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"Sex Coach" Changes Story, Freed By Russian Court; Lawyer: Suspected U.S. Spy Had Russian "State Secrets" on Him in Moscow; U.N. Rise in Global Human Trafficking Victims. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired January 23, 2019 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Heading into day 33 of the U.S. government shutdown, it's looking a lot like day one with no plans for the president to meet and negotiate with Democrats.
Touching down in Davos, a regular number of private jets arriving just in time for Tuesday's discussion on safeguarding the planet from manmade climate change.
A model and aspiring actress kidnapped and sex trafficked for 14 years. She kept her silence, telling no one but now she is telling the world in a powerful new movie helping to create awareness and make a difference.
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VAUSE: Well, competing measures to try and end the U.S. government shutdown will come to a vote in the days ahead but with lawmakers still at odds over the best way forward those efforts are more than likely to fail.
Democrats and President Trump have not spoken in 10 days. Each side dug in more than ever before and hundreds of thousands of government employees will miss a second paycheck this week. Details from Abby Phillip.
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump and congressional Democrats locked in a game of chicken as the government shutdown drags on.
The president taunting Democrats and promising not to back down, tweeting, "Without a wall, our country can never have border or national security," adding, "The Dems know this, but want to play political games. Must finally be done correctly. No cave." Trump still plans to deliver a State of the Union address at the Capitol next week, the White House says, even though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked him to postpone it, citing security concerns during the government shutdown.
HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: She did that without any input from national security. In fact, she even said that Secret Service couldn't protect the speech, which is absolutely ridiculous.
PHILLIP: To make their point, a White House official sending an e- mail on Sunday asking the sergeant at arms to conduct a walk-through for the speech, but that request was rejected.
Officials say Trump speechwriters are still working on his remarks and they are considering alternative venues, including a campaign- style rally or a speech in the Republican-controlled Senate chamber, which could be complicated by Democrats.
Meantime, both sides are still far apart on stopping the shutdown, with neither the Democrat or Republican votes on plans to end the shutdown expected to succeed this week.
And the text of the president's proposal released last night includes provisions advocates and Democrats are calling poison pills.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What the president proposed is granting what he had already taken away. The DACA recipients had their protections. TSP -- the temporary protected status, TPS, had their protection. The president took it away.
And now he is saying, well, I will give this back temporarily, if you give me a wall permanently.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Including a change that would force Central American children to seek asylum in their home country and those attempting to seek asylum at the border would be sent back to the countries they fled.
PHILLIP: Also today the Supreme Court declined to take up a case that was brought by the Trump administration who is seeking to end DACA. That's a program that was aimed at giving relief from deportation to children who were brought to the United States illegally as minors.
Now what that means for the shutdown is that Democrats have very little incentive to accept a deal that gives short-term relief to DACA recipients like the one that President Trump proposed to end the shutdown on Saturday.
That also means that the DACA program will remain in place until further notice -- Abby Phillip, CNN the White House.
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VAUSE: CNN political analyst and "The New York Times" White House correspondent Michael Shear is with us now.
So Michael, with the president and the Democrats not talking or at the very least not meeting for the past 10 days, Congress has been busy with a little Kabuki theater. They'll hold votes on competing proposals each party's putting forward to try and end the shutdown. Here's Mitch McConnell.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY.), MAJORITY LEADER: To reject this proposal, Democrats would have to prioritize political combat with the president ahead of federal workers, ahead of DACA recipients, ahead of border security and ahead of stable and predictable government funding.
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VAUSE: I mean, this seems to be kind of like busywork right. These measures are destined to fail so firstly, what's the point. And when the silliness is done, what's next?
MICHAEL SHEAR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, so I think they are likely to fail.
There's not a lot of sense on either side that that either of these two measures, one the president's bill that he --
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SHEAR: -- talked about over the weekend and then also the Democrats proposal to simply keep the government open for a few more weeks or reopen the government for a few weeks so that they can continue talking.
Neither of those are likely to succeed.
