Ex chief: Met should have quizzed Bashir
DISGRACED BBC journalist Martin Bashir should have been interviewed under caution as part of the investigation into the death of Princess Diana, the former head of the Met has suggested.
Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington said Bashir would ‘definitely’ have been questioned had the senior police team known about the web of lies he fed to Diana.
Bashir had told her Prince Charles was having an affair with their nanny in a bid to secure his infamous interview in 1995. Lord Stevens said that had Bashir come forward during the Operation Paget inquiry, or the subsequent inquest, critical questions about Diana’s state of mind could also have been answered, saving her loved ones from untold anguish.
If police had known what Bashir had done, it would have meant that the Prince of Wales would have avoided the humiliation of being interviewed about claims he plotted to kill his ex-wife, Lord Stevens said. ‘Had we known about Bashir before the conclusions of the inquiry we would have definitely gone to interview him, possibly under caution,’ he told The Sunday Telegraph.
BBC director-general Tim Davie has apologised for Bashir’s tactics, promising the interview will not be shown again.