EARL SPENCER: BBC’S VILE SLURS TO ENTRAP DIANA
Princess’s brother sensationally exposes Bashir letter falsely accusing Charles of affair with princes’ nanny ++ He demands inquiry into ‘whitewash’ over Panorama interview
Princess Diana’s brother has accused the BBc of a ‘ whitewash’ over faked bank statements said to have helped land a historic interview with her.
In a devastating letter, Charles Spencer expressed his outrage at the institution’s ‘ sheer dishonesty’ and accused Martin Bashir, who secured the sensational interview for Panorama in 1995, of ‘yellow journalism’.
earl Spencer also told director-general Tim Davie that Bashir showed him falsified bank accounts purporting to show – entirely wrongly – that two senior courtiers were being paid by the security services for information on his sister, in the hope it would win him an introduction to the princess.
Accusing the BBC of failing to accept the ‘full gravity of the situation’, the earl is demanding the BBC formally open an inquiry into the case.
He says the corporation owes both himself, the viewing public and, most importantly, the late princess a posthumous apology for the wholescale deception by a journalist working for its flagship news programme.
Bashir’s interview with Diana, in which she told him ‘there were three people in the marriage’ – a reference to her estranged husband’s relationship
with Camilla Parker Bowles – attracted 23million viewers and was hailed as the greatest tell-all scoop of the 20th century.
But 25 years after she bared her soul, fresh allegations have emerged that the BBC obtained the scoop under a false pretext.
Before Mr Davie issued a partial apology last week, Mr Spencer had said it was ‘palpably untrue’ for the BBC to say the bank statements were irrelevant.
In the email on October 23 he added: ‘If it were not for me seeing these statements, I would not have introduced Bashir to my sister.
‘In turn, he would have remained just one of thousands of journalists hoping that he/she had a tiny chance of getting her to speak to them, with no realistic prospect of doing so.’
Bashir has also been accused of exploiting the princess’s fears that her private conversations were being bugged by the secret services to garner a meeting.
The journalist first contacted Diana’s brother three months before the interview saying he was looking into ‘media ethics’. The earl went on to arrange a meeting between himself, his sister and Bashir at a friend’s apartment in London in September 1995.
He kept notes of the discussion and eventually warned his sister against dealings with Bashir over the sensational allegations he was making.
But by that time it was too late – and Diana was hooked.
The BBC eventually launched its own investigation into the faked document which concluded in
April 1996 that: ‘The BBC has been able, independently, to verify that these documents were put to no use which had any bearing, direct or indirect, on the Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales.’ The review was overseen in part by Tony Hall, then head of news and current affairs, who retired as director-general in August.
But renewed publicity around the 25th anniversary of the interview and the airing again of the claims against Bashir, has prompted Earl Spencer to take up the cudgels again.
He has decided to go public with his anger after Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, last week admitted to him that Bashir used a BBC graphic designer to draw up fake bank statements which he claimed showed that an employee of the aristocrat was being paid for information on his family. Mr Davie
‘A piecemeal apology’
also apologised for this. But Earl Spencer says this was only the tip of the iceberg and Bashir had also shown him several other bank statements purporting – falsely – to show that two senior royal courtiers – Patrick Jephson, who worked for the princess as her private secretary, and Commander Richard Aylard, who worked for the Prince of Wales – had also received ‘very large payments alleged by Bashir to have come from the security services’.
Diana’s brother says the statements referring to his employee were irrelevant to Bashir securing the Panorama interview, and the falsified statements referring to the two palace staff were much more significant factors in that respect.
In response to the 1996 BBC enquiry, Bashir maintained the statements were shown to Earl Spencer after he had already agreed to introduce him to his sister with a view to securing an interview with her. Charles Spencer insists this is a ‘lie’. He has also produced evidence of a letter written to him by Bashir, in which the journalist attempts to heap further pressure on both himself and Diana to co-operate, by referencing wholly false rumours that were circulating about her children’s nanny,
Tiggy Legge- Bourke, having ‘recurring intimacy’ with a ‘particular individual’.
In his letter, Bashir makes a series of salacious claims and says Miss Legge-Bourke is ‘keen to divert much attention’. Earl Spencer tells Mr Davie that in light of the evidence he has, he believes that the BBC should take immedi
ate action, saying: ‘Your piecemeal apology of Wednesday seems to be a way for you merely to say that you’ve apologised to me, rather than acceptance of the full gravity of this situation.
‘I am now formally asking for the BBC to open an enquiry into this matter, and I hope – among many other questions that need addressing – that it will get to the bottom of key, interconnected questions: why did Tony Hall’s enquiry not seek the truth from me?
‘Why did it bend over backwards to whitewash Bashir? Who knew the extent of his yellow journalism when securing what Hall calls the interview of the decade ... or of the generation?’
He adds: ‘The sheer dishonesty of what I’ve seen in the BBC 25 years ago – both in Bashir and his colleague’s actions in securing the interview, and the whitewash under Tony Hall’s name – demands it.’ He also warns he will go public. A BBC spokesman said: ‘ We would never comment on or confirm private correspondence. As people know, Martin Bashir is seriously unwell at the moment.
‘The BBC is being as open as we can be about events from a quarter of a century ago. Our records show the focus of the BBC’s investigations into these events was whether or not the Princess of Wales had been misled, and they show that the BBC’s key piece of information was the hand-written statement from the Princess of Wales, who said she hadn’t seen the mocked-up documents and they had played no part in her decision to take part in the interview. None of this means the BBC won’t properly look at issues raised. If anyone has substantial new information they would like to share with us, we are encouraging them to do so. While Martin is unwell, however, we are unable to progress this further.’
WITh the British people again being asked to risk their jobs, businesses and mental health by being bundled back into lockdown, the Government should be honest about the evidence behind such draconian restrictions.
Disgracefully, that is not happening. Instead, the futures of millions are being ruined and our freedoms curtailed as ministers peddle dubious data.
Take the spine- chilling projection from Saturday night’s TV press conference. Unless the country shuts down, said Boris Johnson and his scientists, there would soon be 4,000 daily Covid deaths.
Yet as we disclose today, the Cambridge University team responsible for the prediction had dramatically downgraded it two days BeFORe the Prime Minister addressed the nation.
By cherry-picking only the most bloodcurdling statistics to support lockdown, the Prime Minister is duping the public on decisions that have the profoundest consequences for their lives.
On the back of exaggerated figures, the Government is regulating who we hug, whether we visit our parents, if we go to work, and where we eat and drink.
As senior Tory Sir Graham Brady stated eloquently: ‘If this were a totalitarian regime we would denounce it as evil.’
Blanket lockdowns won’t eradicate the virus, only postpone its spread.
But the legacy of economy destruction and destitution will linger.
Mr Johnson insists there are no alternatives. But many curbs are baffling. When obesity is a key factor in succumbing to Covid, shouldn’t gyms and sport be permitted? And with many seeking spiritual succour, why not leave our churches, mosques and synagogues open?
In a glimmer of hope, Boris says a masstesting programme may be around the corner. The Mail hopes he is right. To live in this limbo much longer will beggar Britain.