“Hello, could I speak to Kate, please, baby girl?”
The hoax began like this, one morning in December 2012, when an Australian radio presenter decided to pose as Queen Elizabeth II at the Edward VII Hospital in London.
Its goal ?
Maliciously collecting information on the state of health of Kate Middleton, at the time pregnant with her first child, Prince George, and hospitalized due to severe nausea and vomiting.
“Could I speak to Kate, please, my little girl?”, asks, in a falsely quavering voice, presenter Mel Greig of radio 2Day FM Sydney, to an employee of the establishment.
On the other end of the line is a gullible nurse named Jacintha Saldanha.
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“When are you going to walk those damn corgis?”
This December 4, 2012, the employee is not suspicious.
“She’s sleeping right now and she had a good night.
His condition is stable for now.
She no longer gags,” she responds naively, adding that the queen can come to visit her “any time after 9 o’clock.”
Mel Greig acquiesces and pushes the vice a little further, pretending to speak to his son Prince Charles, aped by an accomplice, the host Michael Christian.
“But when are you going to decide to walk those damn corgis?”, she exclaims to muffled laughter and barking in the background.
A visibly successful imitation since the two Australian presenters are then directly put in touch with the department in charge of Kate, then Duchess of Cambridge.
In the United Kingdom, the dignity of the royal family is sacred and the affair, once revealed, causes a stir, shaking across the country.
Everyone points the finger at the ignorance and even stupidity of the 46-year-old nurse.
Especially since the Edouard VII hospital is renowned for its professionalism and its security measures regarding the privacy of its patients.
Three days later, under media pressure and intimidation, Jacintha Saldanha ended her life by hanging, in a private room in the hospital.
“It is with deep sadness that we can confirm the tragic death of Jacintha Saldanha, a member of our nursing staff,” the clinic said on December 7, 2012, in a press release relayed by the
Sunday Times
.
We can confirm that the nurse was recently the victim of a prank call at the hospital.
Although the employee had already attempted suicide twice in 2011 before being placed on antidepressants, an incriminating suicide note was found inches from her body.
“I apologize, I am truly sorry,” wrote the wife and mother of two.
I consider the two Australians on the radio responsible for this act.
Please ask them to pay my housing loan.
I'm sorry.
Jacintha.
Her eldest, Lisha, aged 14, said several days later, on Facebook, with a simple and moving word: “I miss you, mom.”
“The heart in pieces”
Shortly after the tragedy, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, ousted from Australian radio 2Day FM Sydney after an investigation by the British public prosecutor, publicly repented in an interview given to the program
A Current Affair
broadcast on Nine Network.
“Broken, disgusted, hearts in pieces,” they declare in unison to describe their feelings about the nurse’s suicide.
And Mel Greig, the false Elizabeth II, declared with a face full of tears, thinking back to the words of the deceased's daughter: “I've thought about it a million times.
I would like to see them (
his children, Editor's note
), hold them in my arms and tell them how sorry I am.
(...) Not a second goes by without us thinking about her family and what they are going through.
The idea that we could be responsible for this is simply unbearable.”
Apologies reiterated two years later, on Friday September 12, 2014 in the Superior Court of London, at the end of the investigation.
“To all my fellow presenters, I implore you, take into account the feelings of others when you try to make a joke,” urged the Australian presenter.
However, taking into account the victim's fragile health at the time of the incident, the British public prosecutor's office declined to initiate proceedings against the two accused, explaining that "even if it was inappropriate, the telephone call was intended to be harmless."
Very saddened by this affair, Prince William himself wrote a letter to the nurse's family, revealed at the time of the trial by the
Daily Mail
.
“Jacintha and her colleagues took care of us extremely well and I am so sorry that someone who cared so much for others found themselves in such a desperate situation,” he wrote then, as a final support.