Prank call DJs “unlikely” to face charges for nurse’s suicide
Jacintha Saldanha was found dead days after taking a hoax call at a hospital where Kate Middleton was staying.
The two Australian DJs who made a prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated are "unlikely" to face charges in connection with the suicide of hospital nurse Jacintha Saldanha, Australian police say.
"There was some initial contact after the death of (nurse) Jacintha Saldanha but not a lot since and because of the passage of time we believe it is unlikely any charges will be laid," New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas told The Australian Daily Telegraph.
Kaldas added that UK officers had stopped asking for information about DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, and they are not scheduled to be formally questioned, BBC News reported. However, they are not totally in the clear yet, as other police officers are giving conflicting statements to the media.
More from GlobalPost: Family of Jacintha Saldanha did not know she was nurse in Kate Middleton hoax scandal
The Press Association reported that the Crown Prosecution has not decided yet if it will charge Greig and Christian. "It [the file] is still under consideration," a police spokesman said.
On December 4, the DJs made a prank call to a hospital where Kate Middleton was staying, pretending to be the Queen and Prince of Wales. They tricked nurse Jacintha Saldanha into transferring the call to a colleague, who then described Middleton's health in detail. Three days later, Saldanha was found hanged in her quarters, an apparent suicide. Many outraged people, including Saldanha's husband, blamed the DJs for Saldanha's suicide.
But it seems unlikely that the DJs are to blame. In letters written by Saldanha discovered after her death, she criticized the hospital staff for allegedly treating her poorly after the hoax call.
In addition, new reports say that Saldanha had a history of depression and had tried to kill herself twice before.