DI INTERVIEW: The dossier of lies that made Diana open heart
...and how BBC bosses tried to silence her brother
PRINCESS Diana fell for a web of lies spun by Martin Bashir – but her brother was excluded from a BBC probe because he “was a nuisance”, it was claimed yesterday.
Senior courtiers have revealed BBC executives purposely kept Earl Spencer in the dark about what they knew of forged documents produced by Panorama reporter Bashir.
Spencer kept a detailed dossier of meetings with Bashir and accuses him of making wild claims which convinced Diana to speak out.
But, one former Palace staffer revealed, the BBC ordered that Spencer be cut out of any investigation for fear he would “raise hell” if he discovered Diana had been hoodwinked.
Spencer has said: “I was deliberately excluded from the inquiry.
“The BBC has shown itself incapable of honestly facing up to the ugly truth of this matter.”
The alleged BBC snub was revealed as full details of Spencer’s meetings with Bashir in the autumn of 1995 emerged.
First, there were forged bank statements suggesting Spencer was being betrayed by his former head of security.
Matt Wiessler, the designer who says he unwittingly produced the forgeries for Bashir, has told the Sunday Mirror he is glad the truth is finally coming out.
But the bank statements, according to Spencer, were just the start.
Over further meetings – including a face-to-face with the princess – Bashir allegedly produced 32 wild claims about Di, her courtiers and the Royal Family.
Some were so fantastical that Spencer knew they must be false. But Diana was hooked and Bashir got his interview.
Spencer says Bashir alleged senior courtiers were betraying Diana for money and that Prince Charles was now “in the end game” – suggesting a divorce was being finalised.
Bashir also allegedly said Diana’s phones were bugged, her mail was being intercepted and her car was fitted with a tracking device.
But the level of personal allegations about royals – with no evidence to back them up – was yet more shocking.
Bashir is said to have claimed Prince Charles was in love with royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke and that they had been on holiday together. Di’s friends say she later confronted Tiggy about claims Charles had made her pregnant. They were entirely false.
Another Bashir claim, says Spencer, was that Prince William was given a Swatch watch by his father which had a listening device – suggesting Charles was spying on Diana.
Bashir also allegedly said Prince Edward had treatment for Aids at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
Even The Queen was dragged into the scandal – allegedly said by Bashir to be “a comfort eater” with heart problems.
Spencer – according to a dossier reported by the Daily Mail – says Bashir also said Charles was “longing for Di to initiate a divorce… and go off to America”.
Bashir’s alleged practices all started with the forged NatWest papers. In 1996, designer Wiessler penned a written account of events. His statement said: “Reconstructing documents was not unusual as I had previously been asked to reconstruct documents for Panorama.
“Mr Bashir visited my home and briefed me in person on exactly what these documents were to contain. I set up the layout for the documents in his presence, following his explicit instructions.
“The documents were in the form of two pages of a bank statement. The first, dated March 1994, shows a single credit from News International. The second, dated two months later, shows
Bashir told me exactly what these documents were to contain... MATT WIESSLER WHO FORGED STATEMENTS
a single credit of £6,500 from Penfolds Consultants, Jersey. The account holder was Alan Wal ler and Robert Harper, trading as Weider Health and Fitness.”
Waller was ex-head of security for Spencer.
But Wiessler spotted some inaccuracies.
His statement went on: “The figures I was given did not make mathematical sense to me. But after a tele
SPY WATCH William ‘had a listening device’ phone conversation with Mr Bashir, that was corrected. The material was made from up scratch, which involved me reconstructing every element using an Apple Mac desktop computer. I printed it out on a black and white inkjet printer.”
Wiessler worked from 7pm to 9am to ensure the files were ready for the deadline Bashir had given him. A BBC driver arrived at Wiessler’s North London flat and took the documents to a “delivery point” at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 2. Bashir was waiting outside the Sock Shop. He would later show the documents to Earl Spencer.
A few days later, Wiessler invoiced the BBC and says he was paid £250. He thought no more about it until Bashir’s interview was aired weeks later, on November 20. Insiders say the bogus bank statements and Bashir’s allegedly invented claims played on Di’s paranoia at a time when she was increasingly consumed by anxiety.
At the time, Diana had met with her divorce lawyers. One, the late Lord Victor Mischcon, noticed she appeared agitated and told the team of several outrageous theories.
She claimed the Queen was on the verge of abdicating, and royal nanny Tiggy had just had an abortion.
Di also said she feared she would be involved in a serious, possibly fatal, car crash.
Andrew Morton – author of Diana: Her True Story – has said the princess “was afraid of being bumped off ” and he believes the Panorama interview was “an act of selfpreservation”. Diana died on August 31, 1997, aged 36.
She and her new boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed were killed in a car accident in Paris – – meaning her chilling prediction had come to pass.
Senior courtiers representing the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince William are understood to be “watching with interest” the current raft of allegations labelled at the BBC and Bashir. Sources close to Prince Harry say he is being kept updated. Earl Spencer did not respond for comment last night.
Diana was afraid for her safety... it’s why she did Bashir interview ANDREW MORTON ROYAL WRITER CLOSE TO DIANA
may help the Prime Minister in the polls but it’s hard to see how it helps public health.”
Innova said: “The government has done a massive amount of testing in their own laboratories to determine which tests work.”
Mr Johnson pledged to MPs even before the trial was complete that the new mass testing would be led by local authorities.
The national project, run by private firms including Serco and Deloitte, has found just 59.9 per cent of close contacts.
Experts say it needs 80 per cent success to stem the virus. Local public health teams have had a success rate of 97.7 per cent. But in talks with Whitehall officials, public health directors are pleading to know how mass testing will roll out nationally.
Matt Ashton, Director of Public Health in Liverpool, questioned why money was not being diverted from the national scheme. He said: “The balance doesn’t feel right.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Throughout the pandemic we have worked hand- in- hand with local authorities and directors of public health.
“The tests... are very accurate... for both symptomatic and asymptomatic testing.”
It said authorities had been allocated more than £300million for test and trace.