BBC’s shame over Tiggy
■ Humiliating apology over Bashir smears ■ £ 200,000 payout for royal nanny
‘Victim of serious and unfounded allegations’
THe BBC yesterday paid out around £200,000 to a former royal nanny who was subjected to ‘wholly baseless’ smears by Martin Bashir.
Tim Davie, the corporation’s director-general, also made a humiliating apology to Tiggy Legge-Bourke as well as to Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry.
A court had heard that Miss Legge-Bourke suffered substantial damage and upset for 25 years as a result of ‘false and malicious allegations’.
Although he was not named at the hearing, the false claims are said to have been made by Bashir while working on a BBC Panorama interview with Princess Diana.
Miss Legge-Bourke said the ‘false narrative’ created by the programme had ‘haunted’ the Royal Family since it aired in 1995.
A formal statement, agreed by the former nanny and the BBC, said she was the victim of ‘ very serious and totally unfounded’ allegations that she was having an affair with Charles that had resulted in an aborted pregnancy.
These allegations, the statement said, had been ‘fabricated’ and a series of false claims had left the former nanny ‘extremely upset and confused’.
The court was told that the falsehoods had caused ‘ serious personal consequences for all concerned’. Bashir is said to have made a series of slurs about Miss Legge-Bourke in an attempt to land his notorious interview with Diana.
The document, which was read out at the High Court in London, revealed that the princess ‘became upset’ with Miss Legge-Bourke without apparent justification after she became aware of the allegations. Miss Legge-Bourke, who is now known as Alexandra Pettifer, said she and her family had ‘continued to face suspicion and disbelief’ as a result of the claims. It was added that ‘a long shadow has been cast over relationships with those close and dear to her’.
In a devastating section of the agreed statement it was said that she and her family could have been spared 25 years of lies, suspicion and upset had the BBC not ‘fallen short’.
Last year’s devastating report by Lord Dyson into the Bashir scandal revealed the scale of ‘deceitful behaviour’ employed in securing the interview, which even extended to faked bank statements. That report found the BBC had carried out a ‘woefully ineffective’ internal investigation into the matter.
The BBC part of yesterday’s statement said the corporation wanted to ‘publicly apologise’ to Miss Legge-Bourke without reservation, saying the allegations had been ‘wholly baseless’. It added: ‘The BBC is extremely sorry for the serious and
prolonged harm caused to the claimant and the historical investigative shortcomings.’
Miss Legge-Bourke in her statement said: ‘I am disappointed it needed legal action for the BBC to recognise the serious harm I have been subjected to.
‘Sadly, I am one of many people whose lives have been scarred by the deceitful way in which the BBC Panorama was made and the BBC’s subsequent failure to properly investigate the making of the programme.
‘The distress caused to the Royal Family is a source of great upset to me. I know first hand how much they were affected at the time, and how the programme and the false narrative it created have haunted the family in the years since.
‘Especially because, still today, so much about the making of the programme is yet to be adequately explained.’
Mr Davie yesterday apologised publiclysensilicl to Miss Legge-Bourke and to Princes Charles, William and Harry Ha for the way Diana was ‘de deceived’ and the impact it had on all their lives.
He H added that the BBC had ‘fai failed to ask the tough questions’ tion and had it done its job properly pro the princess would have hav known the truth during her lifetime. Mr Davie added: ‘We let her, the Royal Family and our audiences a down.’
But Bu despite saying the corporation tion would never show the programme gram again – or licence it in whole whol or in part to others – he did not rule r out the BBC using short extracts extr ‘ for journalistic purposes’. purpo
He said any future use would need to be agreed at the top level of the corporation.
It is the latest in a string of expensive expen payouts caused by rogue reporter Bashir’s tactics. Miss Legge-Bourke’s settlement is thought tho to be less than that received receive by graphic artist Matt Wiessler, Wiessle who blew the whistle on Bashir and was then blacklisted by the corporation. cor He is thought to have re received £500,000 as part of his agreement with the BBC. Earlier this year the corporation paid Diana’s former private secretary Patrick Jephson £100,000 along with an apology for the ‘harm caused to him’. He donated the money in full to charity.
Mark Killick, a former senior reporter on Panorama, was paid around £50,000 by the BBC, which defamed him after he blew the whistle on Bashir.
The broadcaster also reportedly offered more than £1.5million to a charity selected by the Royal Family after the fallout from the Dyson report. This payment has still not been made.
The payout for Miss Legge-Bourke is equivalent to the cost of 1,258 TV licences at £159 each.
Earl Spencer’s former head of security Alan Waller is also expected to get compensation after he was falsely accused by Bashir of selling information about Diana.
The former nanny’s lawyers said yesterday that the payment for damages was for the ‘purposes of vindicating her reputation’ and attempting to compensate her for the ‘serious harm and distress’ caused by the length of time it had taken for these matters to come to light.
They said Miss Legge-Bourke was holding the BBC liable for the ‘serious impact’ the allegations had on her. Their statement said that, in September 1995, Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, was told Prince Charles was in love with the former nanny and they had been on a ‘secret holiday’ together.
Then in October 1995 – when the BBC’s negotiations with Diana for her Panorama appearance were at a ‘critical stage’ – the princess had informed her solicitor she had been told Miss Legge-Bourke had undergone an abortion.
Yesterday it was said that the former nanny had felt she had to prove to others the allegations were completely untrue and had revealed ‘highly sensilicl
‘Haunted Royal Family ever since’
tive matters, including private medical information’ in doing so.
The statement noted: ‘Sadly Diana, Princess of Wales, could not be convinced even when incontrovertible evidence was presented’.
Last night Kensington Palace declined to comment on the latest developments.
Last year however William issued a robust and deeply emotional statement lambasting the BBC in the strongest of terms for its handling of the scandal.
He is known to be deeply upset still about what his late mother went through and feels passionately that the interview should never see the light of day again in any form.
Friends recently told the Daily Mail he is also mature enough to understand ‘that was then, this is now’ and will continue to work with the national broadcaster.
But they added that no one should be under any illusion about how furious he is at Bashir’s actions and the subsequent cover-up
FROM its moral high horse, the BBC is quick to denounce any bad behaviour it dislikes by other media organisations.
But the cynical deception deployed by Martin Bashir to secure his Panorama interview with Princess Diana was a truly appalling piece of gutter journalism.
The corporation’s rogue reporter falsely claimed Tiggy Legge-Bourke had an affair with Prince Charles, leading to an abortion.
This was the most grotesque libel. By making a grovelling apology and paying £200,000 in damages to the former nanny, the broadcaster is getting off lightly.
Such was the monstrous scale of dishonesty, isn’t it a scandal no one has been charged?