Following an inquiry into the BBC Panorama interview with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, which revealed: “deceitful behavior” and a “cover up” by the corporation, Prince William has released a statement, speaking against the corporation and the “indescribable sadness” he feels.
The conclusions of the inquiry were “deeply concerning,” according to the Duke of Cambridge, who added that the BBC’s shortcomings “contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia, and isolation, that I remember from her final years with her.”
Prince William said: “BBC employees lied and used fake documents to obtain the interview with my mother, made lurid and false claims about the royal family which played on her fears and fuelled paranoia.
“They displayed woeful incompetence when investigating complaints and concerns about the programme and were invasive in their reporting to the media, and covered up what they knew from their internal investigation.”
Lord Dyson’s investigation concluded that former Panorama journalist Martin Bashir commissioned false bank statements and engaged in “deceitful behavior” in a “serious breach” of the BBC’s producer policy in order to win his Panorama interview.
The findings also deemed an internal inquiry led by former director-general Lord Tony Hall back in 1996, to be “woefully ineffective.” Tony Hall was at the time, the director of BBC news and current affairs when the interview took place.
The manner in which the interview was obtained, according to Prince William, “substantially influenced” statements from his mother and was to blame for the deterioration of his parents’ relationship.
He said: “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.
“It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation, that I remember from her final years with her.”
He goes on to add: “What saddens me most is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived. She was failed not just by a rogue reporter but my leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”
Following the review, current BBC Director General Tim Davie said that the corporation acknowledges the findings of Lord Dyson’s investigation “in full” and is “deeply apologetic.”
Adding: “I can only be driven by what is in the Dyson report and the evidence I have in front of me – that clearly demonstrates major BBC failings.”
According to ITV News, Davie admitted that “It’s a dark day for the BBC.”
Listen to Prince William’s address below.
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