Why such controversy over prank?

[Something completely different]

The point is, they weren't ignoring the law. The phone hacking scandal is not a good example, because the journalists who hacked the phones were in the UK, and thus were breaking UK law directly. This tragedy involved two Australian DJs, who are not under the jurisdiction of UK law.

But it is an example of the tabloid culture which includes violating ones privacy to gain information.

Even if DJ`s werent in the UK, they violated someones right to privacy and thought of it as being ok.

Even if they werent in the UK, you cannot deny that they violated that persons right to privacy.

I think everyone thinks that laws should be enforced; it doesn't really need saying. Laws also depend heavily on the context. Killing someone by accident and killing someone on purpose result in the same result (the death of a person), but have completely different contexts and result in completely different sentences. Likewise, these DJs did not intend to break any laws; they were trying to make a prank call. They weren't even after personal information; it was all a big joke, and they never expected to actually end up talking to a nurse about the princess. In this context, they did very little to nothing wrong at all.

Commiting a crime without knowing that one is doing so doesn`t liberate one from guilt, it might be mitigating circumstances - but it doesn`t liberate them from having to take responsibility.

They took the personal information from that nurse and it was broadcasted - not knowing that what they were doing wasnt alright doesnt make something more right.

I dont think I have to explain why.

I never said international law covers every single aspect of criminal justice. What matters is if they broke any laws in Australia, as the crime would have been committed in Australia. I realise that in the age of digital communication it's hard to set the boundaries, but multiple court cases have shown that even if you commit a crime against some foreign country using phone lines or the Internet, you are usually only charged and sentenced according to the country you were in at the time.

Dont know, depends on legal treaties between the UK and Australia.