On the morning of 7 December 2012, Saldanha was found dead by security and other staff in her nurse's quarters at the hospital. She had died by
suicide, and also had injuries. It was reported that Saldanha had left three
handwritten notes, one of which blamed the radio stunt for her death. Another note discussed her wishes for funeral arrangements, while the third was directed at her employer, criticising their handling of events that followed the prank call.
Southern Cross Austereo Following news of Saldanha's suicide, Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran said that Greig and Christian were both "deeply shocked" and would not return to their radio show until further notice. A day later, as advertisers boycotted or threatened to
boycott the station, 2Day FM suspended all advertising indefinitely. On 10 December, Greig and Christian gave their first interviews since Saldanha's death, telling
Nine Network's
A Current Affair and
Seven Network's
Today Tonight that they were still "badly shaken" over the tragedy. Advertising on 2Day FM resumed from 13 December, with Austereo announcing that it would donate the remainder of station advertising proceeds for 2012—a minimum of
A$500,000 (
£320,000)—to a memorial fund to benefit Saldanha's family. Austereo also cancelled its annual Christmas party for employees in Sydney and donated the funds for the party to the non-profit organisations
Beyond Blue and
Lifeline. On 27 January 2013, Austereo announced that
Hot30 Countdown was cancelled. Christian returned to work in February and won Austereo's "Top Jock" award in June 2013 for his work on
Fox FM in
Melbourne, while Greig remained off-air. Greig later sued Austereo for
failure to provide a safe workplace; the lawsuit was settled in December 2013. As part of the settlement, Austereo made a public statement that Greig was not responsible for the decision to air the hoax call and had suggested that it be edited before broadcast. Greig found work in advertising after leaving Austereo, but in 2016 returned to radio work in Wollongong, south of Sydney. In March 2018, Greig revealed that she became the target of online bullies following the prank and became a contributor for anti-bullying campaigns.
In India The burial function for Saldanha was held on 17 December 2012 in the town of
Shirva in
Karnataka, India. More than 1,000 people attended the mass and burial ceremony, including a
minister of Karnataka state, a former
Central Minister and other state functionaries. Several Karnataka dignitaries also visited Saldanha's mother, who lives in Mangalore with Saldanha's siblings. Dozens of students staged a demonstration in front of the
British High Commission in
New Delhi, carrying banners demanding "Justice for Jacintha".
RJ Balaji, based in
Chennai,
Tamil Nadu, discontinued his radio show
Cross Talk—where he made prank calls to unsuspecting victims—in response to Saldanha's death.
Legal action As part of their investigation into the death, the
Metropolitan Police Service in London contacted the
New South Wales Police Force in Sydney. However, on 28 December 2012, the New South Wales deputy police commissioner said that there had been no formal request from UK police to interview Greig and Christian, and that it seemed "unlikely any charges will be laid." British prosecutors confirmed in February 2013 that they would not be pressing charges against the presenters; although Greig and Christian may have committed offences under Britain's
Data Protection Act 1998 and
Malicious Communications Act 1988, prosecution was deemed to "not be in the public interest" because it would not be possible to
extradite the Australians and because "however misguided, the telephone call was intended as a harmless prank". On 13 December 2012, Australian media watchdog
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) launched an inquiry to assess whether the radio station had breached the conditions of their broadcasting licence. In September 2013, it was reported that ACMA had prepared a confidential preliminary report that found 2Day FM had acted illegally by broadcasting the hoax phone call without consent. Southern Cross Austereo was seeking to block the report's release, arguing that ACMA did not have standing to make a criminal finding. A
Federal Court judge sided with ACMA in November 2013, but was reversed by a decision of the full bench of the Federal Court in March 2014. ACMA subsequently appealed to the
High Court, which agreed in August 2014 to hear the case. On 4 March 2015 the High Court upheld the earlier decision of the Federal Court, ruling that the ACMA could validly exercise non-jurisdictional administrative power to make a determination in respect of whether the relevant conduct was unlawful. In its report, which was released on 22 April 2015, ACMA found that 2Day FM had breached the Australian commercial radio code of conduct by broadcasting a statement of an identifiable person without her consent and that they had treated her in a highly demeaning or highly exploitative manner. ACMA applied a third licence condition to 2Day FM as a sanction which consisted of staff ethics training and a three-hour broadcast raising awareness of bullying, depression and anxiety. ==References==