ON APRIL 17, 1986, British television journalist John McCarthy was kidnapped in Beirut. He spent the next five years in captivity.

Speaking for the first time in Kent McCarthy’s former fiancée Jill Morrell told her side of the story at Eastwell Manor, Ashford.

Ms Morrell told the Women in Business breakfast meeting: "Stubbornness and an inability to take no for an answer helped me through his five years of captivity.

"We both worked for an international news agency and when John was sent to Beirut to cover the war, I wasn’t particularly worried as I knew he’d be careful and he was only going for a month.

"When I got a call to say he’d been kidnapped I went into shock; it was impossible to know what had happened to him and it was some 18 months before I had any idea whether or not he was alive."

After two years of no news Jill realised that John had been forgotten and decided she had to bring John’s cause back to the public’s attention. The Friends of John McCarthy (FOJM) was launched on the second anniversary of his kidnapping.

"Setting up the FOJM was much like setting up any other business, starting with the basics such as creating a logo and headed paper," said Jill. "Our small office and phone line was provided by the NUJ and our plan was to mark every hundred days of John’s captivity with some sort of visual reminder.

"Although not everyone agreed with the campaign and at times I felt like I was being bullied by the Foreign Office, I thought it was worth it because if John wasn’t forgotten by the public then the Government couldn’t forget him either."

Over the years Jill gave hundreds of media interviews and the campaign benefited from the skills of an advertising agency, a firm of lobbyists and a PR company – all free of charge.

With their help Jill and the FOJM managed to change public opinion and the Government’s 'no deals with hostages' policy. The campaign culminated in the distribution of yellow ribbons across the country and a rally in Trafalgar Square with John McCarthy becoming a household name. On 8 August 1991 he was released.

As chair of the event, award-winning broadcaster and writer Barbara Sturgeon summed up Jill’s experiences. She said: "Jill is a very special lady and I think the things that carried her through those years – stubbornness, anger and an inability to say no – are appropriate for all Kent businesswomen."