Long-ago royal interview stains the reputation of BBC

A huge row involving the royal family and reaching back to Diana, Princess of Wales, has stained the reputation of the British Broadcasting Corporation in unprecedented fashion.

It was 1995 when BBC reporter Martin Bashir secured an explosive TV interview with Princess Diana in which she gave an extraordinarily frank account of her marriage to Prince Charles.

Famously, she said “there were three of us in this marriage”, a reference to her husband’s affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles.

In a scathing statement last week, Diana’s eldest son, Prince William, said the interview fuelled his mother’s paranoia and worsened his parents’ relationship.

Bashir denies this. But he does not deny that he secured the interview by faking documents that won him Diana’s trust, which he now says was “wrong”.

What has brought all this into the open after 26 years is an inquiry by lawyer Lord Dyson which accused the BBC of covering up Bashir’s “deceitful behaviour”.

It said the corporation had fallen short of “high standards of integrity and transparency” and that an internal BBC investigation in 1996 had been “woefully ineffective”.

What made matters worse is that the BBC rehired Bashir as its religion correspondent in 2016. He has since resigned without a pay-off.

The BBC board said, “We accept Lord Dyson’s findings in full and reiterate the apology we have offered to those affected by the failings identified.”

It promised to review the effectiveness of its policies and governance in detail.

The unique situation of the BBC as a news organisation that receives government funding is periodically attacked by opponents who believe it should be a commercial operation funded by advertising.

In the House of Commons, Culture Minister John Whittingdale told MPs the BBC had “damaged its reputation” at home and abroad and that reforms should be put in place.

However, he stressed that the government should not interfere in editorial decisions, rather ensure there was “a strong and robust system of governance with effective external oversight”.

He said there was “no question of dismantling the BBC or defunding it”.

As a journalist with occasional contacts with the BBC over the years, I can only say the Beeb’s demands for accuracy, substantiation of facts and checking of all claims were as rigorous as those of any other news organisation I knew and tougher than most.

The sad footnote to all this is that Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris in two years after the famous interview, which the BBC has promised will never be shown again.

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In an extraordinary act of modern detection, police tracked down a drug dealer after he posted a photo of Stilton cheese online.

The photo showed a hand holding up a packet of the cheese to the camera. The finger tips and parts of the poster’s palm were visible. Forensic experts examined the fingerprints and established that they belonged to Carl Stewart, 39, of Liverpool.

Stewart pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown court last week to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and ketamine and was jailed for 13 years.

Detective Inspector Lee Wilkinson said Stewart’s “love of Stilton cheese” led to his downfall.