Post by Admin on May 22, 2021 2:53:15 GMT
The BBC fell short of "high standards of integrity and transparency" over Martin Bashir's 1995 interview with Princess Diana, an inquiry has found.
Bashir acted in a "deceitful" way and faked documents to obtain the interview, the inquiry said.
And the BBC's own internal probe in 1996 into what happened was "woefully ineffective", it added.
The BBC and Bashir have both apologised, and the BBC has written to Princes William and Harry.
Princess Diana's interview with Bashir for Panorama was a huge scoop for the BBC - in it, the princess famously said: "There were three of us in this marriage."
It was the first time a serving royal had spoken so openly about life in the Royal Family - viewers saw her speak about her unhappy marriage to Prince Charles, their affairs, and her bulimia.
But since then Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, has questioned Bashir's tactics to get the interview.
The independent inquiry was commissioned by the BBC last year, after Earl Spencer went public with the allegations. Its findings were published on Thursday.
The earl told BBC Panorama: "Well, the irony is that I met Martin Bashir on the 31st of August 1995 - because exactly two years later she died, and I do draw a line between the two events."
He said it was "quite clear" from when he introduced Bashir to Diana in September 1995 that "everyone was going to be made untrustworthy, and I think that Diana did lose trust in really key people".
Patrick Jephson - Diana's former private secretary - said the interview "destroyed remaining links with Buckingham Palace".
He said after the interview, Diana lost "the royal support structure that had guided and safeguarded her for so many years" which "inevitably made her vulnerable to people who didn't have her best interests at heart, or were unable properly to look after her".
Lord Dyson found that Bashir deceived Earl Spencer by showing him forged bank statements that falsely suggested individuals - including Mr Jephson - were being paid for keeping the princess under surveillance.
The inquiry said Bashir had later lied, telling BBC managers he had not shown the fake documents to anyone.
And it described significant parts of Bashir's account of the events of 1995 as "incredible, unreliable, and in some cases dishonest".