'Shattered, gutted and heartbroken': Tears of Australian DJ as hoaxers go public for the first time after 'suicide' of nurse at Kate hospital...

'Heartbroken': DJ Mel Greig broke her silence for the first time today in a tearful interview following the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha...

Hello Friends!

With tears streaming down her face, radio DJ Mel Greig told for the first time early today of her horror at hearing the news that a nurse had committed suicide days after her prank call.

The pair described themselves as 'shattered, gutted, heartbroken' in an emotionally-charged interview due to be shown in full on Australian TV later this morning.

'The first thing I asked was: "Was she a mother?"' Miss Greig said in an interview she and co-host Michael Christian gave to television presenter Clare Brady in Sydney.

Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, was found dead on Friday morning – 48 hours after the broadcast of an early-morning prank call in which Miss Greig and Michael Christian, two Australian DJs, posed as the Queen and Prince of Wales.

Prank: DJ Michael Christian spoke out in an emotionally charged interview in Sydney...

The DJs - who were not paid for today's interview - were attempting to reach the Duchess of Cambridge, who was admitted to hospital with severe morning sickness after it was revealed she was pregnant.

'We want to say that we are thinking of you and if we could call you we would want to reach out to you'

DJ Mel Greig when asked about contacting Jacintha Saldanha's family

Mrs Saldanha put the call through to Kate’s ward at the King Edward VII Hospital in central London, where an unnamed colleague gave details of the duchess’s treatment for severe morning sickness.

The pair said they believed they would never get past the switchboard and wanted to be hung up on. Instead, to their absolute astonishment, they fooled experienced nurse Jancintha Saldanha into putting them through to the nurse treating the Duchess of Cambridge.

In a partial transcript of the duo's pre-recorded interview with A Current Affair, screening on Australian television shortly, a tearful Mel Greig, who impersonated the Queen in the prank call, said: 'I've thought about it a million times. I want to reach out to them and just give them a big hug and say "Sorry".'

'I hope they're OK. I really do.'

Mr Christian said he hoped Ms Saldanha's family get the love, support and care that they need.

The pair escaped a tough grilling, with interviewer Clare Brady questioning them in a relatively soft and sympathetic fashion.

At one point she said to Miss Greig: 'I feel in you Mel, that you're all but frozen, is that correct?' 

Ms Brady wound up the interview by telling the pair: 'You've been very brave for talking and I just hope that people are caring for you guys too.'

Miss Greig was shown in a brief preview clip with her mascara running down her face as she tearfully recounted the events that have resulted in her and Christian being inundated with savage comments about their behaviour.

They are both receiving counselling in case they attempt self harm.

Greig added that hearing of the nurse's death 'was the worst phone call I have had in my life.' 

The boss of the radio station said today that his staff had tried to call King Edward VII Hospital five times before the prank was aired.

Rhys Holleran, chief executive officer of Austereo, said his team had attempted to contact the hospital to discuss what had been recorded before it went out on the radio.

Hoax: Michael Christian and Mel Greig made a prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for morning sickness...

Missed: Jacintha Saldanha pictured with her husband Ben Barboza...

Miss Greig went on to say: 'There is not a minute that goes by where we don't think about her [Mrs Saldanha's] family and what they must be going through. 

'The thought that we may have played a part in that is gut wrenching.'

She said phoning the hospital was such a silly idea and not for a second did they expect to speak to Kate or anyone else at the hospital.

It was revealed today that the family of the tragic nurse believe she died of shame.

'

'There’s no malice in the call. There was no digging. There was no trying to upset or get a reaction'

DJ Michael Christian in an interview today

Mrs Saldanha’s brother Naveen told the Daily Mail that his devoutly Catholic sister was a ‘proper and righteous person’.

She would have been ‘devastated’ at unwittingly assisting a colleague in breaching medical confidentiality over the condition of the Duchess of Cambridge.

‘She would have felt much shame about the incident,’ he said.

A recording of the conversation with Mrs Saldanha was broadcast on the 2Day FM station with the DJs gleefully boasting about their successful hoax.

