To Prince Harry's mind, there is a very clear villain in his mother's tragedy. Photo / Youtube@Apple TV
To Prince Harry's mind, there is a very clear villain in his mother's tragedy. Photo / Youtube@Apple TV
OPINION:
How old were you when you realised that your parents were people? Fallible, imperfect people?
That's a question which Prince William may well have a ready response to – but his younger brother Prince Harry might struggle to answer.
Yesterday both men – who are both fathers now too– have put out deeply moving, separate statements reacting to the Dyson inquiry findings that BBC reporter Martin Bashir had used "deceitful behaviour" to persuade their mother Diana, Princess of Wales to take part in the infamous 1995 Panorama interview.
The differences between the two princes' approaches could not be more pronounced or disparate. Sure, there's their use of language (William's "my" and "I" versus Harry's "we") and the format (an emotional video versus a press release) but what is most interesting here is the question of blame.
Or more specifically, how much culpability rests with the fourth estate?
While William called out the BBC, becoming the first member of the royal family to have ever taken aim at the national broadcaster in this fashion, he also made the point that "a free press have never been more important."
— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) May 20, 2021
However, to Harry's mind, there is a very clear villain in this decades-long tragedy – the media. In his statement, the now California-based royal claimed the "ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life" and that "Our mother lost her life because of this, and nothing has changed."
And this is where we get to the very, very tricky point, because his is now the lone dissenting royal voice on the question of where fault lies for Diana's death.
The instinct to want to be able to clearly apportion blame is entirely understandable; deeply human even. The facts, however, paint a different picture.
The events leading up to the fatal car crash in Paris' Pont D'Alma are unequivocal: There was the drunk driver, Henri Paul, who was more than three times over the French blood alcohol limit; there was the fact he entered the tunnel at 196km per hour; and it was later found that Diana was not wearing her seatbelt when the car hit the 13th pillar. (The only person to survive the smash, bodyguard Trevor Rees Jones, was the only person who was buckled in.)
A selection of front pages of most of Britains's national newspapers showing their reaction to Princess Diana's television interview with BBC journalist Martin Bashir in 1995. Photo / AP
In the hours leading up to the accident, Paul had drunk two Ricards – the French aniseed spirit – in the bar at the Ritz. Later, it would come out that he was being privately treated for alcoholism, that he was not qualified to be a chauffeur and that "he had driven recklessly earlier in the day when he ferried some members of the Fayed entourage into Paris from the airport," per the Guardian.
The British police established Operation Paget in 2004 to investigate Diana's death and then in 2008 an inquest was launched into her death in London. Over the course of six months, a jury of six women and five men heard from 278 witnesses, with the proceedings costing more than $18 million. Ultimately they found, by 9-2 majority, that the princess had been unlawfully killed due to the "gross negligence" of Paul.
At the time, William and Harry said they "agreed" with the findings and acknowledged the "thorough way" the jury had looked at the evidence presented.
And yet still, Harry, based on his statement, appears to view the media as responsible for the loss of his mother.
In 2017 he told a documentary, that "one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people who chased her into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car" and that "those people that caused the accident, instead of helping, were taking photographs of her dying on the back seat."
Princess Diana during the interview for the BBC's panorama programme with Martin Bashir. Photo / BBC
Let me be clear: I am not defending for a second the photographers who chased the princess that night, the men who, when they came across the wreckage of the Mercedes, took photos of a fatally wounded Diana. Their actions were despicable, deplorable and morally repugnant.
However, their rapacious and abhorrent behaviour leading up to the crash was only one factor on a night where a number of events compounded which ultimately claimed Diana's life.
Diana had a very complicated relationship with the press. While the paparazzi chased her, called her names and even spat at her at times, she was also on far friendlier terms with some on Fleet Street. Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown writes in her seminal The Diana Chronicles that Diana used to call the Daily Mail's Richard Kay to help her when she was writing letters, Brown has reported, even nicknaming him "Ricardo", and that "after her death it was revealed that the most sensational images of her final summer – for example, the famous front page of the Sunday Mirror, headlined 'THE KISS' and featuring a shot of her in a clinch with the bare-chested Dodi off the coast of Corsica … were the direct result of tips from Diana herself."
To Prince Harry's mind, there is a very clear villain in his mother's tragedy. Photo / Youtube@Apple TV
On that fateful night in Paris, according to Brown, Diana had even called Kay back in London to find out what the next day's Sunday papers would be reporting.
None of this, of course, in any way negates the inhumanity and cruelty of those men in the Pont D'Alma that night.
The story of Diana is an abject tragedy, however, like so many tragedies, her story is one that was precipitated by horrible circumstance. It is also a story of a vulnerable woman who was used by various parties to their own selfish ends.
Today, still, we struggle to fully comprehend and metabolise the fact that the most famous woman in the world, the most adored, most hunted and most pursued figure in modern history, could be killed in such a quotidian way.
Her incredible life sits so strangely and awkwardly with her stupid, accidental death.