However, I mean, I think there is a sense that even those of us jaded Washingtonians who have seen these kinds of shutdowns before were pretty stunned over the last few weeks that there had literally been no action.
There was no talking, there was no legislative movement, there were -- there were no discussions, there were no late-night you know sessions over pizza we're competing staffs from Democrats and Republicans talk to each other and work stuff out.
So at the very least, when they're actually voting on competing proposals, that may not end the stalemate and it may not end up shutdown, but at least they're doing something.
VAUSE: OK, you know, movement begets movement I suppose, but you know, you've mentioned other previous government shutdowns, this time you know, the Democrats you know, have grown a bit of a backbone. There's been a steel in the spine mostly because of United caucus.
Listen to the Senate Minority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer. Here he is.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: You can't have a compromise when one side is determining not only what they want in the bill but what we want in the bill without even seriously negotiating with us. That is not how negotiating works. That's not the art of the deal.
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VAUSE: And he said that without a hint of irony totally oblivious that Republicans you know, could accuse Democrats are doing exactly the same thing.
SHEAR: Yes. I mean, I think look, I think, part of you know what the Democrats have a point about is that while the Democrats have largely proposed reopening the government with a lot -- with not a lot of strings attached.
They really just said, hey, let's reopen the government under the current -- the current of spending limits that everybody on both sides has already agreed to, the president already signed legislation in the past to set the current spending levels.
What the Republicans have done is put on the table proposals that have you know, pieces to them that they know the Democrats will hate.
The Democrats do have a point that the Republicans are putting on the table proposals that contain things that they absolutely know that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats are never going to accept. And so that's part of the reason why we don't expect this to end today.
VAUSE: Well, personally, the latest tell-all book from our former administration inside of has a few clues as to why the shutdown is taking so long to resolve. The book is called "Team of Vipers."
Former White House communications aide Cliff Sims describes the administration as absolutely out of control. Scenes of chaos, dysfunction and duplicity among the president, his family members and administration officials.
And the man who is brought in to bring order to this chaos as chief of staff John Kelly, he's quoted as saying, "This is the worst" -- expletive starts with "F" -- "job I've ever had. People apparently think I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened, it would be the best day I've had since I walked into this place."
The guy who wrote this book is actually a Trump guy; well, he was. In fact, he likes the president, spent all the time with him and, to be honest, none of what has been written in that book seems to be at all surprising.
SHEAR: No, but it's not surprising for couple of reasons, right? It's not surprising because of really good tough reporting that my
colleagues at "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" and elsewhere have done over the last two years to document a lot of the same kind of chaos and dysfunction and lack of process and backstabbing in the White House.
There have also been other books that have come out. Obviously, Michael Wolff had a book; Omarosa, who worked in the White House, had a book that said a lot of the same things.
So in some ways, what Cliff Sims is describing isn't really anything new. There might be a few new details here or there, but it does underscore part of the reason why the stalemate over this government shutdown is going on for so long which is that you don't have a disciplined White House as a negotiating partner.
VAUSE: But we'll finish up here with you know, words for the former and possibly future Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. He lost to George W. Bush back in 2004. Here's his advice to Donald Trump.
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JOHN KERRY, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, UNITED STATES: He doesn't take any of this seriously. He doesn't have an ability to have that kind of conversation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what would you say to him to get it, sir?
What would your message be?
KERRY: Resign.
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VAUSE: Yes. He's not resigning but there is this question of seriousness and how the president sees everything kind of through the lens of a made for reality TV moment.
And that also goes with this empathy factor as well whether you know, whether it's hurricane victims in Puerto Rico or federal employees choosing between you know, medical bills or paying for food because they haven't had a paycheck. There does seem to be you know, what is a stunning lack of empathy from the commander in chief.
SHEAR: Yes. That's right. And a kind of a lack of connection to the normal political pressures that normally create environment where this kind of thing can't go on as long as it has, right?
