(FIREWORKS CRACKLE, SCREAM) (TENSE, BROODING MUSIC) - On Bonfire Night a quarter of a century ago, the most famous woman in the world is preparing for a TV interview that will cause a sensation. With her are a team from the BBC's current affairs programme Panorama, and what they're doing in secret will make headlines the world over. It will change the course of her life and also British history. Princess Diana made it plain that she would never be crowned Queen of England; instead, she would be queen of people's hearts. She spoke bluntly about her husband and his mistress ` a famous line, how there were three of them in that marriage. And most damning of all, she said Charles should never rule. Prince of Wales, yes, but king would be too much for him. It was like a missile aimed at Buckingham Palace. - It was an amazing watch. Certainly as consequential piece of television that I've ever seen. - But there are two big questions ` why did Diana decide to go public? Who persuaded her? - She was vulnerable to people who could get her to believe things. - A mysterious and complex web of secret meetings and forgeries is emerging, of fear and ambition. A BBC reporter produced fake documents suggesting Diana's family was being spied on. So was the princess tricked into talking by the BBC? And what was her state of mind at that time? (FIREWORKS CRACKLE, SCREAM) The full story of Diana's historic interview has never been told on television ` until now. (TENSE, BROODING MUSIC) Captions by Maeve Kelly. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Able 2021 (FIREWORKS CRACKLE) (CROWD MURMURS) - WOMAN: The first time I walked into the studio... - Princess Diana gave two TV interviews which are part of British history ` one on BBC Panorama 25 years ago, the first on a grey winter's day almost 40 years ago. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) (BROODING MUSIC) She began this day as a flat-sharing 19-year-old nursery school teacher but was on her way to a different life altogether. (HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRRS) That afternoon, a change of venue, a change of outfit... and Diana's life would never be the same again. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - As a member of the British public, I thought, 'This is a rather marvellous, wonderful thing.' I suppose I was part of the dream of that relationship working. - REPORTER: Yesterday, you were a nanny looking after children; now you're about to marry the Prince of Wales, and one day you would, in all likelihood, be queen. It's a tremendous change for someone of 19 to make all of a sudden. - It is, but I've had a small run-up to it all in the last six months. (CHUCKLES) And next to Prince Charles, I know I can't go wrong. He's there with me. - I'm amazed that she's, er, been brave enough to take me on. - (BOTH CHUCKLE) - And, I suppose, in love? - Of course. - Whatever 'in love' means. - CHUCKLES: Yes. (BROODING MUSIC) - Her next historic interview came 15 years later. By then, she'd given that question a great deal of thought. After a brief period of family togetherness ` the arrival of first Prince William, then Harry ` by 1987, the marriage was dead, Charles and Diana living separate lives, fighting what was known as the War of the Waleses. - I can tell you from my place, (CHUCKLES) I suppose, in the front lines of this war, it felt real enough to us. It was a very accurate shorthand for what was going on. It was a war on the one hand for, erm, public opinion, but for Princess Diana, increasingly, it was a war of survival. (SEAGULLS CRY) - By the turn of the decade, Diana is a well-practised warrior. On holiday here with William, Harry and a bunch of playmates, Diana is secretly devising her own survival strategy. It's one which she'll later repeat in her dealings with the BBC. Diana singled out one of the huge number of journalists chasing an exclusive interview ` a young member of the press pack, Andrew Morton. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) - Andrew Morton's book was a huge landmark in the history of the royal family (CHUCKLES) in the late 20th century. You could almost divide time up between before Morton and after Morton. