After an alleged multi-million dollar deal was made securing their release, the 60 Minutes crew are on their way home to Australia.
Channel 9 spoke to the team as they piled into a van headed for the airport in Beirut, looking tired, but thrilled to be out of prison.
For Tara Brown, the first port of call was to get in contact with her husband.
“Had a chance to call John,” she told Channel 9. “I was ordered to call home straight away.”
“But not the kids yet, I can’t wait to speak to them obviously, although they have no idea about any of this.”
Brown is no doubt looking forward to seeing her sons upon the team's arrival in Australia. "It's great to talk to home and it's great to be going home."
Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner was also filled with relief, telling Channel 9 she was "just so glad to be out of there".
Faulkner was thankful for the way the group was treated during their incarceration.
"I mean they treated us well, I can't complain about that, it's just the uncertainty that sort of kept me awake at night, not knowing if it was going to be a life-long sentence," she said.
Brown and Faulkner's relief was echoed by the other members of the crew.
Producer Stephen Rice adding there was also a sense that things had moved very quickly. “Half an hour ago we were sitting in a very, very small cell," he said. "This has just come completely out of the blue."
David Ballment, the group's sound recordist said that prior to their release, the team had been “hoping for the best but prepared for the worst."
Like host Tara Brown, the focus for cameraman Ben Williamson simply was to contact his partner and children. He told Channel Nine he couldn't wait to “hug my wife and my kids and tell them I love them”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs has issues a statement saying, "We are pleased to hear of the news of the release of Ms Faulkner and the four 60 Minutes crew members on bail."
"It is premature to comment on how soon the released Australians will be able to depart Lebanon or any conditions attached to their release."
After a stop-over in Dubai, the team are expected to arrive in Sydney later this evening.
Top Comments
never have kids to a man who comes from those societies where women have no rights. You are only seen as property and baby making machine. They will take them from you and spy on you and destroy you, just like this man did.
60 Minutes take a bow - you have resorted to tabloid journalism.
If Tara Brown starts talking about how "terrified" they were; if the Australian media holds them up as some kind of journalistic martyrs or heroes for the "ordeal" they went through - I will be completely sickened. What if the roles were reversed? What if that had happened here on Australian soil? People would be screaming that they be jailed for breaking Australian law. Radio shock jocks would be having a field day with their intolerant rhetoric.
I feel sorry for Sally Faulkner. Her situation is every mother's nightmare. But she knowingly went with the 60 Minutes crew into another country and broke their laws. Yes a desperate mother would resort to any means to get her children back. But did she not consider the consequences of her actions if they failed? Maybe not.