Royal prank station to give $500,000 to dead nurse's family

SYDNEY: An Australian radio station Tuesday pledged at least Aus$500,000 (US$523,600) to help the grieving family of a nurse duped by a royal prank phone call, after coming under sustained scrutiny over the hoax.

Nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who fielded the hoax call from Sydney station 2Day FM to London's King Edward VII Hospital, was found Friday after apparently committing suicide. The Indian-born mother-of-two put the call through to a colleague, who divulged details of the recovery of Prince William's pregnant wife Kate from severe morning sickness.

The station initially suspended all advertising after the death but said it would resume Thursday, with all profits until the end of the year given to an "appropriate fund that will directly benefit the family of Jacintha Saldanha". The amount donated would be at least Aus$500,000, it said.

“We are very sorry for what has happened," Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo which owns the station, said in a statement. "We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time."

In the wake of the death the company suspended all prank calls across its network and cancelled the show which ran the segment. But the station remains under renewed pressure to fully explain how its royal prank call was cleared to air after the shattered hosts said they were not ultimately responsible. In tearful interviews Monday, 2Day FM presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian said that while they made the call to the hospital, the hoax was vetted by others without their involvement. "It's not up to us to make that decision (to air). We just record it and then it goes to the other departments to work out," said Greig in an emotional interview with Australia's Nine Network.

Christian added: "There's a process in place for prank calls or anything that makes it to air, and you know, that's out of our hands."