Cooper, 7 and Tom Oliver, 5

* won Walkley Award last year for her Logie-nominated 60 Minutes story, Catching A Monster, tracking paedophile Peter Scully in the Philippines

Stephen Rice, 58

* married to Denise Alexander, father to a son and twin daughters

* former executive producer of A Current Affair and Sunday programs

* joined 60 Minutes in 2004 and has won two Walkley Awards

Ben Williamson, 37

* married to Cara, father of two daughters, 8 and 5, nephew of Mike Munro

* entire career as a cameraman at Nine, serving across network and posted to US Bureau

* in 2015, secured dream job on 60 Minutes; one of his first assignments was following plight of Ebola crisis victims in Sierra Leone

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