AP Photo
Whether we’re talking about school bullies, Daniel Tosh, or the radio personalities who humiliated a nurse into suicide, the worst thing we can do is lose our own sense of empathy.
This story begins happily, with Princess Kate and Prince William expecting a baby. The media, of course, is wild with the news, wondering what the couple will name The Royal Baby and whether The Royal Baby will actually be twins. Then Kate is struck with pregnancy sickness so profound she has to be hospitalized.
As we know, if there is one thing that tabloids love almost as much as a scandal, it’s danger. And for a while, everyone waited with baited breath to find out if the princess and The Royal Baby were going to be okay.
Meanwhile, two Australian radio DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, decide to prank call the hospital and impersonate Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, inquiring as to the health of their future heir. It was a hairbrained scheme, the type of thing that’s been happening on the radio since Howard Stern and other shock jocks started publicly embarrassing people in the early 80s, and certainly no one figured it would work.
But it did. Greig and Christian were transferred through to the nurse in charge of Kate Middleton’s care, and that nurse disclosed personal details about the Princess’ health.
It must have been thrilling. They’d scooped even the scuzziest of tabloid rags!
According to The Daily Mail, the recording of the prank call was screened and edited by producers before the show went live, and the intimate details of William and Kate’s family were made into breaking news. Greig and Christian tweeted and bragged about their success.
This alone is troubling. I don’t care if you’re royalty or work at WalMart, you deserve your privacy, particularly in a traumatic time. However, exploiting people’s privacy for financial gain is nothing new to tabloid journalism.
But what happened next is an acute reminder that such exploitation can have a very high price.
The DailyMail explains:
A nurse who transferred a prank phone call from two Australian radio presenters about the Duchess of Cambridge has died in a suspected suicide – two days after being duped.
Mother-of-two Jacintha Saldanha, who was working on the switchboard when 2DayFM obtained intimate details about Kate, was found dead near the King Edward VII Hospital today.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are ‘deeply saddened’ by the tragedy and a Palace spokesman said the couple had not made a complaint about the prank call.
It’s safe to presume, though we don’t have all the facts, that being the unintended victim of this prank caused a hard-working nurse, whose life was dedicated to helping others, to kill herself.
♦◊♦
My first reaction to this story was outrage. I was shaking and had goosebumps. With my work here at GMP, I read a lot of horrific news stories, but something about this one struck me deeply. Not because it’s more tragic than other suicides, or the exploitation of children, or the gunning down of a 17 year-old unarmed boy by police for playing his music too loud. Those are also all horrible stories.
It struck me so deeply because it encapsulates everything I’ve been troubled by in the last few months. It is part of what I believe to be at the root of all the worst things that happen in our society—a profound lack of empathy for other human beings.
In reaction to my righteous outrage, I sent a tweet that I shouldn’t have, just seconds after reading the story. I am not going to delete it because I think it is an example of how we, as humans who consider ourselves moral, often react when we hear about an innocent person being targeted by greedy people.
Yeah, I laid it on pretty thick. I was enraged. And I was being honest—I do think that the tabloid media is a giant, writhing swarm of greedy fame-whores (no offense intended toward sex workers, of course).
However, my outrage wasn’t well thought-out. I made a decision based on emotion, operating upon a basic human instinct: the desire for revenge.
I wanted to get revenge against Greig and Christian for the death of Jacintha Saldanha. They deserved my words of disgust, my public shaming. I also wanted to be a part of teaching society a lesson. Look what you did! Look what happened because of your passion for laughing at others’ mistakes and misfortune!
But I was wrong. It was wrong to send that tweet.
♦◊♦
I’m reminded of a story posted by my friend and colleague Jamie Utt on his Facebook page. Two trouble-making high school boys had been caught fighting in the hallway at school, and were dealt an unusual punishment. The teens were forced to sit together, holding hands, while their classmates taunted them, calling them “gay” and “f-gs”. The boys sat, heads bowed, faces covered. The incident became national news when the photo, at left, appeared on Facebook.
