So there I am in England visiting Mum and am hoping so much the ARD phone me and commission my film about sexual abuse and the Catholic church. This is in days gone by, late 1990’s. This is a big thing for me, paid to go to the US and do a ‘biggy’ for ARD, the First German Channel and my first major commission. I knew after the conference Mr. Harbecker the head of department would phone me with the thumbs up or down…

The phone rang, deep breath, sound confident, don’t show disappointment, don’t make silly jokes. Be matter of fact. They like that in Germany…Bottle is definitely half empty, I am that type of person. I don’t want to be disappointed.  

The boss phones and it is great news however at that very moment my mother happened to find a lost necklace. She was so excited she kept interrupting the conversation! 

“James, James look .” 

Yes, Mr. Harbecker, two man crew and I’ll use my contacts at the Globe to try and get Cardinal Law” 

“James, James look , after three years”..

Yes, Mr. Harbecker, we’ll look for archive material.” 

Mother was not the sort of person you could shoosh away…

So I’m in Boston for the first time in the US. What amazing people, (me thinks) In the hotel, (Boston Park Plaza, a 4-star hotel) everyone was so kind to me. Calling me ‘Sir’! Saying, “Thanks, thanks so much/ that means the world to me/ that’s so helpful, thanks a million. You really are from England, gee. I have a script here. What’s it like working in show biz”? 

The phone in my room is not working so I go down to the main desk. The entire staff are incredibly ‘huffy’ and very discourteous. It turns out my credit card’s not working. They cut off my telephone. So there I am in the road outside the hotel in a snow blizzard, slotting cents into a payphone trying to tell Cardinal Law’s office I’m a ‘big shot’ journo from Europe and want an appointment. To be honest I felt very hurt that the staff were so horrible to me just because my credit card was not working. I told them there was a misunderstanding and they did not believe me. Like they switched off and all of a sudden hated me. 

To cut a long story short, the credit card people were concerned about the sudden bookings in a foreign country of a Cameraman, sound man and me, and as a precautionary measure they cut off my money supply. After the mistake was corrected the hotel people switched on again. Lesson: You pay for love.

Have you seen the film “Spotlight”, about the abuse scandal and the Boston Globe?  A great film. A little snippet of info as I understand. The lawyers in the States in some cases work on a no win no fee basis. This is how I believe it worked and please if you happen to be the lawyer reading this I write ‘I believe’ and am not mentioning your name. So their lawyer had over a hundred clients who pay a cut of their eventual compensation as well as an additional $15 000 for something or whatever. (Lawyer told me). Generally speaking, I don’t like lawyers, especially family law lawyers. But this lawyer was good, he got them their compensation, well a bit of it…

Back to filming. Am scraping around for pictures. Doing a story like this is so tough. My contact at the Globe told me about a big press conference. So many traumatised victims, it breaks my heart to see grown men cry. 

So I got the church to squirm and talk the talk. This film was only possible because of Tom Doyle, a Catholic priest. During my filming work, I met many priests who dedicated their lives to ‘God’s work’, living in Nicaragua helping the poor and needy and so on. These great men tainted with evil from the paedophiles. 

The film was a success. I have the original English interview with Tom

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