60 Minutes wanted reporter Tara Brown to be ‘involved at critical moments’ of child snatch

Further evidence has emerged of Nine’s deep involvement with a bungled plot to help an Australian mother snatch her children back from their father in Beirut.

In a development which makes it even more difficult for the network to claim that its 60 Minutes team were only in Lebanon to document events, not to be part of them, an email published by The Weekend Australian shows that the network insisted reporter Tara Brown should be “involved at critical moments”.

And assuming the email is genuine, any hope for the network to claim that it accidentally paid the child recovery company thinking it was actually the bank account of the mother also appears to have disappeared, with the same note asking the company to invoice the network $46,000.

The disaster, one of the worst moments in Nine’s 60 year history, occurred at the beginning of this month when a Nine crew travelled to Beirut to film the kidnapping led by Adam Whittington of Child Abduction Recovery International.