In the discussion on Jamie’s page, we tried to get to the root of what was happening. Was this punishment rooted in homophobia? Did the principal, who is generally considered a hero renegade of education, ask them to hold hands because he knew it would draw taunts? Or was this a sort of public “hug it out” therapy?
It seems obvious to me that there are two things at work in this story. First, I believe this punishment is rooted in anti-gay sentiment. If the aim had been to get them to reconcile via a “hug it out” therapy, the principal certainly would have known that men in our society generally do not hold hands as a sign of friendship and peace. A handshake would have been appropriate. I would still disagree with any adult forcing a child to touch a person whom they weren’t comfortable touching, but at least the act of shaking hands would be rooted in some sort of logic.
No, I think this principal knew that if the boys held hands, they would be taunted. He must have known that they would be the butt of jokes and should have assumed that anti-gay hate speech would be used against them.
But even deeper, this principal wanted these boys to be bullied.
And that’s what I wanted for the Australian DJs whose bullying contributed to a woman’s suicide.
I wanted to bully them right back.
♦◊♦
Daniel Tosh, via Twitter
A few months ago, comedian and television host Daniel Tosh became world-famous for a rape joke gone wrong. During a performance, he allegedly made a joke about rape that caused an audience member to boo or heckle him. In turn, Tosh directed his biting humor at the audience member as she tried to leave.
As far as we know, this performance was not recorded in any way, so we have to base our discussion upon what those in the audience says happened, and which Daniel Tosh has never refuted. Supposedly he responded by “joking” (purposeful use of scare quotes) that it’d be really funny if she were raped by five guys right then and there.
It’s not funny to me. I don’t care how funny some people found it to be, I see that joke as a threat. Daniel Tosh was exhibiting an extraordinary lack of empathy for that audience member at that moment, not pausing for even a moment to consider why the woman had found his first rape joke to be offensive. Instead, he plunged on as the person in power in the room, the famous one, the one with the mic, and joked about how a woman should be gang raped.
I wrote about this after it happened, when feminists and others were demanding Daniel Tosh’s head, metaphorically. Hatred against Tosh spewed from nearly every media outlet online. Petitions demanded Tosh.0, his Comedy Central show, be pulled from the air and boycotts against the network were planned.
I can’t speak to whether Daniel Tosh is a good man. I don’t know him and I know very little about his personal life. What I do know is that he publicly apologized for what he did and that his apology simply was not enough for many people. They wanted him gone, out of the public eye, defamed, ashamed, and discredited.
But why?
Because he’d been a bully. He had bullied that audience member and it was wrong. And ultimately, we wanted to bully him right back.
So what would happen if Daniel Tosh had been taken off the air? If comedy clubs refused to book him? While they have every right to do either of these things, what would it accomplish?
I imagine people felt it would be a big lesson to comedians not to make rape jokes. But where does that “lesson” end? Does Louis CK need to strike his bit, shown below, from his comedy routine—where he actively challenges the way in which the media has completely fucked up the messages we send people about rape and consent? I mean, it’s a joke about rape, right? And while many critics say, Oh no, that’s Louis CK, he’s allowed to make rape jokes because he does it right there are others who say there should be no jokes about rape allowed. Ever.
So who decides? When does that snowball stop rolling?
And what do we really feel, inside of ourselves, when we hurt those who have hurt us?
Satisfaction.
If Daniel Tosh had lost his career, there would be a whole pile of people patting themselves on the back, believing they had helped stop rape by making a dent in rape culture.
But all they would have done, really, was create a sense of fear within the entertainment community, limiting the ability of people to push the limits on touchy social issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism, sexual assault and any other issues that the vocal social justice community find important. And sometimes, pushing those limits in comedy can be consciousness-raising.