Yesterday they were in hiding as the worldwide backlash against their action grew.

'A proper and righteous person': Jacintha Saldanha was a devout Catholic.

Mrs Saldanha, whose husband Benedict Barboza is an NHS accountant, moved to the UK ten years ago from Mangalore in south-west India.

In Mangalore yesterday, her sister-in-law Celine Barboza said the family could not understand what had caused the ‘strong’ mother of two apparently to end her life.

‘We just cannot believe what has happened,’ she said.

‘She was a very strong person and couldn’t have taken this drastic step easily. We would like to get an answer.’

Another sister-in-law, Irene Barboza, said: ‘She used to call us very regularly and was like our fourth sister.

'But she told no one in the family about the prank call that has been blamed for driving her to suicide.’

The nurse’s 49-year-old husband said he was ‘devastated’ by her death while her 14-year-daughter Lisha posted on Facebook ‘I miss you. I love you.’

They and her 16-year-old son Junal were said to be ‘shocked and inconsolable’. The family live in Southmead, Bristol, and Mrs Saldanha stayed in nurses’ quarters in London during her shifts at the hospital.

Her mother-in-law, 85-year-old Carmine Barboza, wept as she told of the moment she heard of Mrs Saldanha’s death from her son.

‘He was crying and couldn’t speak much,’ she said.

'I don’t think that anyone could have predicted what could’ve happened. It was just a tragic set of circumstances'

DJ Michael Christian

 

‘I want to know about the circumstances of her death and nobody is giving me an answer. She used to stay at the nurses’ quarters and go home to be with her children on

her days off, so now I don’t know who will look after my grandchildren.’ 

She added that the family were desperate to bring Mrs Saldanha’s body back to India to perform the last rites in the Catholic tradition.

‘Nobody is telling me any information about her and whether her body is being brought to India.’

A neighbour said: ‘What these Australian guys did is not acceptable. Their prank has killed our beloved Jacintha. Her death should be blamed on them.'

RADIO STATION TRIED TO CONTACT HOSPITAL BEFORE HOAX WENT TO AIR

By Richard Shears

The boss of the radio station which made the royal hoax call said early today that his staff had tried to call the hospital five times before the prank was put to air.

Mr Rhys Holleran, chief executive officer of Austereo, said his team had attempted to liaise with King Edward VII Hospital before the bogus royal call was played on Australia radio.

Under broadcasting rules in Australia, the permission of anyone ‘caught’ in a radio prank must be sought before the call can be put to air.

‘We rang them up to discuss what we had recorded – absolutely (before it went to air).

‘We attempted to contact them on five occasions because we wanted to speak to them about it,’ said Mr Holleran.

‘It is absolutely true to say that we did attempt to contact those people,’ he told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

He added that he believed his radio station staff had carried out the appropriate level of duty while performing the prank.

He did not say why the recording still went to air when they had failed to contact anyone at the hospital to discuss the prank call.

‘This is a deeply tragic, unforeseen circumstance,’ he said.

‘We’re deeply saddened by the events. This is an incredibly tragedy, there’s no getting away from that.

‘When anything’s done, it’s done in a collaborative sense. Our people are very well trained’

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has begun an investigation into the prank and the furore that has followed in the wake of the apparent suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha.

‘She must have been embarrassed and under a lot of mental trauma because of those two people, otherwise she wouldn’t have taken such an extreme step of killing herself.’

After visiting Mrs Saldanha’s family at their home, MP Keith Vaz said a memorial service was being planned for next week and the King Edward VII Hospital had set up a memorial fund in her name.

Although she was not blamed in any way for what happened, friends said Mrs Saldanha ‘took it very badly’ and was extremely ‘ traumatized’.

Described as popular, quiet and ‘profoundly caring’, she is said to have made clear to her family the depth of her anxiety when the prank was broadcast.

The hospital’s chairman, Lord Glenarthur, has accused Sydney-based 2Day FM of ‘humiliating two dedicated and caring nurses’ and demanded that it review its editorial guidelines. 

