Witchell to give evidence to Diana interview inquiry

NICHOLAS WITCHELL, the BBC’S royal correspondent, is expected to give evidence to an independent inquiry about Panorama’s interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, amid claims that several senior staff are “deeply disturbed” by allegations about Martin Bashir’s conduct.

It was Mr Witchell, who worked on Panorama in the early Nineties, who first mooted the idea of an interview with royal aides and had arranged to meet the Princess to discuss the proposal before events took a different turn. He was forced to cancel two consecutive meetings at Kensington Palace after being sent on assignment. Before it could be rescheduled, he was promoted to diplomatic correspondent, leaving Panorama.

The programme was “put on ice” as executives sought a new presenter before it was decided that Bashir, then a highly regarded but relatively junior reporter, should take on the project.

Mr Witchell is said to have been furious when it emerged, shortly after the interview was broadcast in November 1995, that Bashir had apparently arranged for bank statements to be forged in a bid to gain access to the Princess and win her trust.

He was similarly taken aback when Bashir was rehired by the BBC as religious affairs correspondent in 2016, despite a string of further controversies, and is understood to be ready and willing to give evidence at a forthcoming independent inquiry.

The genesis of the historic interview, watched by 23 million people, lay in a “humdrum Panorama planning meeting” the previous year, when it was decided to devote a full programme to the monarchy in the 21st century. The idea was to focus on the constitution, with the Princess playing just a small part as she gave her view on its changing role and how her sons, Princes William and Harry, would fit in and adapt.

It could not have been further from the headline-grabbing interview that Bashir eventually recorded, which shook the monarchy to its core.

Mr Witchell is said to have made initial contact with Patrick Jephson, the Princess’s private secretary, who asked about the nature of the programme. The Princess was keen and senior members of her staff were brought on board to begin discussions. She asked to meet Mr Witchell, reportedly telling staff that she was entitled to know as much about him as possible if he was to make a programme about her sons. The meetings never took place and Bashir apparently decided to abandon the subject of the constitution for a much more ambitious plan, making contact with the Princess independently via her brother, Earl Spencer. At the time, Lord Hall, the former BBC director general, who was then head of news and current affairs, offered this explanation: “I was working on a programme about monarchy and the constitution and he [Bashir] made a series of contacts. He met a number of people and he was led to the Princess. He met her on a number of occasions before the interview was done.”

Whether or not he knew that Lord Spencer was the middleman is unclear.

When it later emerged that Bashir had arranged for some bank statements to be faked, he oversaw a secretive internal investigation, but reportedly never contacted Lord Spencer.

Mr Witchell, BBC royal correspondent since 1998, declined to comment.