Exclusive: Prince William’s quest for the truth over ‘tragic betrayal’ of Princess Diana

Andy Webb, author of Dianarama, tells how the late Princess Diana’s fateful BBC Panorama interview changed the course of history 

t was the soul-baring interview that changed the course of her life. Sitting in front of a TV camera 30 years ago, Diana, Princess of Wales, told the world that there were three people in her marriage.

At the time, Diana’s appearance on Panorama, the BBC’s foremost current affairs show, was regarded as a scoop for reporter Martin Bashir. But later it emerged that he had used forged documents to trick her into taking part. Now the journalist who helped to uncover the scandal tells HELLO! how he spent 20 years fighting for the truth, helped by Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer.

“I really do think that it’s an important story, particularly when you look at the effects on Diana’s family, on Prince William and on Charles Spencer,” says Andy Webb, author of Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana. “I always try to stand back from the fact that these are royals, because they are real people.”

Deceitful methods

The book details the deceitful methods used by Bashir to secure the interview, which was broadcast on 20 November 1995.

© Corbis via Getty Images
Diana being interviewed at Kensington Palace

“I think, of late, William is really showing us that he’s somebody who knows his own mind. He’s not afraid and he knows right from wrong,” says Andy. “He’s determined to discover exactly what happened back in the day, as he doesn’t feel the official inquiry has provided sufficient answers.” He is referring to the independent investigation 25 years later led by Lord Dyson into how the interview was obtained. “It’S an open wound, and [William] has people on the case to help discover exactly what happened.”

“William is determined to find out exactly what happened”

Four years ago, William said that it brought him “indescribable sadness” that the BBC’s failures to tell Diana the truth once they discovered Bashir’s dishonesty “contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from her final years”.

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Prince William is determined to find out the truth

Bashir told Diana that William – then only 13 years old – had been given a watch by his father containing a recording device to eavesdrop on her. Bashir also claimed that Prince Charles, as he was then, was in love with the children’s nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and that Diana’s trusted private secretary, Patrick Jephson, was being paid to spy on her – a claim he backed up with forged bank statements.

Heartbreaking 

“When William became aware of the absolute scale and complexity of the duplicity, that must have been heartbreaking for him, because he began to realise the enormous pressures that his mum had been placed under,” Andy says.

© Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images
Diana with her sons, Princes William and Harry

“I’m sure William feels just as you or I would feel if we realised that a con man had got into our mother’s house. In many ways, Martin Bashir isn’t the critical character in this. The key moment, when that runaway train could and should have been halted, occurred about six months later [when the BBC first became aware of the forgery]. But she was a victim of her own celebrity, and the story was too big to fail.”

“She was a victim of her own celebrity”

While researching his book, Andy – a former BBC reporter for shows including Watchdog – won the trust of Earl Spencer, who told him he believed there was a link between the interview and Diana’s death in Paris two years later. Diana died with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in a car driven by Dodi’s father Mohamed Al-Fayed’s chauffeur.

Tragic outcome

“There is a line that can be drawn between Panorama and Paris,” says Andy. “Because of the falsehoods Diana had been told, she pushed aside people she no longer trusted, like Patrick Jephson, who had been that protective voice of wisdom. “A month after that interview, Diana got a letter from the Queen saying it was time to get divorced, and before long she finds herself in Paris.

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Diana in May 1997 – months before her tragic death

“In the same way that we all know what happened to Anne Boleyn 500 years ago, in 500 years’ time people will be discussing the conspiracy that brought down Diana.

“Playwrights, novelists and filmmakers will come back to it again and again, just like Hilary Mantel did with Wolf Hall. It’s like a Shakespearean plot – you’ve got a beautiful princess, a faithless husband and a weaselly character, whispering all these falsehoods in her ear, and it ends in tragedy.”

Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana is out now, published by Penguin Michael Joseph, priced £22