I find all these issues important too, and within my community of friends who are not involved in social justice issues, I sometimes find myself trying to figure out the best way to explain that making fun of an “ugly tranny” is hate speech. Often, these friends or acquaintances of mine truly had never thought about the consequence of what they were doing, even when they joked about “Colored People Time” (referring to someone of color being late) or said that fat people have a disease. But if I explain it compassionately, most of the time people agree, and they regret having bought into the idea that making a joke made something less offensive.
But will I no longer be that person’s friend because of that lapse of judgement? Do I want my friend who said “Colored People Time” to lose her job or be publicly shamed? No. I just want to talk about it with her.
♦◊♦
This week, the editorial staff here at The Good Men Project has been discussing a new comment on a blog post, about an out gay teenage boy named Josh who was bullied and subsequently killed himself.
It’s always hard to write those stories. I wrote a similar one a few months ago and had to read a number of articles about the boy and watch interviews with his loved ones. I have little boys of my own, and I don’t know if they’re going to be gay, straight, bi, trans or whatever else when they grow up, but I look at this boy’s mother and I feel like she is my sister. Her boy. Our boys. All these children who are taunted because of their sexuality (or their looks, weight, race, gender expression, etc) are our family. Their parents are our brothers and sisters.
The comment in question was from a person identifies herself as Josh’s cousin:
What should happen to that boy’s tormenters, both children and adults? What should happen to the people who told him that God was going to send him to hell, to be burned alive for eternity, because of the fact that he refused to deny his sexuality? Their bullying led to a death, even if some of them thought it was in God’s name.
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And what should happen to Mel Greig and Michael Christian? Should they be fired? The Daily Mail reports that their Twitter accounts are closed, that the station’s website has been flooded with complaints, threats and harassing messages, and that the pair has been suspended.
But what about the producer(s) of the radio show, the ones who approved that prank call for air? Do we want that person gone? To me, the producer failed even more than the radio personalities. It’s their job to push the limits and the producer’s job to make a choice about the legality and ethics of airing the content that is produced. Should the production team be fired, too?
How about legally? Should Greig and Christian be charged with contributing to the death of the nurse? What will that accomplish?
In order to answer these questions, we must check in with ourselves.
What is missing inside of people when they bully someone—when they suggest an audience member should be raped, when they trick a nurse into giving out private details that would probably cost her her job, or when they taunt and shame a gay teen so mercilessly that he commits suicide?
They’re missing empathy—the ability to imagine how the other person feels.
Most likely, they aren’t psychopaths who lack empathy completely, instead they probably experience a lapse of compassion for the human beings involved in their bullying. A quest for popularity, for power, for laughs, for acceptance, for justice, or for revenge becomes so overwhelming that for a short time, they forget the humanity of the person in front of them, or on the other end of the phone.
And sometimes that’s deadly.
That’s why my tweet about the DJs was inappropriate. I had lost my empathy for the human beings who had made a very, very dire mistake that ended up having horrifying consequences. For a moment, in my quest to show the world just how messed up their prank was, I just wanted to make them hurt.
My feeling is that Greig and Christian aren’t bad people. My feeling is that they had a job to do—to provoke, push boundaries, be funny and edgy—and they lost their moral compass along the way. This situation deserves our outrage, as does the threatening joke Daniel Tosh made, as does the death of Josh as a result of bullying.
But if all we do is take down the person we’re outraged with, dancing around singing, Ding dong the witch is dead! we’re not really dealing with the problem, are we? In fact, by pretending that Daniel Tosh or Greig and Christian are actually the problem, rather than symptoms of much bigger problems, we are preventing the conversations that need to be happening from being had. Conversations about how we are all responsible for our culture—one of hate, oppression, greed, celebrity-worship, sexual exploitation and more. Also, conversations about how a person takes responsibility for doing something bad, how they ask for forgiveness, how they grow and how they can show they’ve changed. And conversations about how and when we forgive.
This isn’t to say that people who do something bad shouldn’t suffer consequence. I’m uncomfortable with Daniel Tosh now, and so I don’t watch his show, and I won’t see his comedy shows. Maybe someday I will. But for now, the consequence of what he does is losing a viewer and having people talk about his aggressive comment in public.
