Channel 4 risking fresh row to show ‘ghoulish’ unseen Diana video clips
CONTROVERSIAL tapes of Princess Diana’s elocution lessons are to be shown by Channel 4, ten years after the BBC shelved plans to broadcast them for fear of upsetting the Royal Family.
In the unseen videos, recorded by voice coach Peter Settelen, Diana speaks candidly about her upbringing, troubled marriage and her public life.
The clips – dubbed the ‘dynamite diaries’ – have been the source of considerable anguish for her family, who lost a lengthy dispute to seize control of them, which ran between 2001 and 2004.
Such was the continued controversy that in 2007 the BBC scrapped a £100,000 documentary featuring them, following criticism that broadcasting the tapes would be bad taste and ‘ghoulish’.
However, Channel 4 has announced that it will air Diana: In Her Own Words next month, weeks before the 20th anniversary of the princess’s death.
While Channel 4’s head of factual, Ralph Lee, insists the documentary will be an ‘important contribution to the historical record’, the decision to broadcast the clips risks a fresh row with Diana’s family. The private coaching sessions between Mr Settelen and the princess took place in 1992 and 1993 in Kensington Palace to help her with public speaking, a few years before her now-infamous Panorama interview.
It is understood that seven of the 16 videos that Mr Settelen recorded were seized by Scotland Yard in 2001 during a raid on the home of former royal butler Paul Burrell.
The content of the tapes was regarded as so sensitive that the prosecution agreed not to use them in Mr Burrell’s trial – he was accused of stealing items belonging to Diana but the case collapsed at the Old Bailey in 2002.
The tapes were sold to US broadcaster NBC for an undisclosed sum and excerpts were broadcast in 2004. The BBC paid £30,000 for three minutes’ footage.
The clips being shown by Chan- nel 4 may include those aired by NBC, where Diana spoke of how Prince Charles ‘leapt upon’ her to kiss her at the start of her relationship. In another recording she told of running to the Queen after she became convinced that Charles had resumed his romance with Camilla Parker Bowles.
‘I went to the top lady and I’m sobbing,’ she said. ‘And I said, “What do I do?” [The Queen] said, “I don’t know - Charles is hopeless”.’ Other admissions included how she was deeply in love with a royal protection officer, presumed to be Barry Mannakee.
He was killed in a motorcycle accident and Diana said she believed he was ‘ bumped off’ because of their affair. Last night, Channel 4 confirmed it is using double the amount of footage that the BBC bought.
Mr Lee said: ‘The tapes, which show a relaxed and off-duty Diana, are hugely illuminating about her personality, humour and charm.
‘Combined with historical context and interviews with her closest confidants, this film provides a nuanced, multi-layered portrait of the most famous woman in the world and a mother who has shaped the future line of the Royal Family.
‘This film gives Diana a voice and places it front and centre at a time when the nation will be reflecting on her life and death.
‘ It is her account of events both private and public and is an important contribution to the historical record.’
In 2004, Sir Teddy Taylor, then Tory MP for Rochford and Southend East, appealed to broadcasters’ ‘sense of decency’ not to air the tapes while Princes William and Harry were still alive.
The documentary will also include interviews with Diana’s long- term friend Dr James Colthurst and her ballet teacher Anne Allan, neither of whom has ever spoken on the record.
‘Hugely illuminating’