Bashir:‘I’m very sorry.’ But he denies interview led to death of Diana
MARTIN BASHIR has told Princes William and Harry in a newspaper interview that he is ‘deeply sorry’ – but claimed it was ‘unreasonable and unfair’ to blame their mother’s tragic death on him.
The former BBC star admitted last night he had been ‘wrong’ to show Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, forged bank statements when he sought to secure an interview with the princess, but insisted: ‘It had no bearing on Diana, it had no bearing on the interview.’
Former judge John Dyson’s devastating report this week found that Bashir, 58, was ‘devious and dishonest’ and had broken BBC rules in the way he secured the 1995 Panorama interview.
But Bashir told The Sunday Times: ‘I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don’t believe we did.
‘Everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted, from when she wanted to alert the palace, to when it was broadcast, to its contents... My family and I loved her.’
Insisting he was thinking of William and Harry, he said: ‘I can’t imagine what their family must feel each day, although I know a little of that myself having lost a brother and father prematurely.’
The disgraced reporter rejected the charge from Prince William that he had fed his mother with fantastical stories, fuelling her isolation and paranoia. ‘Even in the early 1990s, there were stories and secretly recorded phone calls. I wasn’t the source of any of that,’ he insisted.
And he also hit back at Charles Spencer’s claims that his conduct had led to his sister giving up her royal security detail, which ultimately contributed to her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
Showing a remarkable lack of remorse, he said: ‘I don’t feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life, and the complex issues surrounding those decisions.’
He admitted that he understood Mr Spencer’s anger but rejected as ‘a little unreasonable’ his attempts to channel his sister’s death and the relationship between the royal family and the media on to his shoulders. ‘The suggestion I am singularly responsible I think is unreasonable and unfair,’ he said.
The report by Mr Dyson about the interview, published last week, was damning about Bashir. It stated: ‘There were significant parts of Mr Bashir’s account that I reject as incredible, unreliable and, in some cases, dishonest.’
He called Bashir’s decision to show Spencer forged bank statements ‘devious and dishonest’ and repeatedly referred to Bashir’s ‘lies’.
Bashir expressed regret in his Sunday Times interview about the forgeries – saying he had acted ‘stupidly’ – but insisted he and
Diana were happy with the programme and that they remained close friends afterwards.
In a letter written on November 21, 1995, the day after it was broadcast, Diana praised both Bashir’s journalistic nous and the pesto pasta he had made in her kitchen at Kensington Palace. She wrote: ‘Thank you, Martin, for listening to me, for supporting me and for understanding this particular lady. No one has ever shown such belief and acted upon it.’
Such was their closeness that Diana invited the Bashirs to go on holiday to Scotland with her in 1996 when Bashir’s wife Deborah developed pleurisy, a painful lung condition that can impair breathing.
He also said Diana visited them at St George’s hospital in Tooting, South London, on the day Deborah gave birth to the couple’s third child, Eliza, in March 1996.
‘We were friends,’ he said, adding: ‘She was spectacular. She said to me, “You must let me know the moment the baby arrives,” and an hour later, there was a knock on the delivery room and in she walked.’
Bashir also claimed that Diana invited his family for lunch at Kensington Palace to celebrate his eldest child’s eighth birthday.
He said that the princes attended and that Diana’s butler Paul Burrell served them. ‘Our eldest and Harry kicked a ball around,’ he said. ‘It was a very precious relationship and one we treasured.’
Following the interview, Bashir wrote speeches for Diana. He claimed his wife has been deeply distressed by the Dyson report.
Bashir stressed that he never exploited his relationship with Diana for income, adding: ‘We loved her. That’s what we wanted to protect, and that’s why I have never taken money, never said anything, never written anything.’
Bashir, who resigned as the BBC’s Religion Editor this month after a bout of serious illness, said he wanted people to remember Diana’s interview – in which she admitted having affairs and talked about her bulimia – for what she said, rather than how it was obtained. He said the princess was ‘pioneering’ to speak about mental health 25 years ago, adding: ‘When you think about her expressions of grief in her marriage, when you think about the admission of psychiatric illness – just extraordinary. And her sons have gone on to champion mental health.’
He added that he would hope people would reflect on her role as a royal trailblazer, saying: ‘The saddest thing is that all of this crap – built on my stupidity, I accept that
‘I never wanted to harm her and I don’t believe we did’
‘We were friends… Diana was spectacular’
– [is] that people haven’t focused on the remarkable things she did.’
Bashir told the newspaper that he regretted lying when he did not confess immediately to BBC bosses that he had shown the bank statement forgeries to Charles Spencer.
But he claims he did tell his boss Tony Hall during the 1996 internal inquiry into how the interview came about. ‘I eventually told them I had done that and I was sorry.’
Hall’s inquiry found Bashir to be ‘honest and honourable’ but Dyson ruled this week that it had been a ‘woefully ineffective’ whitewash.
Asked if he could now forgive himself, Bashir said: ‘That’s a really difficult question because it was a serious error. I hope that people will allow me the opportunity to show that I am properly repentant of what happened.’