The natural consequence for Greig and Christian may be that they lose their jobs, but if that’s the case, then so should their producer who ultimately was the one who put that segment on the air. But I would rather see them, all of them— the production team and the DJs—sit down with a responsible journalist or social activist and talk about what happened. I want to explore the societal and personal factors that led them to air that segment, and it’d be great if their apologies to be as public as their prank.
But let us be sure, as we level attacks, as we send our tweets, as we confront the people in our own lives who have harmed us or others, that we aren’t reacting to a lack of empathy by abandoning our own.
About Joanna Schroeder
i’M DONE WITH THIS.
Pity – was looking forward to your opinions on Public Interest in investigation Breaches Of Data Protection By Hospital (£500,000 Fine) Vs Public Interest is seeking Extradition of 2 DJ’s from Australia To UK for a crime that may NOT have been committed (£5000 + Fine).
Justice costs money and the costs and returns have to be assessed. I may need to do some maths!
What MediaHound said.
It is much more irresponsible to form a lynch mob to string these DJ’s up than to stand back and let all the info come in and THEN make a informed decision. To be honest, I think a HUGE leap was made in assuming that her death had anything whatsoever to do with the prank. This more than anything bothers me.
Yes, it’s sad she died but you are going to feel very dumb when you find out that this really had no bearing on her death at all. In reflecting on this post and some of these comments, I guess I’m not really surprised at all. I think in your knee jerk reaction to her death, you have done a disservice to us by attempting to pull us into this quagmire of emotional reactions. Congratulations.
As someone whose entire professional career (over 25 years) has been as a radio announcer I can tell you that you have not factored in a major component. One that has been overlooked in every analysis I’ve read…that being: these two people are supposed to be professional broadcasters. Whether or not they’re supposed to “push boundaries” or “be funny” or whatever you want to try and say as a way to excuse their behavior – they’re supposed to know what is “too much”. They’re supposed to know what the law allows, what society would allow, what common sense and good judgement allow. A real broadcaster would know how to make that call (if it was necessary – my God, how have we not progressed beyond prank calls like this?) and not violate someone’s privacy and not make someone feel they’ve made a fatal mistake. Yes, they AND the producers should lose their jobs. They were clearly not equipped to have them in the first place.
Shelley, you’re clearly lacking what the author was making a point about: empathy. By all accounts Jacintha was a woman who was exceptional at her job and deeply caring. For a person of integrity an incident like this could have been unbearable. She may have felt like she *literally* could not live with herself. It’s ridiculous to imagine that what happened did NOT have to do with her death.
Lastly – comparing broadcasters with comedians is really comparing apples and oranges. I understand the point you’re trying to make Joanna – but broadcasting is governed in ways that comedy is not. And that’s because it is literally “broad casting”….anyone could happen across it (an unintended audience) and that’s why there are protections. When one goes to a comedy club – it’s really “no holds barred”. It’s a limited audience, it’s a mature audience.
I do think Twitter and FB allow people to react too quickly and in too permanent a fashion. But, sadly, we live in a world now that’s just one big raw nerve, one giant knee-jerk reaction waiting to happen. ALL of this is really just a lack of self-control.
JM: Ok, one more time – Still don’t know it was a suicide and I do know what the gist of the story was. Until someone in charge states that the cause of her death was A) Suicide and, B) said suicide was a direct result of the prank, I will not decide. I will say I find it very hard to believe that IF it was suicide that this one thing, embarrassing as it might have been, would cause a supposedly balanced, professional woman to take her own life. Invariably there is always so much more going on in a mentally unstable individual’s life.
Regardless, the reaction to this whole fiasco has been over the top. Please, please tell me ONE factual piece of information regarding her death except that she is indeed, dead. You can’t because there aren’t any yet. An autopsy was only officially ordered today and just going by past incidents of this nature, no one will know any pertinent information for some time.
