Diana’s brother Earl Spencer accuses BBC bosses of ‘hiding behind expensive lawyers’ after they failed to hand over thousands of emails over Martin Bashir’s notorious Panorama interview with the princess

• READ MORE: BBC is ordered to release secret Diana emails

Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has accused BBC bosses of hiding behind ‘expensive lawyers’ after they failed to hand over thousands of emails over Martin Bashir’s notorious Panorama interview with the princess.

A leading judge slammed the broadcaster over its attempts to keep secret documents which could expose an ongoing cover-up of what executives knew about the journalist’s disgraceful conduct in securing his scoop.

In a damning ruling obtained by The Mail on Sunday, the judge questioned the BBC’s honesty after it fought a two-year campaign to keep the emails under wraps.

Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has criticised the BBC for trying to prevent the release of the emails, telling BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House: ‘The problem here is one of the integrity of people at the BBC.’

He stressed he is a ‘huge supporter’ of the BBC but added: ‘People at the BBC who are responsible for this have hidden behind expensive lawyers at a time when the BBC, this great national and international institution, is making cuts. And I think that’s obscene.

Earl Spencer (pictured) has accused BBC bosses of hiding behind ‘expensive lawyers’ after they failed to hand over thousands of emails over Martin Bashir ‘s notorious Panorama interview with the princess

Martin Bashir interviewing Princess Diana in Kensington Palace for the television show Panorama

‘Lord Dyson did a brilliant job dealing with the brief he was given, which was very much about the events of 1995 [and] a few years after that. This is a separate issue. This deals with what [journalist] Andy Webb refers to as the cover up of the cover up and that goes only back to the autumn of 2020.

‘I was told when I approached the BBC management at that time (in autumn 2020) that there was no way we could talk to Martin Bashir, he was too ill to talk and he was written off by doctors as such.’ 

He added: ‘But we know, we haven’t been able to read yet, but we know there are 38 emails between Bashir and senior people at the BBC at this time. My suspicion is that they were cooking up a story to try and make him unavailable during a time of particular interest in Diana’s interview, which was the 25th anniversary.

‘It’s about people who are still in power in the BBC who have taken decisions that I question, and the judge has certainly questioned. […] I think that’s the issue here.

‘I believe the BBC should be guarded by responsible senior figures and not hidden behind to protect their careers.’

Judge Brian Kennedy said the corporation had been ‘inconsistent, erroneous and unreliable’ in the way it dealt with the initial request to release material under Freedom of Information (FOI) law, the BBC reported.

The material related to how the broadcaster handled the scandal when it came to light in 2020.

A leading judge slammed the broadcaster over its attempts to keep secret documents which could expose an ongoing cover-up of what executives knew about Mr Bashir’s disgraceful conduct in securing his scoop

Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has criticised the BBC for trying to prevent the release of the emails

READ MORE: ‘Inconsistent, erroneous and unreliable’: BBC is ordered to release secret Diana emails as judge calls the Beeb’s honesty into question over 3,200 hidden Bashir papers

The judge added the BBC’s response was a ’cause for serious concern’.

The ruling comes following a tribunal over whether details should be released under FOI law, after the documents were requested by documentary maker Andrew Webb, who initially exposed Mr Bashir.

Mr Webb complained the broadcaster had failed to release more than 3,000 emails related to its handling of the scandal.

During closing speeches at the tribunal in September, Mr Webb described the BBC’s actions as a ‘cover up’.

The BBC apologised during the tribunal for ‘errors’ in its handling of disclosure.

In a statement reported by BBC News following the judge’s ruling, the corporation accepted mistakes had been made but said it was considering the judgment and that it had apologised to Mr Webb and the tribunal.

Viewed by 23 million people, Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview with Diana was hailed as the scoop of a generation. The Princess declared ‘there were three of us in this marriage’ – referring to Charles’s then-mistress Camilla – and spoke of her post-natal depression and bulimia. 

Bashir, however, had shown Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, forged bank statements to gain access to the Princess and then tricked her by peddling a string of smears and lies, including claiming that Prince William’s watch had been bugged to record her conversations. 

Suspicions about Bashir’s methods were first raised five months after the interview when the MoS revealed he had ordered a graphic designer to fake bank documents. 

But the full extent of Bashir’s deceit only came to light in 2020 when the BBC was forced to release a 67-page dossier of memos and minutes from 1995 and 1996, after a Freedom of Information request by investigative journalist Andy Webb. 

Mr Webb, however, believed the BBC had still not released all of its incriminating evidence and that its failures to investigate Bashir had been far more extensive than the documents showed.

Indeed, it later emerged that some key documents were omitted from the dossier, including a bombshell 1996 memo by former BBC executive Anne Sloman that indicated a cynical attempt to cover up what the Corporation knew of Bashir’s activities.

Timeline of the scandal that shames TV chiefs 

November 20, 1995

Martin Bashir’s sensational Panorama interview with Princess Diana is aired on BBC1 in a scoop that goes around the world.

April 7, 1996

The Mail on Sunday reveals that Bashir had two fake bank statements made just weeks before the interview. The BBC falsely claimed the documents were not connected to the Diana interview. But it was confirmed 25 years later that Bashir used the fakes to convince Diana that people close to her had been paid to spy on her.

1999

Bashir moves from the BBC to ITV.

September 2016

Despite long-standing rumours about Bashir’s methods, he is rehired by the BBC and later becomes religious affairs editor.

October 19, 2020

The BBC releases a 67-page dossier of memos to journalist Andy Webb which detail its botched internal investigation into Bashir in 1996. But some incriminating documents are omitted.

November 7, 2020

The Daily Mail reveals how Earl Spencer has 37 pages of handwritten notes which exposed, for the first time, the lies Bashir peddled to land his scoop.

May 14, 2021

In a damning report, Lord Dyson, a former Supreme Court judge, says Bashir engaged in ‘deceitful behaviour’ and the BBC ‘covered up’ what it knew.

December 2023

Judge Brian Kennedy orders the BBC to disclose large numbers of emails bosses sent in 2020, when the scale of Bashir’s deceit emerged.

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