BBC Vows Never to Broadcast Princess Diana’s Panorama Interview Again
Princess Diana’s infamous 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir is one of the most watched and talked about pieces of television ever made. And now it is set to be taken off the airways for good as the BBC has pledged never to show it again or license it to other broadcasters.
The announcement by BBC Director General Tim Davie came after William and Harry’s former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke (now Pettifer) appeared in the High Court to receive a formal and public apology from the broadcaster over unfounded allegations made about her by Bashir as he attempted to secure his scoop. Evidence examined by an independent inquiry led by retired judge Lord Dyson last year included claims that Bashir had led the Princess to believe that Tiggy had an affair with Prince Charles and an abortion.
“The BBC has agreed to pay substantial damages to Mrs Pettifer and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise publicly to her, to The Prince of Wales, and to the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent impact on all their lives,” Tim Davie’s statement said today. “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.”
The move will be welcomed by Prince William, who called for the interview never to be aired again following the release of Lord Dyson’s report last May. “It is my firm view that this Panorama programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again,” the Prince said. “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.”
Lord Dyson’s 127-page report found that the BBC’s guidelines had been seriously breached in obtaining the interview and that an initial investigation by the BBC was “woefully ineffective.” It concluded that Diana’s brother Earl Spencer was “deceived and induced” by Bashir to arrange a meeting with the Princess. It also detailed how Bashir used fake bank statements which showed payments into the accounts of royal staff. On publication of the report, Prince William described "lurid and false claims about the royal family which played on her fears and fuelled paranoia."
The BBC said today that since the report was released it has been “working with those who suffered as a result of the deceitful tactics.” Tim Davie also said, “It is a matter of great regret that the BBC did not get to the facts in the immediate aftermath of the programme when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained improperly. Instead, as The Duke of Cambridge himself put it, the BBC failed to ask the tough questions. Had we done our job properly Princess Diana would have known the truth during her lifetime. We let her, the royal family and our audiences down.”
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