60 Minutes

Child recovery specialist and former Australian soldier Adam Whittington has been ordered to pay $US20,000 ($26,000) in bail.

Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner, Channel Nine's 60 Minutes crew members and Whittington and his associates were accused of trying to forcibly take Ms Faulkner's children — who were living in Beirut with her estranged ex-partner Ali Elamine — and return them to Australia.

Channel 9 has completed part of its review into the 60 Minutes child abduction story in Beirut. Greste, an Al Jazeera journalist who spent more than a year in an Egyptian jail, has said the review should be made public, but it is unclear if and when it will be.

Now a media ethics expert at University of Melbourne, Dr Denis Muller said allegedly paying a “child recovery” agency to kidnap children and sending reporters to cover it was “cowboy journalism”.