Normal politicians react to scenes of people saying they're going to --
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SHEAR: -- have to sell their cars so that they can buy food for the table or, as I saw this morning, a woman on the television saying that she didn't have enough money to afford to buy her medications and so she'd gone without medications for 10 days.
I mean, those kinds of stories normally put pressure on politicians. And you know, for the moment what we have in Washington is a situation where the president seems immune to those stories. He doesn't even talk about them.
And the address that he gave over the weekend where he talked about immigration, he didn't say one word about people who are out of money or out of -- or not getting paid.
And then you have a Republican Party in Congress that is more scared of what Trump could do to them politically if they -- if they broke from him, then they are pressured by all of these terrible stories.
And so until that changes, until something loosens up that dynamic. I think we could be in for another week or another two weeks or another three weeks of this.
VAUSE: Yes. Yet another reason why this shutdown is the longest in history and no end in sight. Michael, thanks so much. Good to see you.
SHEAR: Yes, sure. Happy to do it.
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VAUSE: Hopes are fading of finding survivors after a plane vanished midflight over the English Channel with Cardiff City star new recruit, Emiliano Sala, on board. Just over an hour after takeoff the small single-engine Piper Malibu disappeared from radar.
Sala was traveling from France to Cardiff to make his club debut. The airways could not confirm debris found on Tuesday came from the missing aircraft.
Let's bring in our "WORLD SPORT" reporter, Kate Riley.
KATE RILEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, such sad news to report and it comes as this young player was taking on a new challenge when Emiliano Sala with the English Premier League Club on Saturday. He was just so excited about what was ahead for him.
EMILIANO SALA, CARDIFF CITY NEW RECRUIT (from captions): I'm very happy to be here to be with you. It gives me great pleasure and I can't wait to start training, meet my new teammates and to get down to work.
RILEY: Now in France, his former team, they are absolutely devastated. Wednesday night's cup game has already been postponed and a vigil was held on Tuesday.
And you can just see the emotion on the fans' faces here, even though he had left the club, Sala, of course, very popular as you can see. Back home in Argentina, his family are anxiously waiting for news. And on Tuesday CNN Espanol caught up with his father.
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Emiliano's father (from captions): I found out this morning around 6:00 or 6:15 am. I received a call from a guy from Esperanza. I was petrified. Then I spoke to several people. But this is inexplicable. It is inexplicable.
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RILEY: Sala is 28 years old and has spent all of his professional career in France. This season he's one of the top scorers in the league with 12 goals, strike rate attractive to a club like Cardiff struggling in the relegation zone of the Premiere League now.
That's why they broke their record transfer fee for reportedly $19 million spending to get him.
All right. Well, Sala spent Monday back in tragically and this is one of the last social media posts, "La ultima ciao," that's "The last goodbye." Authorities checked in with local airports in the Channel Islands to see if the plane landed there But they turned up nothing.
Sala should have been at training with his new teammates on Tuesday and that training session was cancelled.
VAUSE: Yes. This is just such an incredibly large search area they're looking at which is why there's not a lot of hope right now. The longer it goes on, the less hope there is. It's really sad, considering his career in front of him (INAUDIBLE).
RILEY: Of course that will continue, once daylight breaks over in England. Thank you.
VAUSE: Well, the British prime minister promising everything will be done to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. CNN's Nic Robertson reports that the trouble with Brexit is bringing back The Troubles of the past.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice over): Lumbering off the ferry in the port of Larne, the lifeblood of Northern Ireland's commerce; 105 minutes across the Irish Sea from mainland U.K., cars, trucks, people come and go in their thousands every day.
ROBERTSON: It is not just an important commercial link across the Irish Sea, it is also a vital cultural link for so many of the people in Northern Ireland now who Theresa May depends upon for her slender majority in government.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Just behind the harbor, Larne town wears its loyalty large. Nearby villagers tattoo the tarmac in homage --
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ROBERTSON (voice-over): -- to the union that has bound this province to the United Kingdom for almost a century -- loyalty that gives local unionist MP Sammy Wilson a lock on this constituency.