The station’s chairman, Max Moore-Wilton, described the events of the past few days as ‘tragic’, but added: ‘As we have said in our own statements, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable.’

Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister, described the incident as a ‘terrible tragedy’.

The hospital has repeatedly stressed that Mrs Saldanha did not face any disciplinary action and it ‘was working hard to support her’ but the feeling that she had unintentionally broken the hospital rules, bringing shame on her and her employer, may well have pushed her into taking desperate action. 

Her fellow victim of the prank, who has not been named, is also said to have been ‘incredibly upset’.

Yesterday a special Mass was said at St Vincent de Paul Presbytery in Southmead, just 200 yards from Mrs Saldanha’s home

Father Tom Finnegan said: ‘She was a very caring wife, a very loving mother and a gentle friend and neighbour who regularly attended church here.

‘People are saddened – it is still all very raw. She was well known and well liked in the community and she will be a loss. She felt especially privileged to work in the hospital in London – everyone is deeply shocked and saddened.’

'IT WAS MEANT TO BE A SILLY LITTLE PRANK': FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Reporter Clare Brady: 'Considering what we’re about to discuss … do you feel emotionally stable to do this interview?'

Michael: 'Yes'

Mel: 'Yes'

Clare: 'When you heard the dreadful results following the days after the prank, describe for me how you felt.'

Mel: 'Unfortunately I remember that moment very well because I haven’t stopped thinking about it since it happened and I remember my first question was "was she a mother?"'

Clare: 'When you found out she was, of two children, how did you feel?'

Mel: 'Very sorry and saddened for the family. I can’t imagine what they’d be going through.'

Michael: 'Gutted. Shattered. Heartbroken.'

Clare: 'Does it feel real to you?'

Michael: 'We’re still trying to get our heads around everything. Trying to make sense of the situation.'

Mel: 'It doesn’t seem real because you just couldn’t foresee something like that happening from a prank call. You know it was never meant to go that far. It was meant to be a silly little prank that so many people have done before. This wasn’t meant to happen.'

Clare: 'In hindsight, would you do something like that again?'

Michael: 'I don’t think that anyone could have predicted what could’ve happened. It was just a tragic set of circumstances that I don’t think anyone could have thought that we’d be here.'

Clare: 'Who came up with the idea of the prank?'

Michael: 'It was just in a team meeting before the show.'

Mel: 'Everything’s done as a team.'

Clare: 'Did you have legal advice or senior producers nursing you through this?'

Michael: 'The call to begin with wasn’t about speaking to Kate. It wasn’t about trying to get a scoop or anything. The call was just – I mean we’d assumed that we’d be hung up on and that’d be that.'

Clare: 'When you weren’t hung up on and, let’s be honest, you thought it was a coup at the time, were you quite shocked that you even got that far to talk to the nurse beside Princess Kate?'

Mel: 'Absolutely. And the accents were terrible. You know it was designed to be stupid. We were never meant to get that far from the little corgies barking in the background – we obviously wanted it to be a joke.'

Michael: 'And I suppose, you know the joke  was always on us, not anyone else. It wasn’t about trying to fool someone. I mean we just assumed that with the voices that we put on, you know, we were going to get told off and that was the gag – in us.'

Clare: 'Here at the station, at Austereo, do you get any coaching, any training at all as to what you’re allowed to put to air? What you’ve got to tell people on when they’re being recorded and they’re going to be put on air? Have you been taught that during your tenure here?

Michael: 'This phonecall is the same with any phonecall, with any prerecorded segment that goes to air, there’s processes in place and people that make those decisions. I mean our role is just …'

Clare: 'Have you been taught that – sat down in a legal class? (Interrupting)'

Michael: 'There are people that make those decisions for us. Our responsibility is just to…'
Clare: (Interrupting) Did someone listen to that recording and say?'

Mel: (Interrupting) 'It went through the processes of every other recorded bit that we do – from interviews to you know anything at all that gets recorded and passed on to the appropriate people, goes through the process, and we’re told whether it’s yes or no to play.'

