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Princess Diana listens to a question during an interview with Martin Bashir,foreground, taped earlier and aired on the BBC program Panorama, on Nov. 20, 1995.The Associated Press

When Diana, Princess of Wales, sat down for an interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir in November, 1995, it caused a global sensation and led to her divorce from Prince Charles a year later.

But now an investigation commissioned by the BBC has found that Mr. Bashir duped Diana into agreeing to the interview by using fake financial records and playing on her paranoia with tall tales about tapped phones, bugged cars, secret agents and bribes involving prostitutes. During one meeting with Diana before the interview, Mr. Bashir told her that Prince Edward had AIDS and that the Queen had heart trouble and “eats for comfort.”

The investigation, by retired Supreme Court justice John Dyson, follows years of allegations about Mr. Bashir’s conduct and questions about how the BBC handled the concerns.

In his report, released Thursday, Lord Dyson described Mr. Bashir as a junior reporter on the Panorama program who was so desperate to land the interview that he resorted to deceit and phony documents to ingratiate himself to Diana and her brother, Charles Spencer, the Earl Spencer. The justice also slammed senior BBC officials for failing to properly investigate the allegations and for trying to cover up the scandal.

“Without justification, the BBC fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark,” Lord Dyson concluded.

In a statement, the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, said: “Although the report states that Diana, Princess of Wales, was keen on the idea of an interview with the BBC, it is clear that the process for securing the interview fell far short of what audiences have a right to expect. We are very sorry for this.”

Mr. Bashir, who left the BBC this month, said: “This is the second time that I have willingly fully co-operated with an investigation into events more than 25 years ago. I apologized then, and I do so again now.”

In a strongly-worded statement, the Duke of Cambridge said he welcomed Lord Dyson’s findings, “which are extremely concerning.”

”It is my view that the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said. The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others,” William said.

“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. … 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.”

He added that the Panorama program “holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again. It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialized by the BBC and others.”

Prince Harry, meanwhile, said the issue was bigger than just the BBC – and that “the ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life.”

“To those who have taken some form of accountability, thank you for owning it. That is the first step toward justice and truth,” he wrote. “Yet what deeply concerns me is that practices like these – and even worse – are still widespread today.”

The Diana interview has long been hailed as one of the great coups in journalism history and it won Mr. Bashir numerous awards and promotions. His low-key style and patient questioning of Diana led her to reveal details about her troubled marriage to Charles, as well as her struggles with bulimia and attempts at self-harm.

She famously told Mr. Bashir that “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” – a reference to the Prince’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, now his second wife. Around 23 million people in Britain watched the broadcast and millions more tuned in worldwide.

Questions surfaced almost immediately about how Mr. Bashir arranged such a high-profile interview. Media reports suggested he’d used fake cheques and forged financial statements to demonstrate to Diana and her brother that her closest aides had been selling stories to the tabloids. Mr. Bashir had offered conflicting explanations about the documents for years, but Lord Dyson said it was clear that he’d used the forgeries to gain Diana’s trust.

“I was duped,” Earl Spencer told Lord Dyson. “He very cleverly came to me on my number one bugbear: the bad behaviour of the press, which of course is ironic, but that’s what he came to me with. … He had hooked me in on that by showing me a bank statement, which seemed to prove what he was saying.”

The interview was sealed after a key meeting Earl Spencer arranged in September, 1995, between Mr. Bashir and Diana. During the meeting, Mr. Bashir tried to further impress her with what Lord Dyson called fantastic stories. Mr. Bashir told Diana that her phones had been tapped, her car bugged and that her security detail also sold stories to the media, according to Lord Dyson’s report. He claimed that she was followed by MI5 agents and that “someone hostile to Diana had been bribed with prostitutes.” He also talked about members of the Royal Family and suggested the Queen had heart trouble.

Lord Dyson said Diana was vulnerable at the time and obsessed with conspiracy theories involving threats to her life. “Mr. Bashir would have little difficulty in playing on her fears and paranoia,” he added.

The first sign of trouble came soon after the interview aired on Nov. 20, 1995. Matt Wiessler, a graphic designer at the BBC, contacted producers at Panorama to express concern about two fake cheques he had made for Mr. Bashir. Mr. Wiessler told Lord Dyson that Mr. Bashir had asked him to make the cheques without explaining why, and when he saw the interview he made the connection to Diana.

BBC officials questioned Mr. Bashir and accepted his vague explanation that he made the cheques for research purposes and hadn’t shown them to anyone. Lord Dyson said that he had shown them to Earl Spencer along with other fake financial records as part of a persistent campaign to get the interview. Mr. Bashir admitted later to his bosses that he lied but the BBC failed to pursue the probe in any detail or ask Earl Spencer about the documents.

The issue lay dormant until October, 2020, when Earl Spencer learned about some papers the BBC had released to the Daily Mail under a Freedom of Information request. Earl Spencer said the filings shed new light on the scandal and he pushed the BBC for the new investigation.

On Thursday, the BBC’s Mr. Davie said the BBC would return several awards it won for the interview, including a 1996 BAFTA for best interview. “While the BBC cannot turn back the clock after a quarter of a century, we can make a full and unconditional apology,” he said. “The BBC offers that today.”

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