SAMMY WILSON, DEMOCRATIC UNION PARTY MP: We have huge historic links with the rest of the United Kingdom. And those go back hundreds of years, whether that's, you know, common religion, common language, all sorts of things and we're not going to give that up.
ROBERTSON (on camera): But Brexit is testing the strength of that union. Wilson's Democratic Unionist Party MPs, who prop up May's government, refuse to accept any Brexit deal that diminishes those ties which so far May has failed to do to their satisfaction.
THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: So I will be talking further this week to colleagues, including in the DUP.
ROBERTSON (voice over): ON Monday, May pledged to listen to the DUP concerns again. Top among them, the E.U.'s backstop demand intended to honor Northern Ireland's Good Friday or Belfast peace agreement that ended decades of bloodshed and ensures the Northern Irish-Irish border remains open after Brexit.
Difficulty for her -- Wilson is unwilling to compromise.
WILSON: It would serve -- not serve us very, very well I think to leave without a deal. We could say, see this nonsense, we're a backstop. It is nigh off the table. That's how I'll deal with discussion of the border between Northern Ireland and Irish Republic.
ROBERTSON: The trouble for May, Wilson's reasonable discussion doesn't just reject the E.U.'s bottom line, the respect for the Belfast Peace deal. He claims the E.U.'s backstop has already broken the terms of the peace deal and they need to back down.
WILSON: Yes, of course, as I said to you, the backstop would require our laws premiered (ph) in Brussels. Not in London. In other words constitutionally we will be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. And that does breach the Belfast agreement.
ROBERTSON: Across the province, the U.K.'s biggest border town Derry where nationalists who want strong ties with Ireland, are the majority, fears are May, who has pledged not to tinker with the Belfast or Good Friday Peace Agreement will get a one-sided view of it from Wilson's DUP.
JOHN BOYLE, DERRY CITY AND STRABANE MAYOR: The Good Friday accord affects the people here in this country and voted for it in overwhelming numbers. So there. That's something that people here supported. So really Sammy -- I said to Sammy, I said, really?
Honestly, Sammy, are you reflecting the views of the people of this country?
I don't think you are.
ROBERTSON (on camera): What is clear Brexit talks risk dragging Northern Ireland's divisive and at one-time deadly differences out into the open again. Raising the stakes for competing unionist and nationalist views and with it concerns about rising violence -- Nic Robertson, CNN, Northern Ireland.
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VAUSE: The U.S. vice president wades into Venezuela's domestic political crisis, calling Nicolas Maduro a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. We'll have Maduro's angry response in a moment.
Also, the World Economic Forum at Davos warned in very stark terms of a looming climate change disaster as the elites arrive in a record number of private jets.
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VAUSE: Authorities in Venezuela are bracing for mass demonstrations in the next hours. Protesters there are against President Nicolas Maduro's election for a second term. Earlier the U.S. vice president Mike Pence posted a video on Twitter showing support for the people of Venezuela, who he said are raising their voices for freedom.
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MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. He's never won the presidency in a free and fair election. And he's maintained his grip of power by imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose him.
The United States joins with all freedom-loving nations in recognizing the national assembly as the last vestige of democracy in your country, for it's the only body elected by you, the people.
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VAUSE: Maduro responded by saying never before has such a high-level U.S. official called for the opposition to overthrow the government of Venezuela. He called for a total, absolute revision of relations with the U.S. Those relations have been very strained already in recent years.
To the World Economic Forum now, where the British royal interviewed a British legend. Prince William spoke to famed naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough. Business and political leaders are in Davos to discuss the global economy but Attenborough says he wants them to also tackle climate change.
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DAVID ATTENBOROUGH, NATURALIST AND ENVIRONMENTALIST: We are now so numerous, so powerful, so all pervasive the mechanisms that we have for destruction are so wholesale and so frightening that we can actually just exterminate whole ecosystems without even noticing it. We have now to be really aware of the dangers of what we're doing.
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VAUSE: And for more I'm joined now from Los Angeles by environmental scientist Jess Phoenix; also the executive director of Blueprint Earth.
