Dom Joly says 2dayFM presenters in Kate Middleton's nurse suicide case were not being 'cruel' just silly
Veteran prankster Dom Joly says he 'sympathises' with the Australian DJs who this morning issued an emotional apology for their hoax call which led to the suicide of the nurse who put them through to Kate Middleton's ward.
Joly, who is no stranger to telephone based pranks and trickery on unsuspecting members of the public himself, spoke of his reaction to the case during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, suggesting that the 2dayFM station had erred by failing to obtain permission for the broadcast.
Joly said: “I do have sympathy with them in the sense that there has been this witch hunt against them with the line that they intentionally did this and knew the consequences with the terrible suicide.
“It’s the problem with doing hoax phone calls. When I do stuff I have a rough judgement of who I’m doing things with, a – I have to get consent afterwards and – I can see them and make a judgement. The problem with phone calls is you’ve no idea.
“We wouldn’t be allowed to play or show anything that we hadn’t got consent for and I think the suggestion that they rang the hospital five times to try and get consent didn’t is just ludicrous. I don’t think they did do that.
“I think the problem was that this call was replayed over and over again on every media outlet and because we couldn’t listen to the nurse who gave the actual details what we did hear was poor Mrs Saldanha’s answering the phone.
“I would imagine if I was her, listening to that being played over and over again on every media outlet and people presumably trying to get hold of her, that’s what would have distressed her the most.
“It was a pretty rubbish hoax call with rubbish accents that got further than they thought and made some news. That’s what they do.
“I draw the line on what makes me laugh and what doesn’t. There are legal factors and things you can’t do, for instance if people refuse consent if they’re walking around with someone they shouldn’t. I’m not in the business of home wrecking and if someone doesn’t take the joke or want to be on telly that’s absolutely fine.
“I have a traffic light system, when I go up to someone and start talking to them I immediately realise if there is something odd about them or just doesn’t feel right, I walk away.
“If you don’t like this sort of comedy or anything that’s reality based then you can turn off and watch something else. I don't think this was a cruel joke. I don’t think they expected they would get as far as hospital details, No-one could have predicted it was going to happen.”