Original subtitles

We were only going for six months. I didn't think about this.

We felt very strongly about what we had to do.

Both of us were thinking today could be the day that we're freed.

Or it could be the day that we're killed.

I was working in Ross and Wine. I was assistant manager in the community

and also teaching Tai Chi.

And here's John working as a builder.

I was actually off sick for nearly a whole year with a lot of back pain. And

started doing some volunteer work at the local daycare centre, which was for

adults with learning difficulties, so physically and mentally handicapped.

What, here?

Can't make it worse or better.

It was attractive to me, to John. He was also interested in the spiritual way of

looking at life, and I was. Sorry about that.

In September 1996, we met up with this friend of mine, Chris Hunter.

And he was working for Quaker Peace and Service in Chechnya.

So Chris made us aware that it was a war zone and there had been fighting there.

It was a Russian -Chechen engagement and now there was a ceasefire.

He'd managed to take a small group of children out of the area in a lull in

bombing.

And then he said, well, look, now the fighting's stopped. Now's the time to

up a permanent centre.

to help the children, and he turned to us, and he just said... I have to say,

though, when I was there, I actually imagined you guys being there.

Us? Yeah. And that really set me buzzing.

Really? Really? And I thought, you know, I'd love to do something like this.

It was much more of a challenge than my day -to -day work of doing somebody's

driveway or building a small patio.

I personally didn't think about the risk involved.

It just felt so important just to go.

We filled this car. The car was pretty darn full.

And it's like, wow, OK, we're starting on this big adventure.

It did feel very exciting.

We were going to set up this centre for these war -traumatised children.

We were only going for six months.

I mean, that was the deal.

As we got closer to Grozny, it really began to hit us that we were in a war

zone.

I thought, this is a vision of hell.

How could people live here still?

What do they do for food? What do they do for water? How do they live here?

We arrived at the place we were going to be living at. There was two armed

guards that had been kidnapped in the past, hence that we needed these

guards with us all the time.

So the morning arrived when the kids were going to come to the centre and I

very nervous actually, very nervous.

And I've piled all these children bearing in levels of trauma. Some of the

had lost some of their family or all of their family.

They survived but they're damaged inside because of what they've seen, what

they've experienced.

The idea was to find ways of helping them release their fear.

you know, actually bring some joy back into their lives.

I was actually the only guy, right? I had to play the fool a lot

to be, you know, just really silly, like the clown.

But at least it sort of got some of them laughing.

Even by the end of that day, you could see they were more excited and alive.

as it progressed, it was wonderful to see how they changed.

There's a young boy called Ruslan.

He'd lost his father in the war, and he sort of latched on to me.

I just looked round at John and I thought, yeah, it's like, this is

that he'd dreamt of doing and now it's happening.

And it had been a pretty full -on week. You know, we were pretty whacked that we

took ourselves off the bed pretty early.

Sort of about 10 o 'clock -ish.

And I woke up sometime in the night and I thought I heard something.

What?

Hear that? We heard these angry voices.

It's not like someone argued.

And at first we were listening, we were wondering, is that just our guards

having a bit of an argument?

But then we could hear other voices.

And that's when we were on full alert, just waiting to see what was going to

happen.

A bedroom door was kicked in and then came this flaming piece of paper.

It was followed by this masked man carrying a Kalashnikov and he was

Okay,

I'm

just going to stamp back.

Stay calm.

We heard someone in the next room getting very excited.

And he shouted something.

And the man said to John, where's the key?

And they were talking about a safe.

I thought, OK, they've come to clean us out. They've come to sort of

take our money.

But I'm just going to do whatever he asks.

It's over.

I don't get shot.

We are English.

Do you understand?

Under the direction of the muzzle of a gun, I go through to open the safe.

I can see in the kitchen area there are a couple of more armed masked men. And I

think, well, there's no chance of doing a runner.

I could live.

over to the safe and i thought well you're not going to like this guys

and i turned the

keys

out

cascaded a load of colored balls that we just brought back from moscow there's

no money in there

I wanted to know what had happened to our two armed guards.

So I actually looked back and there the others were tied up.

I was intensely scared at that moment. I remember that my heart was really

going... I was breathing like this.

I can hear Camilla breathing.

I can hear her breath rushing.

I try to memorise tunes as the car goes up our street and then I get

totally disorientated.

This man pulled me out of the car.

I remember his muscly kind of forearms.

And then he just let me go.

And I just kept walking, and suddenly... I

hear

all these gun cock, and so I freeze.

And then there's this silence.

And

then

I realized that

Camilla's obviously fallen down.

And they're just like, bastards.

For shit.

Understand?

For shit.

Understand.

Hello, we're not... Well, I think that's it. I think we've been kidnapped.

What? You're right.

Oh, my legs are really thin.

By whom, at that time, we didn't know who.

And for how long, we didn't know.

I have to talk to you.

That's when my mind started going, oh, my gosh, how long is it going to be

before anybody even knows we've been kidnapped?

Oh, my God.

When we woke up the next morning, the door opens.

The masked man came in carrying a gun.

How are you?

Yeah, we're fine, thanks, okay.

