2Day FM: Same Station Behind Nurse Suicide Tricked 14-Year-Old Into Revealing Rape In 2009
December 7, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Earlier this week, on December 4, two hosts from Sydney’s 2Day FM radio station contrived a prank where they phoned the London hospital in which Kate Middleton had been staying and imitated members of the British royal family in order to elicit information from staff who happily transferred them to someone else who happily revealed confidential information.
The nurse who transferred the call has committed suicide three days later (incidentally, a statement from the hospital revealed that the nurse had not been punished for her mistake and the hospital bosses were standing behind their staff in support). The nurse who transferred the call is said to have felt “very lonely and confused” in the aftermath of the prank though, so the married mother-of-two killed herself.
Hosts Mel Greig and Michael Christian have since removed themselves from the airwaves, were subsequently fired, deleted their respective Twitter feeds that contained mostly hate mail, the station itself is preparing a statement and its feed is also full of hate mail.
Greig and Christian are reportedly “deeply shocked” that their prank was the catalyst for someone’s death.
Southern Cross Austereo, the company that owns the station, has released a statement saying, “SCA and 2Day FM are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII’s Hospital. SCA and the hosts have decided that they will not return to their radio show until further notice out of respect for what can only be described as a tragedy.”
In its reporting of the suicide, the BBC notes “Radio station 2Day FM has previously been in trouble… when a 14-year-old girl revealed on air that she had been raped.” It’s true, Sydney’s 2Day FM was in similar hot water in 2009 when another live on-air prank went wrong and they bullied a minor into revealing a rape that happened two-years prior.
Different hosts, the famed Kyle and Jackie O, questioned the 14-year-old girl live on air under the guise of a gag “lie detector” that was really encouraged by her own mother. Agitated when asked whether she’d had sex, the girl revealed that she had been raped age 12. The hosts minimised the sexual violence as a sexual experience and asked the girl: “Right… is that the only experience you’ve had?”
Kyle and Jackie O’s Lie Detector segment turned to disaster today when a 14-year-old girl [who had been] dragged on the 2Day FM radio show by her mother angrily revealed she had been raped.
The girl, who had been brought on to undergo a lie detector test about her mother’s concerns about her drug and sex experience, told Kyle Sandilands before the questions started: “I’m scared… it’s not fair.”
The mother told the presenters she was worried about her daughter’s use of drugs and partying, before going on to ask the teenager if she ever skipped school.
The mother then asked her daughter: “Have you ever had sex?”
The 14-year-old replied: “I’ve already told you the story about this and don’t look at me and smile because it’s not funny.” After a pause she then raised her voice and said: “Oh OK … I got raped when I was 12 years old.”
Sandilands hesitated before asking “Right… is that the only experience you’ve had?”
The girl’s mother interrupted, saying she found out about the rape only “a couple of months ago”.
Jackie O then said they would drop the lie detector test as they had been unaware of the rape incident.
An Australian Communications and Media Authority spokesman said it had received “several” phone calls and written letters of complaint about the segment. – via The Sydney Morning Herald.
The prank was criticised as “insensitive” and it required an investigation that was supported by the deputy prime minister. Also as a result of the prank, 2Day FM were the victims of a bomb threat made by someone who was angry about the lie detector incident.