BBC will ‘never’ show Diana’s Panorama interview again

An inquiry found the BBC had covered up Martin Bashir’s ‘deceitful behaviour’ to secure his headline-making interview.

The boss of the BBC has said the corporation will ‘never’ show Diana, Princess of Wales’s Panorama interview again (PA) (PA Archive)

The BBC has vowed “never” to broadcast Diana, Princess of Wales’s 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir again now the “shocking” way it was obtained is known, the corporation’s director-general has said.

An inquiry led by Lord Dyson found the BBC covered up Bashir’s “deceitful behaviour” to secure his headline-making interview with Diana and “fell short of high standards of integrity and transparency.”

The journalist was in “serious breach” of the BBC’s producer guidelines when he faked bank statements and showed them to Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, to gain access to her, the report said.

On Thursday, BBC boss Tim Davie said: “Now we know about the shocking way that the interview was obtained, I have decided that the BBC will never show the programme again; nor will we license it in whole or part to other broadcasters.

“It does of course remain part of the historical record and there may be occasions in the future when it will be justified for the BBC to use short extracts for journalistic purposes, but these will be few and far between and will need to be agreed at executive committee level and set in the full context of what we now know about the way the interview was obtained.

“I would urge others to exercise similar restraint.”

His comments come as the Duke of Cambridge’s former nanny Alexandra Pettifer, better known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, received substantial damages from the BBC over “false and malicious” allegations used to obtain the interview.

Ms Legge-Bourke appeared at the High Court in London on Thursday for a public apology from the broadcaster over “fabricated” allegations she had had an affair with the Prince of Wales while working as Charles’s personal assistant in 1995.

The BBC has previously agreed to pay Diana’s private secretary Patrick Jephson a “substantial sum” in damages, alongside former Panorama producer Mark Killick.

Mr Killick said: “It’s good news that this matter has finally been resolved but the length of time it has taken for the BBC to apologise and pay damages is yet more proof that the BBC is dragging its feet when confronting the past.

“The BBC remains extremely reluctant to confront any issue that was not specifically covered by Lord Dyson, even if the truth is widely known, and its attitude is hardly likely to give confidence to whistle-blowers who today may want to speak truth to power.

“Tim Davie, the current BBC director-general, deserves credit for the steps he has taken but whether the BBC has done enough to prevent a scandal like this from happening again remains to be seen.”

The BBC broadcast clips from the interview again last May in a new documentary highlighting the inside story of how Bashir secured his career-defining scoop.

The Duke of Cambridge sharply criticised the BBC following the report, calling for the documentary never to be aired again.

He said: “It is my firm view that this Panorama programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again. It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialised by the BBC and others.

“This settled narrative now needs to be addressed by the BBC and anyone else who has written or intends to write about these events.

“In an era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important.

“These failings, identified by investigative journalists, not only let my mother down, and my family down; they let the public down too.”