OK. Jess, good to see you.
JESS PHOENIX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BLUEPRINT EARTH: Good to see you.
VAUSE: David Attenborough, absolutely 100 percent right about the catastrophic environmental damage we're causing and have the potential to cause every day. He made this appeal for us to be more aware. I would argue that there is already a high level of awareness out there. What is missing is the level of caring and concern.
PHOENIX: Yes. I think a lot of people are unaware of the fact that their individual actions actually do have an impact. And it's really hard for people to lead in their own lives when the people who are tasked with setting the standards are coming to an event talking about the environment and showing up in private jets.
People who have the means and have the ability to make change on a larger level need to lead by example. And I think that's a really important take away from the Davos summit.
VAUSE: We'll get to the private jets in a moment.
Here's a little tidbit. It comes from page 17 of a survey of more than 1,300 CEOs from more than 90 countries. That's about the impact of climate change and how concerned are they that the about the impact it would have on their business.
Last year, 31 percent said extremely concerned -- the issue ranked in the top 10, it was number nine. This year, only 19 percent of CEOs are extremely concerned. It's fallen in the rankings to 13.
In fact, their biggest concern for 2019 is overregulation. If ever there was a time to focus beyond quarterly profits, you know, boys and girls in the business world -- this is it, right?
PHOENIX: Exactly. Corporate social responsibility shouldn't just be a series of buzz words. It needs to be something that actually drives companies to do better on a daily basis. Whether you're in natural resources extraction or in children's toys, you need to be thinking about what impact your actions as a corporation are going to have on the future of our planet and on the children that we all ideally want to protect.
VAUSE: Because we all live on the same planet. You know, CEOs, business leaders, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos -- we're all here. There's not some other plane they've got on the side where they can all go to when this one is done.
But why is it that they don't have the same kind of thinking, you know, on a much bigger scale that, you know, most people have like those who are concerned about the planet that's concerned with what we do?
And yet, they seem to separate that -- divorce it from their actions as business leaders.
PHOENIX: I think that oftentimes you get a little bit insulated the further removed you are from, say, boots on the ground reality.
If you're not living in a place where contamination is evident, if you can afford to go away to vacation in lovely, gorgeous places where the environment is still relatively pristine, you may be able to forget --
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PHOENIX: -- and insulate yourself from the reality of climate change that we're all facing.
And of course, poor people are disproportionately impacted by the effects of the changing climate. So I think it's really important that business leaders and world leaders do actually take the time to go down and see the effects on the ground both to people and to animals and environment.
VAUSE: Yes. There does seem to be a certain element of let's emit carbon at Davos. We're going to the private jets now. They're expecting 1,500 private jets to land and take off during the week-long global gathering. That's up from last year which saw more than 1,300 private jets -- that was a record year.
The director of an air travel service said there appears to be a trend towards large aircraft with expensive, heavy jets, the aircraft of choice. This is at least in part due to some of the long distances traveled but also partly due to business rivals not wanting to be seen to be outdone by one another.
At the end of the day it's all about mostly my carbon footprint is bigger than yours.
PHOENIX: You know, I think it actually would be truly revolutionary for a business leader or a world leader to show up on a bike or some other power source, you know, mode of transportation that is not --
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VAUSE: Take a train.
PHOENIX: -- fossil fuels. Yes, why not.
I mean I think it's being of the people is an important quality for people in positions of power. And if you don't remember what it is like for everyone else when you ask them to, you know, tighten their belts and do things for the environment, you know, you need to remind yourself that that obligation is on you as well.
VAUSE: There is a certain amount of business savvy to actually, you know, relate to your customers, I guess.
Jess, good to see you. Thank you.
PHOENIX: You, too.
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VAUSE: Well, a self-proclaimed seductress who claimed she had inside knowledge of Russian interference with the U.S. election gets (INAUDIBLE) freedom out of the (INAUDIBLE) Moscow.
But how much did that freedom actually cost her?