I thought, thank God, you know, because he actually made it possible for us to

start talking.

I like theatre very much.

Do you like the theatre?

Yes, we both like the theatre.

He said, do you like the theatre?

And they said, oh, shit, you know, he's just sort of reading stuff out of the

book. It's not really from a deeper thought, it's just being spewed out of a

book. The weather, no good.

Rainy. He sat down beside me on the camp

bed.

Now, this was scary, this was very scary, and my heart was going.

I like theatre very much.

So this guy then put his hand on Camilla's knee.

Is that good?

I thought, oh, this is a bit dodgy.

I thought, well, I've got to do something to intervene.

Is that good?

It's a very high, tense state.

It's like walking on this knife edge, and it's life one side and death the

side, and we're walking down this very fine line.

So I'm wondering where this is going to go.

Are all of these guys going to have a go at Camilla?

The two have been named as John James and Camilla Carr.

On Thursday night, half a dozen armed gunmen burst in and abducted them.

In the present lawless atmosphere in Chechnya, getting the two aid workers

released could prove a difficult business.

No,

we didn't know that they might have been taking us over to kill us.

I knew that the guys there had been fighting for two years.

I knew they had killed people.

So the end of this journey got some steps pushed into another room.

And they took off our blindfolds. And that was extraordinary because we were

quite a large paint room with a kind of parquet, shiny floor.

I certainly felt relief.

The next morning they allowed us out and then we realised we were in a flat.

And they're sort of like, please come in and sit down

and have breakfast.

And it's like so surreal.

I just looked down at the table in amazement because they'd laid it for us.

And they stood back, looking like waiters in their masks.

She's got coffee, and I think there's bread, and there's some cooked eggs,

height of luxury.

And I just found it so funny, I burst out laughing.

And he just said, spies.

And he said, spies everywhere.

They hear you speaking.

So he realized it's okay. It's a million dollars.

And I thought I'd quickly do some maths in my head, I think.

Well, we're going to be here some time if they want to get to that figure.

So after breakfast, this man came in.

The guys had masks on all the time.

Then, suddenly...

For us, this

felt more dangerous. We thought, oh, my God, because he had told us before, if

we ever saw him, it would be death.

And he was looking at John.

And I was just shocked by this.

Gesture of trust.

Because that's how I perceived it.

That he was trusting me.

You like children?

We both like children.

I have a son.

How old is your son?

Five years.

What's his name?

Vasily.

Play football with him.

What? Play football with him. Ah.

And I'm sure if I'd met him in a non -war zone, we'd quite easily become

good friends.

But in this scenario, it was really quite bizarre relationship.

My son.

I don't see him much.

You know, we felt really lucky because...

This man, he was treating us as humans.

We gave him a nickname. We called him Guardian Angel, GA.

I like Manchester United.

I felt this kind of wave of love for him, really.

And I think it comes through understanding what he'd been through and

about his history.

Maybe it's just my nature.

There came a day I was sitting in the kitchen with GA and we were just sitting

down having a cup of tea.

Suddenly GA held the bread knife to my back and tried to kiss me.

No!

No, no!

He had this gun trained on me.

while I was mopping the floor.

And that was when I began shaking.

I thought, this man is so much more traumatised than we had thought.

And because we had opened our hearts to them and become friends, now we're going

to have to step back.

What's up?

There came a time when they started getting very excited and saying, you're

going to be freed.

And we're thinking, well, it's only just over a month, you know. It might be a

miracle, you never know.

I can remember really feeling this

sense of hope when we were blindfolded and going along in the car.

I think we were holding hands all the way.

I thought, it's coming. It's going to happen soon.

You know, we'd be freed there and then.

Come on.

We were guided down these steps.

There was silence. This was all very, very silent.

Quite quickly, I realised, oh my gosh, we're back at the black hole.

Back at the cellar.

Oh shit.

I thought we'd seen the last at this place.

I'm in the cellar and I can hear...

Johnny, Johnny.

Johnny.

He started this game of calling Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, like in The Shining,

which was really horrible because then you get that kind of sick, slimy

He's going to be playing games again.

I didn't know what to do then. I was just kind of shocked and I just went

silent.

What's

happening?

What are we doing out there?

I could hear John being thumped in the chest.

I really was in terror then.

And

I

kept on saying, this is the truth, and I'd tell them over and over.

They wanted to hear that I was a spy.

I'm sort of seated.

So a hand's behind my back.

GA's got a knife.

And he's just shaking it in front of my face.

Yeah, he pushed the tip of the blade just in my throat here.

And pushed it. He never broke the skin, but he just pushed so I could feel the

blade.

I felt strangely safe now in this cellar, and it was a relief to be away

the craziness that I experienced upstairs.

I really felt this strong love for Camilla, and I felt, how could I

express that?

Leaping alive.

Yes, of course.

And it felt like we'd actually merged, we'd become one.

And that, for me, gave me much more strength and resolve to get through

this situation.

Where are you going?

He came in and he was ranting on about something about we'd opened a packet of

tea.

And then he started saying something like, you know, gesturing, like, I'm

to cut your ear off.

And

I

have a...