Clare: 'What was it, if you can give me a rough, and it probably feels all blurry to you, but the time spent from when you did that call to putting it to air? Was it two hours, three hours?'

Michael: 'In between all of that though it wasn’t as though we were sitting around waiting for an answer. You know there was …'
Mel: 'We go about our work and just keep going.'

Michael: 'Getting other things organised.'

Clare: 'But you were pretty giddy with what you’d pulled off, weren’t you?'

Mel: 'We couldn’t believe that it had worked, absolutely. You didn’t expect it to. We thought a hundred people before us would’ve tried the same thing. We just did not see that actually working.'

Michael: 'But it wasn’t to get something that no one else had. It wasn’t about getting'

Clare: 'But you are aware you were trying to get a medical condition and a medical condition on a Royal?'

Mel: 'But we didn’t actually want that. We just wanted to be hung up on. We wanted to be hung up on with our silly voices and wanted a twenty second segment to air of us doing stupid voices.'

Clare: 'You didn’t think of identifying yourselves at the end of that call?'

Mel: 'That’s where the process comes in. We just record everything and pass it to the team. That’s what we do.'

Michael: 'And again the call itself is – there’s no malice in the call. There was no digging. There was no trying to upset or get a reaction.'

Clare: 'Do you feel now that you’re part of a witch hunt? That someone wants someone to pay here? There’s hackers here threatening to shut down the station and hack into the whole system if you guys aren’t sacked. Does that make you feel vulnerable?'

Mel: 'There’s nothing that can make me feel worse than what I feel right now. And for what I feel for the family. We’re so sorry that this has happened to them.' (Crying)

Clare: 'How do you move on? Is someone caring for you guys? Are you having counseling too?'

Michael: 'We’re getting the support that we need and we’ve got those around us that are helping us but you know, right now …'

Mel: 'I care more about the family. I want to know that they’ve got the support that they need and that the public are, you know, being respectful of their privacy.”

Clare: 'Have you tried to contact the family in any way?'

Mel: 'I don’t think it’s an appropriate time to do that yet. But this is where we want to say that we are thinking of you and if we could call you we would want to reach out to you.'

Clare: 'Or if you could turn the clock back?'

Mel: 'If we played any involvement in her death then we’re very sorry for that. And time will only tell.'

Clare: Have you been reading a lot Mel?

Mel: 'I’ve been advised not to but I’m doing it on the intention of finding out more about Jacintha.'

Clare: 'What lessons can other DJs, and worldwide, learn from your horrible experience?'

Michael: 'These are prank calls. They’ve been around for as long as radio’s existed and they’re done by every radio station.'

Clare: 'But this result is just horrific..'

Michael: 'But no one could have predicted this result.'

Clare: 'What are you guys going to do then? Are you going to pursue your DJ careers?'

Mel: 'I don’t want to think about that right now. There’s bigger, more pressing issues and that’s making sure that family gets through this tough time. You know our careers aren’t important at the moment.'

Clare: 'That Scotland Yard is now involved, and you may be called to an inquest, and that inquest will probably be in London and you’ll see the family face to face – are you prepared for that?'

Michael: 'Right now we’re trying to wrap our heads around what’s happened.'

Mel: 'If that’s going to make them feel better then I’ll do what I need to do, absolutely. If that’s something that they want to do, to get some closure, then I’ll do that.'

Clare: 'You have had a lot of support. There’s a poll out today of 11000 people and two thirds have said they feel you’re not to blame for this horrible result. And then you’ve got the other side of horrible Twitter saying "many lives ruined", "shame on you", "you’ve got blood on your hands". How do you balance that – the support and the absolute hostility?'

Michael: 'I think that, you know, what’s important right now is you know, that the family of Jacintha are getting the support and the love that they deserve. And I mean that’s what’s important here. You know, it was, it is nothing more than a tragic turn of events that no one could have predicted and, you know, for the part that we played, we’re obviously incredibly sorry and you know …'

Clare: 'I feel in you Mel that you’re all but frozen, is that correct?'

