Topics: Australia, Crime, Kate Middleton, Prince William, Royal Family, World News, Mental Health
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide some may find distressing.
The husband of a nurse who took her own life after taking an Australian radio prank call involving Kate Middleton previously said he could ‘not forgive’ the perpetrators.
Jacintha Saldanha was a 46-year-old night sister at the private King Edward VII hospital in London.
In December 2012, she was tricked into transferring the call to a colleague who then gave intimate details on the condition of her patient, the then-Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, who’d been admitted to the facility with morning sickness while pregnant with her first son, Prince George.
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Michael Christian and Melanie Greig were reportedly advised by producers working on Sydney’s 2Day FM radio station to pose as Queen Elizabeth II and the then-Prince of Wales, Charles, and ring the hospital to inquire about Kate’s condition.
Despite claims that the radio station made ‘at least five’ calls to the hospital to gain consent to air the prank call, permission was never seemingly granted for the conversation to be broadcast.
Nevertheless, the Australian station broke major protocol and aired the hoax call anyway, reportedly telling the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) at the time that they didn't think the nurse's voice would be identifiable.
Two days after the Kate Middleton prank call was aired, Saldanha was found dead in her nursing quarters.
It’s understood she left three handwritten notes, with one listing the royal radio hoax call as the reason for her death.
Months after the coroner’s office ruled Saldanha’s death a suicide, her grieving husband, Ben Barboza, said he couldn’t ever 'forgive' the Australian disk jockeys.
“I am just really angry, why did they do that? Just a matter of three or four seconds changed our whole life,” he said, as per The Guardian. “They were making some kind of mockery, saying: ‘OK, we fooled them.’ I can’t forgive the people who broadcast that.”
After hearing how his wife believed she bore responsibility for putting the hoax call through, Barboza added: “It was the humiliation she felt, and the guilt. I go over that in my mind, over and over. She didn’t want me to know, to share that humiliation.”
After the coroner’s ruling, the late nurse’s son, Junal, added: "Dad, my sister and myself miss our beloved mum every day, and will do so for the rest of our lives.”
William, then Duke of Cambridge, sent his condolences on behalf of himself and his wife in a letter dated New Year’s Day 2013, according to the outlet, where he said he thought the dire situation to be ‘unbelievably sad’; both he and Kate wanted to extend their ‘deepest condolences’.
Christian, who lost his job at the station earlier this year, has recently opened a lawsuit against 2Day FM radio station’s parent company, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA).
The lawsuit alleged the hoax call breached the Australian Communications and Media Authority code of practice and should never have been able to come to fruition.
It also claimed the prank call caused long-lasting damage to Christian's career and that he'd received death threats from listeners following the incident.
Christian, who claimed he was ‘made a scapegoat’, is seeking penalties and compensation for his potential earnings loss and damages now that he has left his post, alleging that his redundancy was ‘not genuine’.
Meanwhile, Greig, who left the station well before her former co-star, expressed understanding of Christian’s decision to sue while reiterating her sympathy for the Saldanha family.
She also called for reforms in how media companies support staff.
Tyla has reached out to Southern Cross Austereo for comment.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123.
