The BBC is still trying to cover up the truth about Bashir’s Princess Diana interview

The vast cache of emails about the event that have been released – though heavily redacted – confirm that subterfuge surrounded the Panorama interview from beginning to end, writes Sean O’Grady. It would have been better had it never happened at all...

Diana, Princess of Wales, during her interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC (BBC, PA) (PA Media)

At this distance, and with what we know now, it is all too painfully obvious that the nation would have been much better off if Diana, Princess of Wales, had not given her notorious Panorama interview to Martin Bashir – and the whole thing had never happened.

The vast cache of emails about the event that have been released – though heavily redacted – confirm that studied and continuous deception surrounded the Bashir interview, from its very inception through to the continued effort at repression of information being undertaken by BBC executives.

Indeed, the heavy censorship applied to the documents, extracted after a long legal battle with the corporation, suggests that the BBC still feels it has much to hide and much to fear about this affair.