That's next on CNN NEWSROOM.
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VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.
VAUSE: A court in Moscow has ordered the release of a self-styled sex coach who claimed she had evidence about Donald Trump's links to Russia. The 28-year-old model was detained last week at a Moscow airport on her way home to Belarus. CNN's Matthew Chance has details.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At last, the sex coach, claiming evidence of Russian collusion is celebrating a taste of freedom. Nastya Rybka is at liberty, her lawyer says, gleefully, when outgoing (INAUDIBLE)
The 28-year-old whose real name is Anastasia Vashukevich, is likely to be relieved after this happened, transiting through Moscow airport last week. She was man-handled into a wheelchair by security personnel, as she struggled to get away.
Later, in court, on prostitution charges, she apologized for publishing images of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire close to the Kremlin, who has faced allegations of communication with the Trump campaign.
ANASTASIA VASHUKEVICH, SEX COACH (through translator): No audio records about Oleg Deripaska will be published and I no longer will be compromising him. Therefore, he needs to relax. Really, I've had enough. CHANCE: These are the images that got the 28-year-old into such deep trouble, pictures of her on a yacht off the Norwegian Coast in 2016, with Derispaska and a deputy Russian prime minister.
Russia's main opposition leader called it evidence of collusion, suggesting the two men could be heard discussing U.S.-Russian relations, links the Kremlin and figures in the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 presidential election, both deny any wrong doing.
The lawyer for Vashukevich says she's still a suspect in a prostitution case, and that travel restrictions have been imposed on her. But, for the moment, this master of self-promotion who found herself in the crosshairs of some of Russia's most powerful figures is no longer behind bars.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
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VAUSE: An American security consultant who's accused of spying in Russia has been denied bail and will stay behind bars until at least the end of the month. At a hearing on Tuesday, Paul Whelan's state- appointed lawyer said Whelan had been given a thumb drive shortly before he was arrested.
Whelan believed it contained vacation photos. Did not know, he says, it contained classified information. Whelan's family believes he's been set-up and he faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Well, soon to come here, she went in for a modeling job, but ended up trapped in a nightmare of sex slavery. Now, one woman isn't just speaking out about the terrifying experience she's taking it to the big screen in hopes of raising awareness. That's next, CNN NEWSROOM.
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[00:35:02] VAUSE: Now, the CNN's ongoing Freedom Project which highlights the epidemic of human trafficking around the world, and the latest U.N. report is warning this billion-dollar industry has taken on horrific dimensions, warning the number of victims is on the rise, while armed groups and terrorists are trafficking women and children to generate funds and recruit.
The report knows, globally, more victims are being found and more traffickers sent to jail, but at the same time, there's been a big increase in the number of children being bought and sold and far more girls are being trafficked than boys.
As shocking and as depressing as this report is, in many ways, it fits in with the perception most have of human trafficking, victims who actually are more vulnerable living in poverty and conflict zones. But, human trafficking is a crime which could happen in an up market part of London, and the victim could be a model, turned inspiring actress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FRIDA FARRELL, ACTRESS: Are you going to kill me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd never kill you. You're far too beautiful. Congratulations are in order. Your client is coming back in a few days.
FARRELL: Why are you doing this to me?
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VAUSE: It is part of the trailer from Apartment 407, based on the true story of actress, Frida Farrell, who wrote and stars in the movie, which has just had its worldwide release. And as part of this, Frida joins us now from Los Angeles. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for being with us.
FARRELL: Thank you for having me, John.
VAUSE: I want to start with the news from the U.N., firstly, about the search and the numbers of trafficking victims, as a survivor of the sex trade industry, as a survivor of someone who was kidnapped, that news must be especially disturbing.
FARRELL: Yes, it's very disturbing, the fact that it's rising and rising and rising and it never ends. So, we need to find an end to this, and I believe that education is one of them. We need to educate our youngsters and show them red flags and how not to get into it. It's a serious subject that is not talked about enough. So, I'm glad you're talking about it.
