Earl Spencer addresses ‘the agonising lies’ used by the BBC to procure Diana’s 1995 interview

‘At this time, Diana was extremely vulnerable. She was finding that some of her secrets, shared only with close friends, were appearing in the Press. She was understandably rattled by this. Looking back, I suspect she was a very early victim of “phone-hacking” by unknown perpetrators, but nobody knew about this criminal practice in 1995, so she was accepting of the outrageous claims that dark forces were at work.’

According to Diana’s brother, after he arranged for the late royal to meet with Bashir, there were ‘a number of discrepancies’ between what he had been told by the journalist and what Bashir was now discussing with his sister. ‘After Mr Bashir left, I said, “I’m sorry, Duch – I’ve wasted your time. What that man has just said doesn’t add up”, and highlighted some of the discrepancies with what he’d told me before. She said, “Don’t worry, Carlos (her name for me), it doesn’t matter – it was lovely to see you anyway”. When we parted that afternoon, I assumed I’d never hear anything about Mr Bashir again.’