Hmmm…Are you serious about DJ’s being broadcasters? As far as I’ve observed in the last 20 years at the very least, not one DJ I’ve heard, whether local or national could be safely compared to a broadcaster. I personally don’t think many of them are funny and yes, many go way over the top in their quest for ratings but broadcasters? No. But this is why they have producers and managers – to cull through the repertoire and decide what should be aired. Should they be fired? I am really on the fence on that because there were plenty of hoops they had to jump through and someone higher up could have pulled the plug at any time and didn’t. At this moment, they may or may not be fired. I do know their show was pulled and I seriously doubt they’ll be coming back. It would be better for all if they decide to just slink off quietly.
Honestly, if the goal was to put a spotlight on bullying, there were many other examples that could have been presented. This particular story is too riddled with unknowns and potential explosion to be truly pertinent. And now, look what we have here – a circus with no end in sight. God, I hate circuses.
Playing Cludo – Its the Queen In Buckingham Place with ….???? and you think I jest!
Tue 11 Dec 2012 10.40 UTC
A post-mortem examination is due to be carried out on the hospital nurse who was found dead after taking a hoax call about the Duchess of Cambridge.
Source – BBC News 11 Dec 2012 10.04 UTC
So I do wonder why so many are stating and even demanding that there has been a suicide when the Post Mortem is still to be performed – 5 Days after a person died. It is so very very odd. Normally a PM would be carried out in 24 hours, but in this case… why the delay. There have been no Holidays or Exceptional events to cause such delay… or have there?
It’s odd too because one minute it’s reported Paramedics were called to the scene because someone was unconscious – and then it’s police called paramedics because someone was alive – and then oddly Paramedics found her dead – or as it’s reported she was not dead but died at the scene with Paramedics pronouncing her dead ( Which They can’t do by law – a Doctor has to do it). The media muddle is most odd.
The Police announce that a person has died – if it is “Evidently” suicide that is confirmed by police generally 3 hours after discovery. We are now 93 Hours past that normal announcement and yet people are still saying it was suicide and no-one officially agrees with them.
Normally – Suicide would be ascertained at the time the person is either found, dead or having died at the scene, or having been transferred to a hospital. 3 Hours. Again over 93 Hours later no-one is saying it was Suicide… except chattering masses and media twits.
Why the delay?
What needs to be managed?
Who Benefits?
Why all the media driven focus down under … and it’s even odder when you consider security protocols around the Royals mean that all calls in and out of the hospital should have been monitored by MI5 and The Royal Protection Branch… and that seems to have been a massive fail.
The radio prank apparently took some days to be aired, so it’s odd that people who should and even just could have acted failed to stop the broadcast. … and the royals involved (Queen, Prince Charles, Wills Kate) would have all been briefed in advance and been asked what action should be taken – lean on the Broadcaster down under and stop broadcast … or let it play and look human. ..
Of Course Mame – yes Mame – let it run Mame – Thank you Mame.
Advisers area tricky bunch!
So maybe the watchdogs saw no harm (It was a terribly innocuous stunt as to content) … so if the royals were not phased and said let it run – why the witch hunt now.
If the Royals had the power to stop it being broadcast, doesn’t that mean there should be a witch hunt for Brenda or as many know her The Queen Of England – Her Son and Heir Charles of Wales – 2nd In Line Prince William Wales – and his Wifey the Kate of Middleton.
It’s all so odd and skewed by those Twittering masses and so much Cyber Indignation and the way the story has been shaped and focused across the whole net is just so Bizzare. I’ve been saying it since the Story Broke.
But the BBC Confirm – there will be a Post Mortem, maybe today.
I hope the mobs will be happy with the Twits to follow under #FatSparrowCult and let us all hail and prey and pray to the great icon of Twit.
Nice one Brenda .. you have been dodging the bullets so well. Luv To Phil.
