Maybe in the nurses mind it was a serious matter of honour:from humble beginnings she comes to a point where she is looking after, among others ,sick members of the monarchy and she is
ashamed beyond what we can comprehend , however minor the part.. And she was doing this at a considerable distance away from her family. Maybe she felt that she had dishonored her employers, her patients , her family . Or maybe she was furious with the australians who rang the hospital and made her look like a fool and her death was meant to draw attention to her plight.

If this is the case she stood for something far more honorable than any DJ of the sort we are discussing will ever understand.

I’ m not a lawyer , but laws are there in part to protect all parties are they not ?

If the Acma code of conduct and the telecommunications act are not there to protect all parties from just this kind of case then what are they there for ? On the evidence so far , if the radio station had followed the rules and protocols and followed the lessons of the past ,nobody would be in the dock of public opinion .

So , If I breach that law ,am Iresponsible for the consequences whatever they might be whether I intended them or not ?

And what has absence of malice also offered as a defence got to do with avoiding responsibility ? With some exceptions , doctors do not maliciously injure their patients but are succesfully sued for negligence anyway .

My prediction : nothing will change

Oh SB

Seriously, specific incitement to violence by Jones is equal to the federal government creating a rebate, that businesses could profit from (whilst providing a service) that some shonks, acting illegally regarding state laws, put people in dangerous situations (for which there is training regarding acting safely) that ended in workplace related deaths.

These are the same thing?

Seriously?

On that basis then, do we prosecute Garrett, Rudd and Gillard for the deaths of the 4 young men doing roof insulation during the failed Labor program

Whoever made the executive decision to release the recording is accountable for this death(if the coroner finds the nurse did in fact take her own life). How devastated she must have felt to see death as the only solution.

Clearly anyone prepared to suicide over something as insignificant as a minor role in a prank phone call was already on a hair trigger with far more serious issues in their lives.

If the presenters or the station had been deliberately targeting her for pranks over an extended period of time, I can see how it might be reasonable to apportion them some of the blame.

However, to charge some random person who was the final straw, simply unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to break the camel’s back, is absurd.

In any case the 2Day FM presenters have a water tight defence. Prince Charles gave it to them the day after and the day before the lady took her life.

Whoever made the executive decision to release the recording is accountable for this death(if the coroner finds the nurse did in fact take her own life). How devastated she must have felt to see death as the only solution.

I watched the interview on ACA tonight and it was clear the two hosts were traumatised and deeply remorseful. However, this does not change the facts.

Accountability I believe rests with the person/s who agreed to release the recording into the public arena.

If the death is a verified suicide and it was my relative, I would seek justice in a court of law and want manslaughter charges laid against the radio stations management to be used as a precedent.

On a final note, over the last few days, I’ve read, viewed and listened to media reports and I get the feeling there is a subculture of media protecting their own. Interesting when Police are accused of the same type of mentality by the media… an unavoidable human trait?

* It has not been established that the British press is any worse than the Australian subspecies. This is because this country has not run an independent (as far as can be) inquiry along the lines of Leveson. This is because the people who purport to run the place (state and federal governments) and those who actually run do (mass media owners, big business, MNCs) have too much self-interest (the latter) or in the case of the former are too spineless to challenge the hegemony of the latter.

Really? Imagine how funny (?) it would have been and what an almighty laugh (?) everybody could’ve shared had it been a prank call to the prankster.

How telling that 2-Day FM attempted unsuccessfully on five occasions to contact the nurses to request permission to air the pre-recorded conversations. By admission, the collective mental lightweights at the radio station knew they were obliged to have cleared it with the hapless participants - and decided to put it to air regardless.

Depressingly accurate.

The blame fairly and squarely lies with the people who made the call and the organisation that encouraged them and then chose to broadcast.

Apportioning even a small amount of blame to the hospital is ridiculous. Hospitals cost an arm and a leg already without burdening them with a media and communications department just to head off rank stupidity.

I’m with those who are saying that the media is incapable of having any sense of responsibility at all. Though there are implications about risk to our democracy if the media is government controlled, professionals in the industry should think about that before they sanction something as stupid and ignorant as lying on the radio for the entertainment of your listeners.

I am satisfied that the regulations are in place to severly punish Austereo. I expect ACMA to slap them on the wrist with a wet bus ticket. Sometime in 2015. On a Friday afternoon.

“41 Harm may result from a course of action induced by a fraudulent misrepresentation, even though it has nothing to do with questions of contract or with inducement to undertake financial obligations. An example is Mafo v Adams[26] where the plaintiff was fraudulently induced to undertake an unpleasant journey, and was awarded compensation for the inconvenience and discomfort. (The case of Richardson v Silvester[27], earlier mentioned, was a case where a plaintiff was compensated for the expense of a fraudulently induced journey.) There is no reason in principle why the harm for which the tort may provide compensation should not include personal injury , or why personal injury should not include psychiatric injury, but the harm for which damages are awarded is the “actual damage directly flowing from the fraudulent inducement”, that is to say, the damage directly flowing from the alteration of the plaintiff’s position which occurred as a result of the inducement. Distress, disappointment, frustration and anger may all be natural responses to discovery of deception, but the tort of deceit does not set out to compensate people for wounded pride or dignity, or for the pain that results from broken illusions.” [end quote of the HCA]

Sure no damages for superficial hurt feelings, but how about liability for loss from psychiatic injury and suicide when faced with destruction of a nursing career in a class conscious white bread upper class Establishment, combined with a life of media notoriety for unintentionally bringing shame onto the future King and Queen??

“Held: By Sheller JA, Mason P and Handley JA agreeing: ….(3) In an action for deceit the victim of the undefined fraud is entitled to compensation for all the actual loss directly flowing from the transaction induced by the wrongdoer including consequential loss whether or not the loss was foreseeable. Smith New Court Securities Limited v Citibank NA [1996] UKHL 3; [1997] AC 254 referred to.”

in AUYEUNG & ANOR v CHAN [1999] NSWCA 417Auyeung & v Chan [1999] NSWCA 417 (26 November 1999)

and then there is this discussion of the tort of deceit in the High Court of Australia beyond commercial relations to personal injury for deceit, in Magill v Magill
[2006] HCA 51, per Chief Judge Gleeson:

“37 The elements of the tort of deceit were stated by Viscount Maugham, in Bradford Third Equitable Benefit Building Society v Borders[22], as follows (omitting his Lordship’s citation of authority):

“First, there must be a representation of fact made by words, or, it may be, by conduct. ….. Secondly, the representation must be made with a knowledge that it is false. It must be wilfully false, or at least made in the absence of any genuine belief that it is true. Thirdly, it must be made with the intention that it should be acted upon by the plaintiff, or by a class of persons which will include the plaintiff, in the manner which resulted in damage to him. If, however, fraud be established, it is immaterial that there was no intention to cheat or injure the person to whom the false statement was made. Fourthly, it must be proved that the plaintiff has acted upon the false statement and has sustained damage by so doing.”