Bashir admits fake bank details ruse – but not for Diana interview

MARTIN BASHIR is claiming fake bank statements were only shown to Earl Spencer after the reporter had been introduced to Diana, Princess of Wales – and so could not have been deployed to gain her brother’s trust.

The mocked up bank statements are at the heart of a six-month inquiry into whether Bashir lied and cheated to secure an interview with the princess for the BBC’s Panorama.

Bashir admits ordering the mocked up bank statements, produced by a freelance graphic artist. But it is understood Bashir is adamant they were only shown to Earl Spencer after the latter had made the introduction to the princess.

Bashir’s claims put him at odds with reports which suggested that the statements were shown to Earl Spencer to gain his trust. Earl Spencer introduced Bashir to the princess, leading to the TV interview in 1995 in which she accused the Prince of Wales of adultery.

Bashir has given his version of events to the internal BBC inquiry presided over by Lord Dyson, the former master of the rolls. A letter from the princess to Bashir – and passed to the inquiry – asserts that she was never shown the bank statements.

The inquiry, expected to report by May, is likely to criticise Bashir as well as senior executives including Tony Hall, who went on to become the BBC’s director-general. The executives are accused of failing to investigate fully the methods used by Bashir to secure the 1995 interview.

The existence of the bank statements, faked by Matt Wiessler, a graphic artist, were made public in the spring of 1996 but their importance is now under renewed scrutiny.

Bashir, 59, currently the BBC’s religious affairs editor, is understood to have told Lord Dyson that the statements were faked in late September or early October 1995.

It is understood Bashir is insisting the documents were only faked to impress Earl Spencer with a view to working with him in the future. Bashir is understood to have told Lord Dyson that he had already been introduced to the princess, meaning the bank statements had no bearing on the interview.

Lord Dyson is considering the possibility that Bashir raised the allegations of these payments at his first meeting with Earl Spencer on Aug 31 1995. But then had the bank statements mocked up at a later date.

A Channel 4 documentary about the Panorama interview revealed that Lord Hall, then the BBC’s head of news, wrote a memo to his board of governors suggesting Earl Spencer had provided the statements Bashir used to create the forgeries. According to reports, that claim prompted an angry response from Earl Spencer who has threatened to sue the corporation.

Earl Spencer has also claimed Bashir waved around other fake bank statements purportedly showing payments to Patrick Jephson, the princess’s private secretary, and to Richard Aylard, Prince Charles’s private secretary, at his first meeting with the princess.

Those statements were not handed over to Earl Spencer and it is unclear whether any such copies now exist. Bashir is understood to deny such statements were mocked up by him.