Diana interview: PM concerned after inquiry into BBC deceit

The BBC should take “every possible step” to ensure that nothing like its deceit of the Princess of Wales to secure an interview ever happens again, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

The PM said he was “very concerned” after an inquiry found Martin Bashir faked documents for his 1995 interview.

The Duke of Cambridge said the deception fuelled his mother’s paranoia and worsened his parents’ relationship.

The BBC said it had made fundamental changes in governance since the 1990s.

Mr Johnson said he was grateful to retired judge Lord Dyson for carrying out the inquiry, which found the BBC covered up “deceitful behaviour” by Bashir to secure the headline-making interview.

“I can only imagine the feelings of the Royal Family and I hope very much that the BBC will be taking every possible step to make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” he said.

After ministers suggested that the broadcaster’s governance may need to be changed, the corporation said there had been two substantial changes to how it is overseen since the time of the interview but “there is much to reflect on”.

It defended rehiring Bashir as religion editor in 2016, when questions had already been asked about his conduct, saying the post was filled after a competitive interview process. Bashir has since resigned without a pay-off.

The BBC said it would review the reporter’s other work “where evidence is made available”.

The Panorama interview, watched by about 23 million people in the UK, featured Princess Diana giving an extraordinarily frank account of her marriage to the Prince of Wales, famously saying “there were three of us in this marriage” – a reference to her husband’s affair with the future Duchess of Cornwall and admitting to an affair of her own.

Prince William said his mother had been failed, “not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions”.

The Duke of Sussex said “a culture of exploitation and unethical practices” that are still widespread in many media outlets had contributed to his mother’s death two years after the interview.

Lord Dyson concluded that Bashir had faked documents – bank statements designed to suggest Princess Diana was under surveillance – to win the trust of her brother Earl Spencer, and eventually gain access to the princess.

As media interest in the interview increased, the BBC covered up what it had learned about how Bashir secured the interview, the inquiry found.

A 1996 internal probe into initial complaints had been “woefully ineffective”, Lord Dyson said.

A note written by Diana, published in the report for the first time, said she had no regrets about the broadcast and Bashir did not show her the faked documents. It was taken by the BBC as evidence that the forgery had not influenced her decision to be interviewed.

But Lord Dyson said the BBC should have considered the possibility that the documents were shown to Earl Spencer to influence his sister.