The Royal Baby

[Montreal Wanderer]

I'm not apportioning blame, bish, I merely wondered whether the perpetrators of this hoax have some sort of civil liability for what they did and how it all came out. I'll leave it to the court to decide the answers to those kind of questions.

"what they did caused her harm" sounds very much like blame to me....

I think you are being a bit obtuse, bish. Clearly what they did caused her harm, but what they did does not mean they should be blamed for it - indeed Prufrock makes good arguments why they should not be blamed or held liable. Can you see the distinction?

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Clearly the affair caused some harm to her. How much we don't know. If the whole thing didn't factor in her suicide I'd be very very surprised. I would hope the radio station and the people involved will take a long hard look at themselves and offer some material support for the future of her children.

Very tragic and my thoughts are with her family.

[thebish]

I'm not apportioning blame, bish, I merely wondered whether the perpetrators of this hoax have some sort of civil liability for what they did and how it all came out. I'll leave it to the court to decide the answers to those kind of questions.

"what they did caused her harm" sounds very much like blame to me....

I think you are being a bit obtuse, bish. Clearly what they did caused her harm, but what they did does not mean they should be blamed for it - indeed Prufrock makes good arguments why they should not be blamed or held liable. Can you see the distinction?

indeed - but you were talking about some kind of legal/court repercussions for the ozzie broadcasters... weren't you?? If you are not saying the broadcasters are to blame - then what are you on about??

[Prufrock]

I'm not apportioning blame, bish, I merely wondered whether the perpetrators of this hoax have some sort of civil liability for what they did and how it all came out. I'll leave it to the court to decide the answers to those kind of questions.

"what they did caused her harm" sounds very much like blame to me....

I think you are being a bit obtuse, bish. Clearly what they did caused her harm, but what they did does not mean they should be blamed for it - indeed Prufrock makes good arguments why they should not be blamed or held liable. Can you see the distinction?

I think bish is right in the general sense that we don't know enough to make even educated guesses on why she killed herself (not that I think we should be making guesses, educated or not). Suicides are rarely simple and we have very little information.

That said I don't think it is wrong to say what they did caused her harm, even if only embarrassment. It makes them wankers IMO, if not criminals (or civilly liable).

[thebish]

I'm not apportioning blame, bish, I merely wondered whether the perpetrators of this hoax have some sort of civil liability for what they did and how it all came out. I'll leave it to the court to decide the answers to those kind of questions.

"what they did caused her harm" sounds very much like blame to me....

I think you are being a bit obtuse, bish. Clearly what they did caused her harm, but what they did does not mean they should be blamed for it - indeed Prufrock makes good arguments why they should not be blamed or held liable. Can you see the distinction?

I think bish is right in the general sense that we don't know enough to make even educated guesses on why she killed herself. Suicides are rarely simple and we have very little information.

in that case - you are clearly being obtuse!!

[Montreal Wanderer]

'Gain' and 'loss' are very narrowly defined, in UK law anyway. You'd be struggling to get 'audience numbers' accepted.

Furthermore, there is no 'right to privacy' in UK law. The nearest thing to it (when wanting to sue individuals) is a weird legal twist where you in effect use the HRA to force a court to interpret an existing tort to protect your privacy. There may be some mileage in a 'breach of confidence' claim made this way, I must admit to knowing very little about that tort, but it would be with regards to the call and its broadcast rather than her death.

There could be feasibly be something similar in Australian law which may well have specific privacy laws, again relating to the call though.

In Canada libel and slander are the same thing in terms of law. The law is different in the UK than it is in Canada. I understand that the truth is an absolute defense against libel. This is not so in Canada where the publisher must also show that it is in the public interest to publish. I do not know about Australia. In Canada we also have a right to privacy, which can only be set aside by the courts. Employers cannot even seize and examine a computer that they own but is used by an employee without obtaining a search warrant through the police and courts.

[Tombwfc]

The worlds media who held her up for ridicule and talked her up into being an international laughing stock didn't help

Did they? I haven't been following it that closely, but the few bits I've heard have been people either saying it was a stupid thing to fall for (and it was) or that it was a painfully unfunny invasion of Kate's privacy. It wasn't like her face was on the front of every newspaper and her house besieged by reporters. I didn't even think her name was known until after she died today.

It's incredibly sad, but I think it's absurd to start looking to apportion blame anywhere (especially when much of it seems to be on the basis that they are eminently hateable, smug DJs). If she had been subject to ridicule by the (relatively small) number of people who would've known it was her, are those people at fault?

[Bruce Rioja]

More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

... or a dedictaed person, massively proud of her job who fckd up & couldn't cope with the shame, embarrassment and fear for her career.

