Former 60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice is considering legal action after he became the only person to lose his job in the wake of the botched Beirut child abduction story.
Rice has recruited top Sydney workplace lawyer John Laxon because he believes it was unfair that his employment was terminated after 28 years with the network and despite his management at Nine being aware of the story.
Laxon told Guardian Australia that Nine had breached its duty of care by “naming and shaming” Rice while he was still on bail and facing charges in Lebanon.
“Stephen was released on bail from Lebanon and so aside from anything else it hasn’t helped things to publicly name and blame Stephen Rice in these circumstances,” Laxon said.
“I think that’s what I am most concerned about, it’s such a breach of Nine’s duty of care. What Nine has done is to scapegoat Stephen to make him solely responsible for Nine’s debacle.
“This was a story that was running before he knew about it – through Inside Story – and this is a story that Channel Nine wanted to do, they knew about every material aspect of it.
“To imply that somehow Stephen was off on a frolic of his own or primarily responsible for what took place is just nonsense. Stephen has acknowledged that mistakes were made, including by him. But he was not on a frolic of his own, he was doing the job that Nine asked him to do, in accordance with his employment contract, he was producing the story that Nine wanted him to produce, and that Nine knew all about.
“It’s simply not right in those circumstances that Stephen should lose his job, his career, have his reputation trashed and his liberty jeopardised in Lebanon, by Nine’s actions and public comments.”
Rice was the story producer but two executive producers of 60 Minutes signed off on the attempt to recover the two children of Australian mother Sally Faulkner who were living in Lebanon with their Lebanese father.
Rice, reporter Tara Brown, the crew and the child abduction operatives landed in jail in Lebanon after authorities became aware of their plan.
The four operatives hired by Nine, Adam Whittington, Craig Michael and two Lebanese men who allegedly carried out the actual kidnapping, remain in jail awaiting trial.
On Monday Whittington, a former Australian soldier, said through his lawyer he was “very sorry for what happened” but he accused Nine of abandoning him by not including him in a deal under which Faulkner and the Nine crew were released on bail.
“The management of Channel Nine decided to abandon me and all the ones they recruited,” he said in a statement.
Rice was sacked on Friday morning by Nine’s chief executive, Hugh Marks, and its news director, Darren Wick, despite an independent review recommending no one be singled out for blame because there were failures on so many levels.
There was significant pressure from the Nine board to terminate his employment after the network and the program suffered reputational and financial damage.
Nine sources say Rice picked up the story after it was dropped by Inside Story and was the senior person behind the plans which went awry.
The internal inquiry found “inexcusable errors” were made including in relation to what would happen under Lebanese law if they were caught.
Rice dismissed concerns from Nine’s company lawyer about the payment to Whittington, the independent report said.
