Brother’s plea to leave Di in peace

PRINCESS Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has pleaded with a UK television station not to broadcast his sister’s “video diaries” in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of her death.

The tapes reportedly include claims by Diana she only had sex with Prince Charles “once every three weeks” but even this stopped after the birth of Prince Harry in 1984.

She also said Prince Philip had told Charles he could have an affair with Camilla ParkerBowles if his marriage to Diana failed after five years

Intimate details of the marriage and her inner turmoil are contained in the tapes, including her admission she considered running off with her bodyguard, with whom she was “deeply in love”.

Britain’s Channel 4, which plans to air a 90-minute program called Diana: In Her Own Words, is believed to have told the Earl the program, based on the videotapes recorded by Diana’s voice coach, is an “important contribution to the historical record”.

Channel 4 plans to run the program next Sunday, three weeks before the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in a Paris car crash.

Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper revealed the earl has pleaded with the station not to run the program, which he says is a betrayal of her memory that will cause enormous distress to princes William and Harry.

The tapes, dubbed the “dynamite diaries”, were recorded by Diana’s voice coach and former Coronation Street actor Peter Settelen at Kensington Palace in 1992-93. Diana tells her own story of her failed marriage.

In all there are said to be 12 tapes. The program is based on seven and five are reportedly missing. In 2007 the BBC had planned to broadcast the tapes but deferred to the Palace.

They were then broadcast in 2004 by American network, NBC, which had bought them from Mr Settelen.

The Mail on Sunday reported seven of the 12 tapes were seized by police in a raid on the home of Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, who was under investigation for stealing from Diana. In Mr Burrell’s 2002 trial the prosecution agreed not to use the tape’s contents due to their sensitivity. The case subsequently collapsed.

Excerpts from the proposed program, which are being aired on Channel 4, show Diana talking about her life.

Regarding Camilla ParkerBowles, now Charles’s wife, Diana says: “I said to my husband, you know, why is this lady around? And he said, ‘I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress’”.

She also talks about dating Prince Charles. “He chatted me up, you know, he was like a bad rash, he was all over me and I thought, you know, urgh, you know? Whereupon he leapt upon me and started kissing me and everything and I thought waaah! ... this is not what people do.”

Diana also told of her affection for one of her royal protection officers, who the Mail on Sunday said was assumed to be Barry Mannakee.

She says she was “deeply in love” with him and said his death, in a motorcycle accident, was the “biggest blow of my life”.

Diana reveals that she even considered going to live with him. After rumours of an affair between the officer and Diana spread he was reassigned to other duties.

Channel 4 said its program was a unique portrait of Diana, giving her a voice.

“The excerpts from the tapes recorded with Peter Settelen have never been shown before on British television and are an important historical source,” the channel said.