VAUSE: Which brings us to your movie, basically, because you didn't talk publicly about your ordeal for years, was there one moment, an incident, which, you know, made you decide that after 14 years, staying silent, was no longer an option?
FARRELL: It was no longer an option. We were making a film and I was basically talked into making a film about my own story, which I was hesitant about, since I hadn't told anyone at all. And going from telling zero people to telling the world, basically, felt very intimidating.
But I felt if I can do this, and instead of thinking about myself and my story, help other women either get over what happened to them or make sure they don't end up in the situation that I was in, then, my job is done and my -- and I'm, you know, using the film and my story for the right reasons.
VAUSE: So, for all of these years, there were so many people out there, people who are close to you those had no idea of this trauma you had gone through? You know, essentially, you were a young model, it was back in London, a guy approached you about, you know, what, a modeling job, and you kind of were a bit suspicious but you followed through on it and that's when you were taken at knife point, right?
FARRELL: Yes. I did go for a casting, in London. I was a student at the time. I just finished drama school. And I went for a casting, thinking, you know, it's good money and I had been modeling, so it wasn't something new to me. And then, he called me back and said the client loves you. Do you want to come back and do the job? And I was like, yes. I would love to. It's great money.
I went back to the same place and the same person opened the door and I stepped in to the place where, you know, the day before, had been people, fruit, coffee, tea, a backdrop, photographer, and today, nobody was there, it was dark, and cold, and I stepped in and he quickly locked the door behind me and pulled out a knife.
VAUSE: And you managed to get out after three days because of a slip up, right?
FARRELL: Yes, I did.
VAUSE: He left the door unlocked?
FARRELL: He did leave the door unlocked. And I was -- I consider myself one of the lucky ones because the escape rate right now is less than two percent.
VAUSE: Wow.
FARRELL: So, I'm really lucky.
VAUSE: Well, unlucky and lucky, I guess, all at the same time. You know, this is not an easy movie to watch, and that's how it should be. But here's one part which shows this terrible inverse power relationship which exists between the kidnapper and victim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like it if I don't have to do this again, OK? Slow, slow, slow. OK. OK. OK. There you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[00:40:00] VAUSE: How does it feel to watch that back and how do you describe that feeling of being totally helpless?
FARRELL: It actually makes my heart beat faster. Yes, it's hard to watch.
VAUSE: Yes.
FARRELL: It was very hard. It was hard to edit the film. It took years to edit because it was hard for me to watch the scenes over and over and over. It was hard enough to film it, but then to sit and watch everything again and again and again, it just -- I had to take years to do it.
VAUSE: You know, there's this feeling of being totally helpless and being powerless, and did you have that when you went to the police, after you escaped and you tried to report what had happened and they didn't believe you.
FARRELL: No, unfortunately. And I don't like to paint out the police in London --
VAUSE: Sure.
FARRELL: -- to be anything but good, because they are great, and they have changed the ways they are now, after --
VAUSE: This was 14 years ago, we should say, so -- but at the time, though.
FARRELL: Yes. Yes, at the time, I ended up with two young guys who -- it was in the evening and I walked in and I was telling them my story and they kind of, OK, let's come and sit in this room and talk about it. And I told them the whole story and then, they're like, well, did he force you in? Did he grab you? Was he physical and forced you in?
And I was, like, no, no, he didn't. I walked in on my own, but under false pretense, so I was trying to defend myself in the matter but I just -- it was hard as a woman, on my own, sitting there, trying to retell my story and then, I wasn't believed. I think that was a huge part of why I was silent for so long too. I was embarrassed and ashamed.
VAUSE: And we'll just finish up here for you, but the point is, though, things have changed. The police take a different approach now. But they take a different approach because people have spoken out like you, so --
FARRELL: Yes.
VAUSE: -- things are changing and hopefully they continue to change, especially, you know, in light of this movie, so thank you.
FARRELL: Thank you.
VAUSE: And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. "WORLD SPORT" is up after the break.
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[00:45:00] (WORLD SPORT)
