D.J.’s in Prank Call Over Royals Forced Into Hiding

Quoting an unnamed person at 2DayFM, the Australian radio station where the two D.J.’s work, The Daily Mail said that they were under the protection of security guards and “could be in hiding for months due to ongoing fears for their safety.”

They have been taken off the air indefinitely.

Meanwhile, at the opening of the inquest into the episode, it emerged Thursday that the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, 46, had hanged herself in the nurses’ quarters of the King Edward VII hospital last Friday, three days after the prank call. The police said that she also had marks on her wrists and that she had left behind three notes — one that was among her belongings, and two that were found near her body.

They did not say what was in the notes, but The Guardian reported that one was addressed to the hospital and that it was critical of staff members there. According to the newspaper, one of the other notes dealt with the hoax call; the third was about funeral arrangements.

Ms. Saldanha’s death came after the D.J.’s, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, somehow fooled her and another nurse on duty at the hospital into thinking that they were Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.

The pair made the call at 5:30 a.m.; Ms. Saldanha took the initial call and then transferred it to the second nurse.

The name of the second nurse, who was working on the ward where the duchess, the former Kate Middleton, had been admitted with acute morning sickness, has not been released.

But despite the D.J.’s poor accents and rude, unroyal chatter, she was also taken in by the ruse, according to the tape that was played on the radio station and then disseminated across the Internet.

Although none of the details the nurse revealed were particularly humiliating — she said that the duchess was sleeping, had successfully been given fluids and had not been “retching” — the episode was an acute embarrassment for the hospital, long a favorite with the discretion-seeking royal family.

At first, Ms. Greig and Mr. Christian and the station bragged about the hoax on outlets like Twitter.

But after Ms. Saldanha’s suicide, they became hated figures, with commenters on social media sites saying they should be charged with murder.

Interviewed on Australian television, they apologized for the episode, and Mr. Christian said he was “gutted” and “shattered” by what had happened.

At the inquest, the police said that Ms. Saldanha, who had two teenage children and commuted home to Bristol on weekends to see them and her husband, had also sent a number of e-mails and made telephone calls that might shed light on what led her to kill herself.

It was unclear whether her husband, an accountant, or her children had been aware of her role in the hoax in the days before her death.

The hospital says it did not reprimand Ms. Saldanha, but rather provided “support” to her and the other nurse.

Keith Vaz, a Labour member of Parliament who has emerged as a spokesman for Ms. Saldanha’s family, has asked the hospital to provide them with “the full facts, from the time she took the call from 2DayFM to the time she was found in her accommodation.”

He told reporters that the family was waiting to hear the hospital’s response to a list of questions about the episode.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/europe/djs-in-prank-call-over-royals-forced-into-hiding.html?partner=rss&emc=rss