Prince William is “frustrated” that the BBC hasn’t addressed the “false narrative” it created and “believes Diana would never have agreed to a Panorama interview without manipulation by Martin Bashir.”
The 1995 Panorama interview is claimed to have left The Duke of Cambridge “frustrated” and still leaving him with “a lot of hurt and pain.”
There were three of us in this marriage, Diana said in the interview, which was seen by 23 million people and ignited a global scandal.
It is widely believed to have played a role in her separation from Prince Charles in 1996, which came one year before her tragic vehicle accident in Paris’ Tunnel de l’Alma.
The ‘false narrative’ that Bashir’s interview established, in William’s opinion, has not been addressed by the BBC, according to The Sunday Times.
Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, used fake bank statements to get access to the Princess, as demonstrated by Bashir.
These claims implied that Diana and Earl Spencer were being spied on by the security services and a tabloid newspaper through the former chief of security for Earl Spencer.
Bashir then deceived her by spreading a series of lies, including the false claim that Prince Charles was having an affair with Tiggy Legge-Bourke, now Alexandra Pettifer, a former royal nanny, leading to the latter’s pregnancy and subsequent abortion.
This Monday, the BBC agreed a settlement payment of almost £200,000 to Ms. Legge-Bourke for the “shocking” allegations Bashir launched against her in an effort to get his now-discredited interview.
Tim Davie, the CEO of the BBC, delivered a grovelling apology and promised never to air the broadcast again.
Louise Prince, Miss Legge-attorney, Bourke’s had earlier informed the court that the accusations had “severe personal ramifications for those involved.”
Although Ms Legge-Bourke had been unaware of the allegations for 25 years, Ms. Prince claimed that it was now likely that the “false and malicious allegations arose as a result and in the context of BBC Panorama’s efforts to obtain an exclusive interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.”
Charles, William, and Harry, as well as Miss Legge-Bourke, received a public apology from the corporation’s director-general, Mr. Davie, “for the way in which Princess Diana was duped and the ensuing impact on all their lives.”
He concurred with the Duke of Cambridge’s earlier remarks that the BBC had “failed to ask the tough questions” and that it was “a matter of great regret” that executives “did not get to the facts.”
In November 2020, the Daily Mail revealed information regarding the trickery used by the BBC reporter to secure his scoop, reigniting the Bashir affair.
Then, in May 2021, Lord Dyson’s scathing assessment discovered that an internal investigation into Bashir conducted in 1996 under the direction of Lord Hall—at the time the Corporation’s Director-General and afterwards head of news and current affairs—had been dreadfully ineffectual.
Additionally, it found that the BBC hid what it knew. Who else at the BBC was aware of Mr. Bashir’s work at the time, Earl Spencer wonders in his article today?
The chain of command must have gone very far indeed, past Panorama to the senior echelons of the BBC, he continues, in a story of such singular importance.
He emphasises that Diana died in a car crash in Paris two years to the day after he first met Bashir, and that she “had decided to dispense with the services of people she should have been able to trust implicitly with her safety” since there were “no Royal Protection Officers on site.”
On Friday night, Earl Spencer reiterated his call for Scotland Yard to look into the broadcaster and claimed that Martin Bashir, a disgraced BBC reporter, had groomed him.
In an article written exclusively for The Mail on Sunday, Earl Spencer urged the Metropolitan Police to “reconsider their obligations” and open an investigation after learning that lawyers had informed him that BBC officials had engaged in “unlawful and illegal behaviour.”
Earl Spencer described how Bashir tricked him for three weeks in order to get close to his sister, saying that only the police “had the authority to get to the bottom of this horrific story.”
After Lord Dyson, a former Supreme Court judge, released a damning report into the scandal last year, the Metropolitan Police investigated whether to open an inquiry into a number of suspected crimes, including forgery, misconduct in public office, and blackmail.
However, the police force declared in September that it had “not discovered evidence of behaviour that constituted a criminal offence and would, therefore, be taking no further action.”
Earl Spencer, 58, is adamant to carry on with his fight for his sister’s justice in the wake of the ruling.
Why have the police not brought charges against individuals responsible for what several top lawyers told him was obviously illegal and criminal behaviour?
He was asked repeatedly by outraged members of the public, he wrote.
“I’m hoping the police will reevaluate their obligations in this case.”
The truth about this awful incident, which made Diana feel even more vulnerable and alone and tricked her into shunning people who loved her and would have protected her, can only be discovered by them.
One of the first significant tests for the incoming Commissioner of the force, Sir Mark Rowley, will be Earl Spencer’s desire that the Met look into the issue.
It is also a crushing setback for BBC executives who had hoped that a series of settlements with Bashir’s victims would enable the Corporation to move past its worst disaster.
Additionally, while Mr. Davie tries to save the licence fee and make drastic cuts, the scandal threatens to follow him around.