Now Panorama is to investigate itself over controversial Diana interview
THE BBC’s Panorama is launching an unprecedented investigation into itself to try to find out how journalist Martin Bashir secured his controversial interview with Princess Diana.
Bosses have commissioned John Ware, one of the corporation’s most experienced journalists, to make a special edition of the programme. He has been told to leave “no stone unturned”.
It is now 25 years since Mr Bashir obtained the historic interview with the Princess in which she dramatically revealed there were “three people in my marriage”.
It was a pointed reference to Prince Charles’s ongoing relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
After renewed publicity around the anniversary of the interview last month, Diana’s brother Earl Spencer called for a new investigation accusing the BBC of a “whitewash” in its initial inquiry.
Concern
Last night Mr Ware, who worked on Panorama between 1986 and 2012, declined to comment. It is not the first time he has been asked to investigate another branch of the BBC.
Back in 2004, he examined the Today programme’s report into the death of Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert found dead after giving evidence to MPs about the Iraq War.
Mr Ware’s award- winning Panorama programme, A Fight To The Death, exposed poor conduct by the BBC and led to the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death.
The decision to commission the programme shows the levels of concern at the BBC over claims of forgery, deception and cover- up which have emerged in relation to the 1995 interview.
It also suggests there are doubts at the highest level that the official probe launched by BBC director general Tim Davie and headed by retired Supreme Court judge Lord Dyson will go far enough.
BBC bosses believe a new Panorama programme would go some way to reassuring Earl Spencer and the public that their inquiries have been thorough.
Mr Bashir is not working after contracting Covid- 19 and having a quadruple heart bypass.
The programme, likely to be screened in the new year, will focus on claims that he used forged documents claiming falsely that two of Charles’s and Diana’s senior aides were selling information about her, to persuade
her to give him an interview. Richard Fitzwilliams, a royal commentator who has followed the controversy closely, welcomed the investigation.
He said: “They have got to get to the bottom of what has become a nasty scandal.”
But the continuing focus on Diana, with more twists and turns than a John Le Carre novel, would not help Charles and Camilla. There are more episodes of The Crown to come, por
traying a crucial period in the life of Diana. And a statue of her is set to be installed at Kensington Palace on what would have been her 60th birthday next year.
Mr Fitzwilliams added: “The publicity leading up to that will put Diana centre stage again, and now this programme. It’s deeply damaging to Charles and Camilla, who would much prefer to look forwards rather than backwards. It’s all pretty toxic.”