Furious Spencer attacks TV’s Diana funeral ‘lies’

Nearly 20 years have passed since Princess Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris. But that fateful week still stirs painful, passionate memories in the Spencer family. a forthcoming TV documentary has prompted a furious response from Diana’s brother, earl Spencer, 53,who is demanding changes to the programme before it is broadcast.

as I revealed yesterday, next week’s Channel 5 show, Diana: 7 Days That Shook The Windsors, the commentary baldly states that earl Spencer wanted to walk alone behind Diana’s coffin, but royal advisers were not happy. a spokesman for the earl tells me: ‘This is a fabrication. earl Spencer had no wish to walk behind his sister’s coffin, and only did so to support his young nephews when asked.

‘We will be contacting Channel 5 to stop them broadcasting something with no basis in fact.’

a Palace committee, set up to organise the funeral in 1997, felt that Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, should be part of the procession. But William initially refused to join, wanting to grieve in private.

In the end, Downing Street spinners persuaded William to change his mind, much to the annoyance of Prince Philip who resented their meddling. ‘It’s about the boys,’ Philip reproached them. ‘They’ve lost their mother.’

at the funeral, earl Spencer stunned the congregation when he effectively condemned the royals by promising to protect and guide his nephews William and Harry as ‘blood family’.

In 2002, earl Spencer gave an interview to U.S. network aBC in which he described the funeral as ‘hell’: ‘It was unmitigated hell... the worst half-hour of my life.’

Of the decision to join the funeral procession, he said: ‘I was very against having to walk behind [the coffin], particularly for William and Harry, but that’s the way things are done in this country, apparently, so we had to do it.’