Bloody funny weaze though, almost as funny as a very unfunny thing on an unfunny day.

Hope the Ozzies are proud.

Exact-a-mundo. This wasn't humiliation on an office or mates level, Pru - it went right around the fecking world on the early evening news and beyond. Her husband is now a widower, her two children without a mother, think about that if you will, how utterly broken must she have been to decide that creating that situation was preferable to coping with what had happened?

[William the White]

More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

... or a dedictaed person, massively proud of her job who fckd up & couldn't cope with the shame, embarrassment and fear for her career.

Bloody funny weaze though, almost as funny as a very unfunny thing on an unfunny day.

Hope the Ozzies are proud.

Exact-a-mundo. This wasn't humiliation on an office or mates level, Pru - it went right around the fecking world on the early evening news and beyond. Her husband is now a widower, her two children without a mother, think about that if you will, how utterly broken must she have been to decide that creating that situation was preferable to coping with what had happened?

All true, and desperately sad. I agree with those who say suicide is complex (but not always!)... This 'prank' was always cheaper than the worst chips... How much support did she get from her bosses? what was she facing? The scapegoat for their failure to have appropriate systems in place or appropriate training for them?

Too much speculation - and I've just been guilty of it as well...

[thebish]

More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

... or a dedictaed person, massively proud of her job who fckd up & couldn't cope with the shame, embarrassment and fear for her career.

Bloody funny weaze though, almost as funny as a very unfunny thing on an unfunny day.

Hope the Ozzies are proud.

Exact-a-mundo. This wasn't humiliation on an office or mates level, Pru - it went right around the fecking world on the early evening news and beyond. Her husband is now a widower, her two children without a mother, think about that if you will, how utterly broken must she have been to decide that creating that situation was preferable to coping with what had happened?

I don't think Pru is disputing that it is a sad situation...

[Bruce Rioja]

More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

... or a dedictaed person, massively proud of her job who fckd up & couldn't cope with the shame, embarrassment and fear for her career.

Bloody funny weaze though, almost as funny as a very unfunny thing on an unfunny day.

Hope the Ozzies are proud.

Exact-a-mundo. This wasn't humiliation on an office or mates level, Pru - it went right around the fecking world on the early evening news and beyond. Her husband is now a widower, her two children without a mother, think about that if you will, how utterly broken must she have been to decide that creating that situation was preferable to coping with what had happened?

I don't think Pru is disputing that it is a sad situation...

And I haven't said that he has. However, " However embarrassing, emotionally stable people don't commit suicide after being made to look stupid". Well, I for one have experienced otherwise.

[thebish]

More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

... or a dedictaed person, massively proud of her job who fckd up & couldn't cope with the shame, embarrassment and fear for her career.

Bloody funny weaze though, almost as funny as a very unfunny thing on an unfunny day.

Hope the Ozzies are proud.

Exact-a-mundo. This wasn't humiliation on an office or mates level, Pru - it went right around the fecking world on the early evening news and beyond. Her husband is now a widower, her two children without a mother, think about that if you will, how utterly broken must she have been to decide that creating that situation was preferable to coping with what had happened?

I don't think Pru is disputing that it is a sad situation...

And I haven't said that he has. However, " However embarrassing, emotionally stable people don't commit suicide after being made to look stupid". Well, I for one have experienced otherwise.

whatever - from the outside - appears to be the immediate "trigger" - it is very very rarely that simple. I think that's the simple point that Pru (and me) have tried to make.

It was your "think about that if you will" (that there is now a widower and bereaved children) that made it sound as if you thought Pru hadn't grasped that...

[Bruce Rioja]

It was your "think about that if you will" (that there is now a widower and bereaved children) that made it sound as if you thought Pru hadn't grasped that...

I don't think he'd grasped the mental state of someone that would chose to leave her husband a widower and her children motherless, no. As evidenced by what he said. Like she's simply over-reacted.

[Montreal Wanderer]

There are males who would feel embarrassed to appear on Paris balconies in pink frilly nightdresses, and others who would shrug it off. Cultures differ. I do not know about this poor nurse though her name might suggest she was not a Cockney. Shame is harder to bear in some cultures than others. And, yes, apologists there may be more to it than that. However, if you instigate something you have to be prepared to live with the result. As for the legal side I note from the BBC

On Tuesday, hospital chief executive John Lofthouse said he had "received advice that what the Australian broadcasters did may well have broken the law".

But he added: "On the other hand they've apologised for it so we're going to have a long and careful think about what, if anything, we do."

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) has said it had received complaints about the call.

Breaking the law is criminal. A civil suit, as I suggested may be possible, has a lower requirement to win the case. Just ask O.J. Simpson.