Mel: 'I’m just so devastated for them. I’m really feeling for them.'

Clare: 'It’s a shocking turn of events.'

Mel: 'I just couldn’t … If we had any idea that something like this could be even possible to happen, you know, we couldn’t see this happening. It was meant to be a prank call.'

Clare: 'Do you feel sick now that you were saying ‘this is the highlight of my career’ and you were excited about getting the call through, to get to this moment?'

Mel: 'We couldn’t foresee what was going to happen in the future.'

Clare: 'When you did call them and you were talking – first to Jacintha and then the second nurse – did you think in the days after ‘oh those poor nurses, wonder how they’re feeling’? Because I know I did, but I’m an overly cautious person – I think everything through and through and through. Did you think for them at all, or were you just in that giddy sense?'

Michael: 'The call itself was not malicious and no harm was intended on Jacintha, or the other nurse, or Kate, or Prince William, or anyone. It wasn’t – from start to finish – there was no harm intended. And obviously, you know, we’re incredibly sorry for the harm that we may have helped contribute (to).'

Clare: 'You’ve been very brave for talking and I just hope that people are caring for you guys too, because it’s going to take (a lot). I feel for two DJs who like to put a few smiles on faces and it’ll be a while before we hear the two of you laugh.'

Michael: 'Thank you.'

A victim of today's culture of casual cruelty

By BEL MOONEY

Of course, no harm was intended. Of course, it was just meant to be a harmless prank. But surely there is an important lesson for us all in the very sad affair of the hoax Aussie phone call.

The consequences for everybody involved – from the distressed royal couple, to the shocked and hounded Australian DJs, and most of all to the tragic nurse Jacintha Saldanha and her family – are a reminder that every thoughtless prank has a victim and that nobody can predict how a vulnerable individual will react to what somebody else thinks of as ‘a bit of fun’.

Cheeky, high-spirited Australian DJ Michael Christian thought it a great wheeze to try to talk to the Duchess of Cambridge’s medical team on the telephone, even though he knew she had been taken into hospital suffering from acute morning sickness early in her pregnancy.

Tragedy: Jacintha Saldanha transferred a prank call from two Australian DJs who found out intimate details about Prince William's wife Kate Middleton who was staying at the hospital suffering from morning sickness

The first sign of unthinking cruelty comes right there. His female co-host Mel Greig thought this would be ‘awesome’. That, in turn, shows a very modern take on the word ‘awe’ – which correctly implies respect as well as wonder. Never mind the ethics or legality of the broadcast, there was no respect for anybody’s feelings in this sorry incident; no hint of decency or basic human compassion.

Now that an innocent woman is dead, her family bereaved and bewildered, and the whole world knows the story – the thoughtless joke doesn’t seem funny at all, least of all to the shamed perpetrators.

To me, it never was. From the moment I heard their silly, adolescent giggles and the poor nurses’ polite replies, I saw the prank as another example of the casual, tacky, thoughtless cruelty that has infected popular culture like a plague – on radio, on television and increasingly on Twitter and other social media outlets.

Had Jacintha Saldanha not succumbed to shame and misery (and we have no way of knowing what else was happening in her life) I would always despise the notion that it’s acceptable to call a hospital to invade the privacy of any patient, let alone an expectant young mother in

distress. What on Earth have we come to?

Let’s be very clear. The King Edward VII Hospital should have had a protocol so securely in place it would have been impossible for this to happen.

The fact that Jacintha Saldanha was not a native English speaker would have made it less likely that she would pick up the hopeless accents used by Greig and Christian, but in any case there should always be a system of checks and balances, and all the more so when the patient is high-profile.

It is true, also, that the two DJs – who have now gone into hiding after being subjected to a barrage of vilification just as nasty as their original stunt – couldn’t possibly have predicted that their trick would lead to the death of a good woman who felt (no matter how irrationally) responsible for letting her hospital and colleagues down. Call them callow, stupid, irreverent, if you like, but they were not wicked.