Horrible feeling that something not nice is going to happen.

I tried to call several times and I

could just see those handcuffs were really strong.

He took me by the arm and he pushed me down on this bed.

No,

no.

John, John is my husband.

It

all

falls silent.

And then that silence.

hits me and a wave of nausea comes

over me and a wave of heat and a realisation that Camilla's being raped.

I was praying hard that it would be over quickly.

i remember just sort of thinking of my mother and you know just telling him in

my mind that this is what's happened i've been raped

I just sat with her and just allowed her to cry.

And about five minutes later...

That

was one

of those powerless places of...

ever felt myself to be in it's total

disempowerment i

thought

what what's this what's this going on

Do you like to play backgammon, Johnny?

He's asking for me to go and play backgammon with him.

Play.

Ten minutes earlier, he was raping my partner, my wife.

And now he's asking me to play backgammon with him.

And I thought, you crazy guy, you don't know.

You don't get it.

I feel this hatred towards this guy.

And I'm shaking gently into the surface.

It's really difficult to hold the revenge energy, that raw response

energy.

You don't like to smoke?

I know loads of thoughts rush through my mind.

Relax, Johnny.

I felt at this point in time I could actually overpower him, even though he

a big guy.

And I guess he's pretty stoned.

I have this rage inside that just wants to reach out and hit him.

He will be okay.

Respect!

But there's this other part of me that, hang on a minute, we've got to survive.

We've got to survive.

Both of us have got to survive this.

Of course, we hoped that would be...

Just the one time.

But it wasn't.

It was the darkest time for us.

They came down to the cellar and they stood us up against

the wall and they had this... They will sign and it said $2 million each.

Hello. Hi.

We're being well treated and well fed, but please help us.

Please don't make it too much longer. I don't know how long I can stay sane.

We've gone from $1 million to $4 million.

How on earth are our family or anybody going to get to that level of ransom?

It was a 10 -day deadline, but on that, like, $4 million being paid.

Later that night, they got some music going.

Well, they were in a really good mood because they thought that now a contact

would be made and the money would come through and we'd be relieved.

And it was basically thrilled. Who would come and picture us doing this now with

our... Be happy, darling.

The A decided he'd start doing a bit of kung fu and showing me some kung fu.

Luckily, I managed to deflect or duck away from most of them.

By this point, I just didn't know they would kill us at the moment.

I just didn't know.

Well, two days passed, three days passed, four, five.

Deadline came and went.

So by this stage, I decided that I wasn't going to allow my hopes to be

just to be dashed again.

I sort of abandoned that whole concept.

just to safeguard my own sanity.

The temperatures outside started going up and up and up and the temperature

inside started going up and up and up.

I thought I'd lose it a little bit with the temperature. I just couldn't get

cool. I was just pouring wood sweat all night.

It

was

the lowest.

I'd ever experienced, which is really hard just to continue living.

What is it?

What do you want?

You want food?

Tell me what you want. A book?

Food? Tell me.

Come on, tell me.

I'll bring it to you.

You want a radio?

And I said, yes, I'll have a radio.

OK, radio, radio. Come down, I'll bring you a radio.

OK? And not for a moment did I think that I think that that radio would

manifest.

After a bit of twiddling with the knobs, we eventually found the World Service.

And that was like having a hole punched in the wall. It was this huge...

window put there instead.

I don't know how long I can stay sane.

Meanwhile, relatives can only hope and wait. It was like, wow, that video is

there, out in the world.

It said that there were some officers from Scotland Yard in the neighbouring

state investigating as best they could.

So we knew that the rest of the world knew that we were still there.

So we were pretty excited about this.

And you try not to hope because, I mean, it's hell to hope.

I mean, this was scary.

My heart was beating.

We

get moved

again at night, blindfolded, tied up.

It felt like there was just a huge amount of people there, lots of armed

We were led out into a car.

I could feel this tension in my body and this fear. Oh, my God,

you know, what's happening?

This was the most terrifying thing.

We didn't know if this was the day that we were freed or the day that we were

killed.

We drove down this road.

I felt unknown.

And then I felt my blindfold being untied.

And then he pointed to Camilla and gestured that I took her blindfold off.

I wasn't quite sure where we were going, you know. I thought, well, we're either

going to freedom or we're going to execution.

Because they don't give a shit if we see anything anymore.

The man in the front seat turned around.

You will be pleased to know we are now leaving Chechen territory.

You are free.

I just had this wave of...

elation, excitement, euphoria, all at once, all just swirled around.

This is it, we're on our way home.

We're on our way home.

There was a huge feeling of euphoria then, the feeling of being alive,

feeling of being alive.

That was magical.

We made it all through that horrible time, that torment, and

we made it and we got to this beautiful place.

Camilla was walking down the aisle in a beautiful dress and it was just,

oh, sublime is the only way I can describe it.

It was a wonderful thing to bring everyone together and for them to see

we're OK.

We had survived.

Kidnapped Abroad is back next Monday at 10pm and takes a look at an abduction

which takes place in India.

Next on 5, returning to the scene of the crime in the action sequel Sniper 2

starring Tom Berringer.