A director from Northwood cast his entire family in his action roller coaster, a film about human trafficking and kidnap.

Stuart St Paul, from Mount View, gave out roles to his wife, daughter and son in “Freight”, which follows a man fighting the European gang who kidnapped his daughter and has just been released on DVD.

The story, which Mr St Paul both wrote and directed, centres around a gang who kidnap Gabe Taylor's daughter, who discovers an underground ring of human traffickers.

He said: “I don’t find writing scripts difficult, it’s getting them right afterwards that’s hard. Screenwriting is all about the rewriting; I think if you master that, you have cracked it.

“Producing and directing is the hard one, knowing it is my own money, I have a schedule and a budget and a bunch of guys looking at the watches with their fingers on the light switches. That is stress.

“But I say it how I see it, and I am not there to make friends. I am there to make a movie. It is a job that no one forgives you for getting wrong or accepting second best, so I don’t.”

The film needed a family, and who better to fill the roles than Mr St Paul's family of actors, wife Jean Heard, daughter Laura Aikman, and son Luke Aikman.

Mr St Paul said he was inspired to tackle the subject of human trafficking after watching Michael Palin exploring Eastern Europe on television.

Despite initial trepidation from the UK film industry, Freight has won awards for Best Actor and Best Director in the USA, and a Silver Palm for excellence in film making in Mexico.

Mr St Paul said: “There is rarely help from film bodies over such blatantly commercial films and action films are never recognised at international festivals as they are not 'art'.

“It is not a movie where you can leave the room, it is a roller coaster, with much stronger female stories.

“If you are going to give two or three years of your life, mortgage your house and invest your family's money, then you have to know you are making a film you care about and one that will give you sales to get your money back”.

Mr St Paul initially trained with the BBC as a DJ and broadcaster, presenting a breakfast show on Metro in Newcastle.

He later moved into directing, and designed action sequences for television, including the infamous plane crash in Emmerdale.

It was his close colleague Martin Campbell at Emmerdale who convinced Mr St Paul to make Freight, having previously directed two films, The Scarlet Tunic and Devil's Gate.