BTW…this is an excellent article dealing with how absolutely insane y’all are in your handling of this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-russnow/jacintha-saldanha-dead-royal-family_b_2269546.html
Thank you for that! I blame a great deal of the hysteria on the operation of #FatSparrowCult and all who bow down before the great Icon. They twit and retwit factoids until they are all in a frenzy and reality or even realities are of no interest! You can’t stop a fundamentalist when they have their fundamental out and are playing with it.
That’s why I only tweet funny stuff. :O)
What exactly were Royal Protection/MI5 doing at 5.30 am when the phone rang?
I never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by foolishness and stupidity. But when the explanations of foolishness and failure require such a clash of coincidences that probability cries “Hold On” you need to stand back and look at what is standing still and hiding in plain sight.
This gets more fascinating as it progresses. Now we have media reporting the existence of a suicide note, which indicates that the Post-Mortem has been completed and evidence can be released – and yet a statement by the Pathologist is still missing. The note is not public, and the contents are unknown.
Keith Vaz (British MP known for asking very awkward and penetrating questions and embarrassing establishment figures) is getting involved and supporting the family.
Unexplained circumstances? Who? Where? Why?
Also suddenly the husband, Ben Barboza, is coming centre stage and saying he is not being told everything. He wants answers, but even now he does not know all the details around his own wife’s death. This is just so odd.
This is even odder – Meanwhile a squabble continues as 2Day FM management insist they made numerous attempts to contact the hospital before going to air with the prank call. The hospital denies the claim. Source
It strikes me as overly odd – odd – odd – odd – that The hospital are claiming they knew nothing – and yet The Royal Security/MI5 would have been all over it, “Like white on rice”. I simply can’t accept the claims that The Hospital did not know. The denial is nonsensical – there are established security protocols around that hospital for Royal Security, and those protocols have been there for years. Think the arrangements in place for a president to have to go to Hospital Quick – I read somewhere once about a Hospital close to the white house that has drill for security should the Eagle land and need assistance.
The Silence as to what others knew is of course noteworthy as it stops people noticing they were even around, present and doing anything. You don’t focus on or look at things which deliberately stay still and quiet so as to not attract attention.
Some are saying that Jacintha Saldanha died of shame – and yet having listened to the recording of the Hoax call I’m still dumbfounded by the lack of action by The Royal Protection Officers/MI5 who would have been able to cut off the phone call at any time. Were the officers caught napping in the early hours of the morning? 5.30 am.
By all accounts including comments from the DJs the call arrived at 5.30 am. Clerical staff/Receptionists at home. Phone calls diverted to which office – and the Royal Protection boys and girls were where? The other thing that bugs me is that the end of the call has been missing from the broadcast material – so when and how did the call end? Was it cut off, and if so by who?
Given that it would be known by Royal protection/MI5 that the hoax call existed … and the delay in broadcast … and that The Royals would have known about it…. why was it broadcast?
Was it a double bluff using the media to stir up fears of press intrusion and raise the spectre of Diana and her demise? A rouse to protect the next in line to be and push back press from the young couple? … and then it all goes up the swanny because of the unexpected … the unpredicted …. the unmanaged?
There has been a hands off policy with the media and both Wills and Harry since Diana died in 1997 (15 years ago), and of course that started to crumble with some nude shots from Las Vegas. Hell they even got published in UK papers which was a landmark since Diana’s death. It did ruffle many feathers and get many questions asked about how far is too far when it’s a royal?
I have to wonder was Wills indignation to the press, via his dad’s press officers, real indignation, or just the right amount to re-establish the boundaries and uneasy truce with the press and paparazzi? There is a real whiff of Dickie Arbiter (Former Press Sec Top The Royals) around all of this – the right levels of pressure to get the right effect – by the rights routes – deft and quite management.
Doing It all Dickie Style and then it derails. The Royals knew the recording existed – in this day and age it would leak on the net sooner or later – Recently topless images of Kate on Holiday – use The Hoax call and bring pressure for best results – have the right level of anger and indignation communicated – get the public unhappy about press intrusion Job Done – move on! It’s been done before so many times.