Yet while this tragedy was not foreseeable, it was avoidable. For surely an incident like this has been waiting to happen.

The Victorians paid to gawp at people with deformities and disabilities; in our day TV turned the freak show into an even more popular form of entertainment, taking cruelty and mockery right into people’s sitting rooms, whether through hidden camera shows that made the likes of Jeremy Beadle and Dom Joly into household names or in the routine humiliations meted out to (often mentally fragile) contestants on Big Brother or I’m A Celebrity.

That very familiarity means that broadcasters have felt the need to be ever more sensational, to court controversy, to ‘up the ante’ all the time, regardless of the potential consequences.

Patrol: Police officers outside King Edward VII hospital in London

Those two DJs were willing and able to indulge in the bullying of an unsuspecting victim because exploiting the naivety of innocent victims is now the accepted dialect of light entertainment right across the world.

Before you blame the crass taste of Aussie presenters, remember it was only weeks ago that ITV set up a stunt on I’m a Celebrity in which the actress Charlie Brooks was left weeping after she was denied the right to see her seven-year-old daughter for failing to win a jungle challenge, as the little girl hid behind a set door.

The truth is, we have become so inured to a culture of hard-edged cleverness that it wouldn’t have occurred to Mel Greig or Michael Christian to stop, to think for a moment – and feel shamed – any more than it occurred to ITV that it was wrong to exploit a seven-year-old’s distress to chase ratings. 

At least Charlie Brooks must have signed a consent form at some stage. Not so Jacintha Saldanha. Why then did the radio station’s lawyers allow the tapes to be broadcast? For the very same reason that the BBC turned a blind eye to the crude phone call made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to Andrew Sachs, sniggering about his granddaughter’s sex life. Because no single executive had the taste, judgment or maturity to realise that this was totally unacceptable behaviour. Nobody, from the immature broadcasters to the worldly men and women in charge, had the wisdom or decency to say: ‘Hang on, this isn’t funny, it’s wrong.’

Thus casual cruelty is dished up as prime-time entertainment with as much callous indifference as the Romans showed to the Christians and lions fighting to the death in their arenas.

What’s more, it’s getting worse, as new media challenges the old for an audience. Sometimes Twitter seems as brutal as a bearpit, as trolls seek out their prey to persecute. And unlike the mainstream media, the internet has given bullies the cloak of anonymity to hide behind.

Scrum: John Lofthouse, right, the Chief Executive of King Edward VII hospital and Lord Glenarthur, second right, the hospital's Chairman, deliver a statement to the media outside the hospital following the death of the nurse

No wonder Michael Christian and Mel Greig rushed in to pull a stunt which actually resulted in a vulnerable woman, hitherto proud of her professional standards, being the brunt of hilarity all around the world. In a crowded market, they wanted to stand out; to make a name for themselves. And oh, how they bragged about their little coup over the ensuing days, until horror intruded on their glee.

The public must take its share of blame too. For how many of those people who have tweeted their outrage, accusing the pair of having ‘blood on their hands’ (and worse) had a good laugh when they first heard the ludicrous faux-Brit accents?

It is simply not enough to shrug the shoulders and say: ‘Well, no one could have seen it ending in suicide.’

The Law of Unintended Consequences is known to sociologists and economists and used as a warning that (to quote one definition) ‘an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes’. Yes, indeed.

In this dreadful story the ‘intervention’ was just another example of the shameless rush to sensationalism that has trivialised modern broadcasting in all its forms – that amoral belief that ‘anything goes’ which disguises the humiliation of others as light-hearted fun.

The ‘complex system’ is the human personality, which is always unpredictable, always vulnerable. And the terrible ‘undesirable outcome’ was the unnecessary death of an innocent woman, who would almost certainly be alive today if those who should have known better had shown restraint.

See Video Link Below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245294/Jacintha-Saldanha-Nurses-teenage-daughter-reveals-devastation-mothers-death.html

Culled from The Daily Mail UK.

xoxo

Simply Cheska...