Anyway, they are very sorry.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Bruce and I agreed some time back that targeting innocent people trying to do their job wasn't that funny. It invades their privacy and focuses huge amounts of unwanted attention on them. Some people have thinner skins than others and we cannot always guess the consequences. I imagine there might be some civil liability for what those Ozzies did.

What, on earth, for?

It's obviously very sad, but you can't expect people to see that coming from what was, although a bit base and cheap, a joke. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't more to this than we've heard. However embarrassing, emotionally stable people don't commit suicide after being made to look stupid (albeit on a slightly bigger stage than most are used to).

It seemed odd in the first place that somebody in her position could be duped by what was so, so obviously a hoax. More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

They fraudulently presented themselves to a (clearly) naive young girl trying to do a high stress job. Then they hold her up for ridicule in front of most of the English-speaking world. Obviously they had no intention to have her commit suicide, but we are responsible for our actions even if they have an unintended result. When pranks go horribly wrong, the perpetrators generally have some responsibility. Still I'll wait for an opinion from Crayons on this.

I wholeheartedly agree. Surely it's the psychological version of the eggshell skull principle.

Of course there may well be things we don't know, but what a desperately desperately sad story.

I didn't comment, but I agreed with Bruce's take at the time - inane, puerile, unfunny and potentially dangerous. Those presenters will surely regret it for the rest of their lives, but what a way to learn the lesson.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Bruce and I agreed some time back that targeting innocent people trying to do their job wasn't that funny. It invades their privacy and focuses huge amounts of unwanted attention on them. Some people have thinner skins than others and we cannot always guess the consequences. I imagine there might be some civil liability for what those Ozzies did.

What, on earth, for?

It's obviously very sad, but you can't expect people to see that coming from what was, although a bit base and cheap, a joke. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't more to this than we've heard. However embarrassing, emotionally stable people don't commit suicide after being made to look stupid (albeit on a slightly bigger stage than most are used to).

It seemed odd in the first place that somebody in her position could be duped by what was so, so obviously a hoax. More to this than meets the eye. All very sad though.

They fraudulently presented themselves to a (clearly) naive young girl trying to do a high stress job. Then they hold her up for ridicule in front of most of the English-speaking world. Obviously they had no intention to have her commit suicide, but we are responsible for our actions even if they have an unintended result. When pranks go horribly wrong, the perpetrators generally have some responsibility. Still I'll wait for an opinion from Crayons on this.

I wholeheartedly agree. Surely it's the psychological version of the eggshell skull principle.

Of course there may well be things we don't know, but what a desperately desperately sad story.

I didn't comment, but I agreed with Bruce's take at the time - inane, puerile, unfunny and potentially dangerous. Those presenters will surely regret it for the rest of their lives, but what a way to learn the lesson.

Thanks, PB. What I'm afraid that some people don't seem to understand cultural differences. To us, assuming no other circumstance, suicide may seem a complete over-reaction. Yet, shame is different in other cultures. In WW2 Japanese committed suicide after surrendering while others stayed in a jungle for forty years rather than surrender. Daft we say and we are right by our standards. However, we can't judge everything by our standards in a multicultural world. I am sorry the bish cannot see the woman was harmed - even Prufrock agrees there - Prufrock was arguing that the broadcasters could not be held accountable for an extreme over-reaction. I understand that argument but believe that in this century we should attempt to understand cultural differences. Especially if we are in the media and can highlight things to a massive extent.

[Prufrock]

In fairness, Monty, that's a big jump based only (unless you know something else) on a guess at the origins of her name.

And, in fairness to thebish, I don't think he was arguing she wasn't 'harmed' at all, more picking up on your use of the word 'harm' which seemed to specifically refer to her death.

I don't really want to try to turn this into a case study, but I think there are massive issues with causation for any civil claim against them.

[Prufrock]

It was your "think about that if you will" (that there is now a widower and bereaved children) that made it sound as if you thought Pru hadn't grasped that...

I don't think he'd grasped the mental state of someone that would chose to leave her husband a widower and her children motherless, no. As evidenced by what he said. Like she's simply over-reacted.

That wasn't what I was saying at all.

I don't think any of us have any idea at all at what her mental state was.

[Bruce Rioja]

It was your "think about that if you will" (that there is now a widower and bereaved children) that made it sound as if you thought Pru hadn't grasped that...

I don't think he'd grasped the mental state of someone that would chose to leave her husband a widower and her children motherless, no. As evidenced by what he said. Like she's simply over-reacted.

That wasn't what I was saying at all.

I don't think any of us have any idea at all at what her mental state was.

One in which she thought it preferable to take her own life, leave her husband a widower and leave her two children motherless. Her mental state was exactly that! As has been evidenced!

[Prufrock]

The reasons for which we could only speculate.