BBC executives are to pay damages to an ex-royal nanny over the “deceitful systems” used to contain an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995.
Martin Bashir garnered world acclaim for his candid chat with the royal for the BBC’s Panorama programme, however following an investigation led by Lord Dyson in 2020, it changed into agency that the journalist used forgery and deception to construct up the interview.
On Thursday, BBC Director-Total Tim Davie announced that Tiggy Legge-Bourke, the ragged nanny of Prince William and Prince Harry, would discover damages over the spurious claim in the interview that she changed into having an affair with their father, Prince Charles. He also issued a public apology to Legge-Bourke and the royal family.
“Following publication of the Dyson File last 365 days we now had been working with folks that suffered as a result of deceitful systems used by the BBC in pursuit of its interview with Diana, Princess of Wales for the Panorama programme in 1995, collectively with the issues that were talked about in court docket this day in admire of Miss Tiggy Legge-Bourke, now Mrs Alexandra Pettifer,” Davie talked about in an announcement. “The BBC has agreed to pay mammoth damages to Mrs Pettifer and I’d carry to rob this opportunity to apologise publicly to her, to The Prince of Wales, and to the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, for the arrangement in which Princess Diana changed into deceived and the next impact on all their lives.”
Legge-Bourke also served as a non-public assistant to Charles from 1993 except 1999. The resolve to be paid out changed into now not disclosed.
“It is some distance a subject of immense remorse that the BBC didn’t salvage to the info in the rapid aftermath of the programme when there had been warning indicators that the interview can even had been obtained improperly. As a replacement, as The Duke of Cambridge himself build it, the BBC didn’t quiz of the demanding questions. Had we done our job neatly Princess Diana would score known the truth precise by her lifetime. We let her, The Royal Family and our audiences down,” he added.
The episode of Panorama will by no arrangement be broadcast on the BBC or in other locations again.