Settlement reached between Stephen Rice and Channel Nine after 60 Minutes fiasco

THE Nine Network is believed to have paid a $1m to departed 60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice, adding another cost blowout to the bill for the Beirut child abduction fiasco.

Presenter Tara Brown and producer Stephen Rice (right) from Channel Nine's 60 Minutes after they were released on bail from prison in Beirut. Picture: AFP/Peter Parks

• Senior producer departs after 60 Minutes kidnapping
• Explosive emails reveal plot to ‘snatch the kids’
• Boss says Nine will keep writing cheques
• What went wrong in botched kidnap

THE Nine Network is believed to have paid a settlement of nearly $1 million to departed 60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice, adding yet another cost blowout to the mounting multi-million dollar bill for the Beirut child abduction fiasco.

The Daily Telegraph understands the confidential Rice settlement takes Nine’s bill for the Beirut events alone to more than $3.5 million. Before the settlement, Nine had already paid more than $US2 million ($2.6 million) in legal costs in Lebanon after four staff from 60 Minutes, including Rice and star ­reporter Tara Brown, were imprisoned in a Beirut jail along with Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner.

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Reporter Tara Brown had only been censured for the fiasco.

The payout is a move to end heavy reputational damage to the program and some of Nine’s highest-profile staff from the saga.

The settlement follows the ­exposure of internal emails by The Daily Telegraph in June showing senior network executives, including current 60 Minutes executive producer Kirsty Thomson, and network sports boss and former 60 Minutes EP Tom Malone, knew significant details of a now-infamous Beirut abduction plan.

An internal investigation recommended no staff should be singled out for dismissal. Picture: AFP/Peter Parks

A week before the emails were exposed, Nine had publicly sacked and named Rice as the person carrying primary responsibility for the fiasco. Thomson, Malone and 60 Minutes reporter Brown were only censured for the fiasco. The action led Rice to seek the services of top workplace lawyer John Laxon, with a view to legal action.

Censured: Tom Malone

Censured: Kirsty Thompson.

Rice, Brown and Faulkner were all imprisoned in April when an ­attempt to abduct Faulkner’s two children on a Beirut street from their Lebanon-based father, Ali Elamine, went badly wrong.

An internal Nine investigation into the fiasco recommended no staff be singled out for dismissal “given the degree of autonomy ­accorded to 60 Minutes”.

Nine CEO Hugh Marks overruled this finding, personally sacking Rice: “I think Stephen is the one who’s responsible.”

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However, in one email, Thomson made clear to Malone and Rice her interest in taking over a story involving a plan to “snatch the kids” from “their father in Lebanon”.

A court case could have been embarrassing for Nine, given it would have closely examined the role of its executives in the fiasco, why only Rice was sacked, and the imprisonment of its staff in Beirut.