“She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”
Prince William has accused the BBC of failing his mother, Princess Diana, and slammed the broadcaster over the Panorama interview which he said contributed to the fear she felt in later years.
It comes after an inquiry found that BBC journalist Martin Bashir deceitfully obtained an interview with her in 1995, and that the broadcaster had covered up the deception.
The inquiry in the interview was conducted by the former supreme court judge John Dyson.
“Without justification, the BBC fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark,” the report found.
It said that Bashir had told “serious and unexplained lies” about what he had done to persuade the princess to speak to him, and when other media began to question the interview, the broadcaster had “covered up in its press logs” what it knew.
William said the interview had a detrimental effect on his mother and had contributed to the worsening relationship between her and his father, Prince Charles.
“It is my view that the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said,” William said in a statement.
“The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others.
“It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.
“But what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived. She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”
