LONDON/SYDNEY: Britain reacted with horror yesterday at the presumed suicide of a nurse who was the victim of a hoax call to the hospital treating Prince William’s wife Catherine, as a post-mortem was scheduled for next week.
Tributes to Jacintha Saldanha were placed outside the nurses’ accommodation block where her body was discovered on Friday, triggering a wave of anger directed at the two Australian radio hosts behind the prank.
While media reports referred to the nurse’s death as a suspected suicide, police are treating it as unexplained at this stage, although the circumstances were not thought to be suspicious.
Scotland Yard police headquarters said Saturday that a post-mortem would take place next week.
Saldanha answered the phone earlier this week when presenters from Sydney’s 2Day FM called King Edward VII’s Hospital in central London, impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and William’s father Prince Charles.
She passed the call onto a colleague who divulged details of Catherine’s acute morning sickness.
All Britain’s national papers put the nurse’s death on their front page and several carried angry Internet outbursts aimed at the radio presenters, who were pulled off the air yesterday.
In its editorial, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper The Sun said the death was “heartbreaking and bewildering”, and a “needless tragedy,” asking how a foolish prank could end in an apparent suicide.
“No doubt she was distraught at unwittingly embarrassing the royals and her employers,” it said.
“We can only guess at the inner torment of Jacintha, who after years of loyal professionalism suddenly found herself in trouble for something that was not her fault.”
The widespread shock at the nurse’s death is a sharp contrast with the excitement that greeted the announcement of a new royal heir this week. William and Kate’s first child will be third in line to the throne.
Meanwhile, the two Australian radio presenters who made the hoax call to the hospital treating Prince William’s pregnant wife Catherine were taken off the air yesterday.
News of the death had prompted a furious outpouring against the radio station and the two presenters involved, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who are said to be “deeply shocked” by the turn of events.
“It’s fair to say they are completely shattered,” Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo which owns 2Day FM, said of the pair who had only been presenting together for a couple of weeks.
Holleran said the station and the hosts had decided that their show will not return “until further notice out of respect of what can only be described as a tragedy.”
The widespread shock at the nurse’s death is a sharp contrast with the excitement that greeted the announcement of a new royal heir this week. William and Kate’s first child will be third in line to the British throne.