Martin Bashir's interview with Diana. Photo / Getty Images
Martin Bashir's interview with Diana. Photo / Getty Images
Martin Bashir's Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, has "haunted" the royal family, the former nanny of Prince William and Prince Harry told the High Court on Thursday.
Tiggy Legge-Bourke, 57, said the "false narrative" created by the BBC programme had caused great distress, not least because so much about the making of the programme was "yet to be adequately explained".
Legge-Bourke won damages of about £200,000 ($384,181) from the BBC. But she expressed frustration that she was forced to bring a defamation claim to win recognition for the "serious harm caused".
Tim Davie, BBC director-general, issued a statement vowing never to show the discredited interview in whole or in part again. He said the broadcaster had let the late Princess, the royal family and its audience down.
Davie also apologised to Legge-Bourke, who brought the legal action under her current name, Alexandra Pettifer, as well as the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex "for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent impact on all their lives".
Tiggy Legge-Bourke with the Prince of Wales and young William and Harry. Photo / Getty Images
Legge-Bourke, who worked as the princes' nanny between 1993 and 1999, took legal action over the false claims made by Bashir as he tried to secure the landmark interview, in which Diana declared "there were three of us in this marriage".
Bashir told the late Princess that her husband, Prince Charles, was "in love" with Legge-Bourke, then employed as his personal assistant, and that the two of them had flown off on a two-week holiday.
He went on to claim that Legge-Bourke had gone on to have an abortion and showed Diana a fake receipt for the procedure.
The High Court was told that the fabricated claims had "cast a long shadow" over Legge-Bourke's closest relationships and that she had felt forced to prove the allegations were untrue by revealing highly sensitive medical matters.
In December 1995, Diana confronted Legge-Bourke over the alleged abortion and told a senior member of palace staff that she had documentary evidence in the form of a hospital letter, the court was told in a joint statement agreed by the BBC and Legge-Bourke.
Tiggy Legge-Bourke said people's lives have been "scarred by the deceitful way in which the BBC Panorama was made". Photo / Getty Images
"Sadly, Princess Diana could not be convinced, even when incontrovertible evidence was presented," it said.
Legge-Bourke said: "Sadly, I am one of many people whose lives have been scarred by the deceitful way in which the BBC Panorama was made and the BBC's subsequent failure to properly investigate the making of the programme.
"The distress caused to the royal family is a source of great upset to me. I know first hand how much they were affected at the time, and how the programme and the false narrative it created have haunted the family in the years since. Especially because, still today, so much about the making of the programme is yet to be adequately explained."
The BBC accepted that Bashir's allegations were completely untrue and without foundation.
In a statement read out in court, Davie said that because of the "shocking way" the interview was obtained, it would never be shown again, in whole or in part.
"It is a matter of great regret that the BBC did not get to the facts in the immediate aftermath of the programme when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained improperly," Davie said.
Royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, Prince Harry and Prince William walk in the River Gairn in 1994. Photo / Getty Images
"Instead, as the Duke of Cambridge himself put it, the BBC failed to ask the tough questions. Had we done our job properly Princess Diana would have known the truth during her lifetime. We let her, the royal family and our audiences down."
However, he noted that the interview did "remain part of the historical record" and that there may be occasions in the future when short extracts might be used for journalistic purposes.
In a scathing report published last year, Lord Dyson, the former Master of the Rolls, concluded that Bashir had deployed "deceitful behaviour" to secure the explosive interview and that the BBC had covered it up in a "woefully ineffective" internal investigation led by former director-general Lord Hall.
At the time, Prince William described his "indescribable sadness" that the interview had contributed significantly to his mother's "fear, paranoia and isolation" in the final years of her life.
The Duke is understood to remain frustrated that those responsible at the BBC escaped largely unscathed.
The BBC has already paid £100,000 ($192,090) in damages to Patrick Jephson, Diana's former private secretary, a settlement worth an estimated £750,000 ($1.4 million) to Matt Wiessler, the graphic designer who forged documents for Bashir, and £50,000 ($96,045) to Mark Killick, the former Panorama journalist who first raised concerns about the interview more than 25 years ago.
The Dyson review cost £1.4m ($2.6m), and the corporation is preparing to donate the £1.5m ($2.8m) made from selling the global rights to the interview to causes the Princess had championed.
Alan Waller, former head of security for the late Princess's brother, Earl Spencer, is also thought to be in line for compensation after Bashir falsely accused him of selling secrets about Diana.
