Princess Diana interview scandal takes new flip
The BBC is refusing to launch a doubtlessly explosive letter it obtained from Buckingham Palace simply days earlier than it broadcast Martin Bashir’s bombshell Panorama interview with Princess Diana.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the doc, which has remained hidden in BBC archives for 3 a long time, was despatched to the then-director normal John Birt 4 days earlier than the 1995 broadcast.
It was written at a time of extraordinary rigidity between the Palace and the BBC.
Just days earlier, Diana had confessed to royal aides that she had granted Bashir an unique interview in regards to the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles.
The existence of the letter – which is known to have come from the Queen’s workplace – was confirmed in 10,000 pages of closely redacted paperwork lastly launched by the BBC final week.
It adopted a long-running freedom of data battle between the company and investigative journalist Andy Webb over emails between BBC bosses when the astonishing scale of Bashir’s deceit grew to become recognized in 2020.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the expulsive letter has remained hidden in BBC archives for 3 a long time
Martin Bashir faked financial institution statements so as to persuade the Princess and her household that members of her interior circle had been promoting particulars of her personal life tot he press
The well-known Panorama episode was watched by greater than 20million folks
Last evening, historians and campaigners known as on the company to finish its ‘cover-up’ and launch the Palace letter and all different paperwork in full
Last evening, historians and campaigners known as on the company to finish its ‘cover-up’ and launch the Palace letter and all different paperwork in full.
The MoS can reveal the doc was despatched to Lord Birt on November 16, 1995.
It’s recognized that Lord Birt, on the insistence of the Princess, had determined to not inform BBC chairman Marmaduke Hussey in regards to the interview for worry that Hussey would inform his spouse who was a senior lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
The newly launched recordsdata confer with ‘Letter from Palace to DG – withheld in full’ and the date, however not the doc itself.
The timing is intriguing. The Queen was recognized to have been livid in regards to the Panorama interview.
After it was broadcast in 1995, the monarch eliminated the BBC’s unique rights to the manufacturing of her annual Christmas broadcast, which was seen as an act of revenge.
The Panorama episode was watched by greater than 20 million viewers. Soon afterwards, the Queen wrote to Charles and Diana urging them to divorce.
In 1996, the MoS first revealed claims that Bashir had faked financial institution statements simply weeks earlier than the interview. BBC bosses, together with head of reports Tony Hall, carried out a ‘whitewash’ inquiry on the time and cleared Bashir of any wrongdoing.
It took one other twenty years earlier than the BBC lastly ordered an official inquiry by High Court choose Lord Dyson in 2021.
This concluded that Bashir had faked financial institution statements so as to persuade the Princess and her household that members of her interior circle had been promoting particulars of her personal life and that the BBC coated up what it knew about his actions.
Prince William issued a strongly worded assertion saying he believed the Panorama interview had contributed to the breakdown of his mother and father’ marriage.
The BBC has been strongly criticised for obstructing freedom of data requests in regards to the scandal.
Under FoI guidelines, public our bodies can select to refuse to launch communications with the Royal Family underneath what is named a Section 37 exemption.
But freedom of data campaigners and even the Information Commissioner’s Office final evening stated the BBC was not obliged to quote the exemptions and will launch it in full if it wished.
Maurice Frankel, of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, stated: ‘[The BBC] are free to disclose this letter from the Palace should they wish, and I think they should. It’s a matter of actual public curiosity.’
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers added: ‘It could of course be that the letter is perfectly harmless but the BBC’s refusal to launch it makes one suppose they’ve one thing to cover.’
A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office stated it was as much as public our bodies to contemplate every request they obtain and whether or not they need to launch that info. Buckingham Palace declined to remark. Lord Birt was unavailable for remark.
A BBC spokesman stated: ‘We take our responsibilities… under the Freedom of Information Act extremely seriously.
This specific exemption covers correspondence with the Royal Household, recognising the need for all parties to have a “safe space” to ensure a free and frank exchange of information.’
