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The headlines are all too familiar. The BBC has been exposed as having deeply unsatisfactory internal processes for investigating problems. Rival media organisations gloat over the inadequacies. Loyal BBC employees squirm with embarrassment. We have seen it all before.
The issue this time is the notorious interview with Princess Diana 25 years ago, conducted by Martin Bashir, a junior reporter on the BBC’s flagship weekly current affairs programme, Panorama. The interview attracted 23 million viewers. But a retired Supreme Court judge, Lord Dyson, has just issued a devastating verdict on how the interview was secured – indirectly, by deceit and trickery – and on how the internal inquiry into that deceit, once it was exposed, was handled – in a “woefully ineffective” fashion. Dyson came close to accusing the BBC of orchestrating a cover-up of Bashir’s misdeeds.
How the BBC lied and lied about the MoS scoop which exposed the forged bank statements that first nailed Martin Bashir
In 1996 Mail on Sunday journalist Nick Fielding received a call claiming Panorama s Martin Bashir had used deception to gain access to Princess Diana
Behind the scenes BBC executives repeatedly quizzed Bashir who categorically denied he showed forged documents to Earl Spencer to land the interview
On the fourth time of asking on March 23, 1996, Bashir admitted he had used the documents but BBC management mounted a cover-up which lasted for 25 years
BBC News
By John Ware
Twenty-five years ago, the BBC s Panorama programme landed a scoop rivals the world over wanted - an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. Her son and heir to the throne, Prince William, has now launched an unprecedented attack on the corporation over that interview.
The programme, which attracted a UK audience of 23m, was a career-defining moment for reporter Martin Bashir.
But after accusations resurfaced last autumn that Bashir misled the princess to gain her trust, the BBC established an inquiry led by the former Supreme Court judge Lord Dyson. That inquiry has judged Bashir to be unreliable , devious and dishonest.