Daily Mail
Police may question Australian DJs over royal phone prank
Scotland Yard is understood to have been in contact with police in Australia as it emerged Mel Greig and Michael Christian had gone into hiding.
They are said to be receiving medical assistance amid growing fears for their ‘physical and emotional wellbeing’.
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This has become absurd.
Shy Guy on December 9, 2012 at 2:09 PM
The station will be sued and they will pay.
Schadenfreude on December 9, 2012 at 2:13 PM
Obviously we need to ban telephones and radio.
/Bob Costas
rbj on December 9, 2012 at 2:15 PM
The death of the nurse is a tragedy that is being compounded daily.
The prank was a stupid action by stupid people. With HUGE unintended consequences.
At the risk of sounding like a bitch, the DJ’s deserve whatever they get. Actions, even stupid ones, have consequences.
mjk on December 9, 2012 at 2:16 PM
Ban everything (is that a T-shirt yet?).
Ugly on December 9, 2012 at 2:18 PM
I guess it is.
Ugly on December 9, 2012 at 2:21 PM
Ban t-shirts!
Shy Guy on December 9, 2012 at 2:23 PM
If you were in a hospital and a radio station committed fraud in an attempt to obtain private information from you, you don’t think that is wrong and should be against the law?
Now, I read that they had their lawyers vet it before they aired it but still — you have the radio staff and a bunch of lawyers all accessing private medical info about you. It was an invasion of privacy and these aholes knew it. I hope that atty told them they should have never done it otherwise fire him.
Blake on December 9, 2012 at 2:31 PM
Of course. This is a really interesting confluence, or rather, disastrous collision, of the very public (Royal family) and the very private (suffering of a pregnant woman).
Paul-Cincy on December 9, 2012 at 2:39 PM
That article didn’t explain why the nurse committed suicide or what the prank call was about.
keep the change on December 9, 2012 at 2:51 PM
They have tried for the last 15 years to get the paparazzi who helped kill Diana and have not changed the culture. This stunt was a new form of paparazzi as before no one in Australia could get the phone number of a private hospital in London. If anything happens to the DJ’s in the criminal court system it will come right up to Blasphemy laws but civil law is still open but should be prevented as well.
tjexcite on December 9, 2012 at 2:51 PM
Maybe what they did was legal in the UK, but in the US you can’t by law have access to medical info without the patient’s permission. Obtaining that info by impersonating someone would seem to be some type of fraud.
juliesa on December 9, 2012 at 3:10 PM
As I said on another thread, at the very least it’s aholish to be pestering people in a hospital who probably have better things to do, like saving lives or dealing with worried relatives. Press should be afflicting the comfortable, not afflicting the afflicted. IMHO. I just think there are better targets for pranks, but I’m biased because I have an intense dislike for 90% of the media.
juliesa on December 9, 2012 at 3:22 PM
There’s no way they can be held liable for the suicide.
Impersonation of public figures with the intent to obtain private health data and making that private data public is a whole different matter.
lester on December 9, 2012 at 3:22 PM
Folks, here’s the prank call.
They never dreamed it would go so far.
Shy Guy on December 9, 2012 at 3:42 PM
It’s not their fault that woman killed herself.
What a horrible precedent to set.
Moesart on December 9, 2012 at 4:00 PM
Well, there is such a thing in tort law as an “eggshell plaintiff.” Stuff can go horribly, horribly wrong, especially with the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger playing in the background.
Seth Halpern on December 9, 2012 at 4:08 PM
Entering a leftist’s mind is entering the Twilight Zone, where giving people food-stamp and unemployment benefits is considered to be good for an economy, where massive public debt is considered to be irrelevant, where debt ceilings are considered to be harmful to fiscal responsibility and solvency, and where each of us is considered to be collectively guilty for the actions other individuals commit !
Anti-Control on December 9, 2012 at 4:19 PM
I guess there’s not much point in my asking Mel for a date now.
Seth Halpern on December 9, 2012 at 4:32 PM