Whoops – we didn’t see that one coming – Refocus and shift the focus as far as way as possible … such as Australia.
The thing that bugs me most of all is the now emerging reports that in the days between that call and the death Jacintha Saldanha did not say to anyone – Her Husband – Family members in India – Her Children … she said to no-one that there had been a problem involving her. But that still leaves the big questions as to where were the Royal Security/MI5 and why did the haox call get broadcast when so many knew about it in advance.
I keep thinking of the interview with the two DJs, and how they were lost when talking about themselves but jumping to attention and almost talking by rote when their employers were mentioned – how the company and all back stage and off camera were perfect and doing everything perfectly. There is an issue there that needs to be opened up.
Media sources that have been able to interview or get comment from Ben Barboza are indicating he is surprised that his wife didn’t tell him about the hoax – and he’s considering it was due to shame – but it was out of character. It sounds like a man trying to make sense of events – and as he is saying he’s not being given the whole truth.
Not saying anything was out of character – unless ordered to not say anything an following a sense of duty. Ordered by who and why?
So far I see no proven direct connection between the death of this nurse and the prank call.
If you want to write about bullies, there is much better stuff out there for example this one.
This is about the death of boys over years and nobody seems to care about.
It’s good stuff for the ‘GoodMenProject’ to talk about.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246378/Dozier-School-Report-reveals-19-unmarked-graves-Florida-boys-reform-school.html
Quite.
So the inquest has been opened and adjourned. The reports coming from the Inquest (Press Appear to be Excluded and there is no apparent statement as to why) indicate Jacintha Saldanha did commit suicide.
She left three suicide notes. Newpapers which have spoken to people attending the inquest report one referred to funeral arrangements she wished. One of the others was to her family. The third was highly critical of how she was treated very badly by colleagues in the wake of the hoax call. It is very odd for there to be such a delay and so much obfuscation round a suicide. The content of the notes is being handles with great care, and not out of deference to her family and friends. There is the clear whiff of legal dynamite around their contents.
Her employers are very publicly stating again that there was no disciplinary action pending – Jacintha Saldanha was receiving full support … and it looks like it’s all being lined up to be gross workplace bullying and harassment. That explains the ongoing police investigation which would be under The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and other laws, and could also involve the Hospital in very hot water if they were aware of Workplace bullying and failed to act. So details of evidence in ongoing enquires is suppressed.
I wondered at the original comment about Walmart – and of course as an employer they have to protect employees from abuse – harassment – bullying in the workplace, form managers, colleagues and even members of the public.
So many wanted to be enraged and blame the DJs, but it looks like a very different case now and I wonder how the truth will play out when the Inquest re-convenes in March 2013. More to the point will so many who were twitting and farcebooking even care?
And once again, MH, you gloss over facts that don’t suit your, at times, bizarre method of “reasoning”.
The third suicide note referred directly to the phone call by Christian & Grieg. So these three notes along with the tragic suicide of this woman rather negate the pages & pages you have been.
Please don’t bother to respond, as I won’t be checking back. This was an interesting & well reasoned read until it was hijacked by your ill-reasoned rantings and those of your acolytes.
My thoughts are with the family of Jacintha Saldana.
You failed to make comment on the delays in official confirmation of “suspected” suicide – it is still not ruled as suicide by the coroner and the ongoing police investigation, which has to deal with the issues raised of Workplace Bullying. Sorry if you see me as glossing rather than ignoring. Must be a UK law Thing Vs other places.
Also – Spotted this with my morning coffee too, from the Employer in a letter to a Mt Vaz MP “Neither ourselves, her friends or family noticed anything to give cause for concern,”
Anyone missing from that list? Such as Colleagues? It’s amazing what people leave out and that is where you do need to focus – the things unmentioned and the things standing till in plain sight.
Source
So sad and so devastating but perhaps not too terribly surprising. People with mental illness, who commit suicide, many times, have a history of previous attempts. My heart goes out to her family.