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) - Diana felt trapped ` effectively, she was a prisoner of the palace ` and that by speaking to me, she could speak over the heads of the people she called the men in grey and get her story out. (HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRRS) - Diana's HQ in the War of the Waleses was Kensington Palace. For secrecy's sake, Andrew Morton couldn't be seen there. - So what we did ` we used an intermediary ` long-time friend, mutual friend ` and I pre-prepared questions, which I sent to him. He would cycle up to Kensington Palace with a battered old tape recorder, plug a microphone on to Diana. When I heard the first tape, it was just like entering a parallel universe, stepping through the wardrobe in Narnia. - Wearing cheap headphones in a workmen's cafe in North London, he listened as Diana described a loveless marriage, depression, self-harming and suicide attempts. - All these chaps were in their overalls or eating their bacon and eggs and... and so on; I was listening to Donna unfold this very different version of her life. It was a total revelation. If Diana was not in the mood, the answers were a little bit yes or no. Sometimes she was full of energy and wanted to talk about all kinds of things ` her eating disorders, about cries for help... and this woman that nobody had ever really heard of at the time, Camilla Parker Bowles. (BROODING MUSIC) - Prince Charles' lover, now his wife, was the woman who attracted such scorn in Diana's Panorama interview ` the third party who made the marriage 'a bit crowded'. With Princess Diana his secret informant, Andrew Morton's book was bound to be a sensation. Published in the summer of 1992, it was. (REPORTERS CLAMOUR) - REPORTER: The author, Andrew Morton, at the centre of the storm, has warned today that the Princess of Wales now needs help and understanding. - For weeks, royal sources and conservative media said, 'Oh, it's all lies. It can't be true.' It was true. - The next battle in the War of the Waleses would be fought not in a book or the tabloids, but on television. Prince Charles was about to make his own explosive revelation. (DIGNIFIED MUSIC) Two years after Andrew Morton's book lifted the lid on the royal marriage, at a glittering reception in Hyde Park, Princess Diana had never looked happier and more glamorous. But behind the smiles, she and all the other partygoers were keen to wrap this up, to rush back home and switch on the TV. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) Prince Charles would be talking that night in a major documentary. What would he say about the marital rift? - She looks stunning. Everybody thinks that she's in control. The truth was that she was very nervous before the documentary came out. You know, she was in a real tizzy. - The announcement Prince Charles had to make was short but devastating. - Did you try to be faithful and honourable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage? - Yes. Absolutely. - And you were? - Yes. Until it became... irretrievably broken down. (BROODING MUSIC) - What's never been reported until now is that the prince was not at all sure that he should confess. The truth is that there were actually two interviews. In the first of them, never broadcast, Charles wouldn't admit to adultery. But then he changed his mind. - Somebody convinced him, 'Look, sir, 'this is going to come out sooner or later; 'wouldn't it be better if it comes in a sympathetic film 'in sympathetic hands?' And he fell for it. - The first interview, the non-confession, was recorded here at Windsor. When the documentary team looked at their footage, they thought, 'We have to try again.' There were further talks with the prince and his people, including his media advisors. - There were voices that were calling for frankness, and there were others saying, 'Keep off the family stuff.' The one that went out was to say something briefly about his personal difficulties, which was his decision. - A few days later, the film crew was summoned to Highgrove, Charles' country estate. This time, Charles made his reluctant confession. - Those around the Prince of Wales should have convinced him that telling all, confessing, never does you any good. (HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRRS) - Diana said to me, 'Patrick, now people can see what we've been dealing with.' The Dimbleby confession gave Diana a sense of being on the moral high ground. - It also planted an idea in Diana's mind ` if Charles could have his say on TV, then why shouldn't she? - I think to some extent it did encourage a rebuttal of some kind. (CROWD CLAMOURS, CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - After Dimbleby, she certainly intended to do something on television. And why not? - In the summer of 1995, Diana was approached by the BBC. The way that approach was made, the things she was told, are mysterious and controversial. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) What's clear is that at this point in her life, Diana believed she had enemies in high places. - It's ironic that somebody who was so well known and loved around the world actually in so many ways was isolated and vulnerable. (CLAMOURING, CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) She did not have a network of supportive family and friends. She had me and a small staff. She was vulnerable to approaches from people who had their own agendas to promote... who recognised that they could get her to believe things. (BROODING MUSIC) - Diana was looking for advice and support from some unexpected sources. - Inside of her was like this 13-, 14-year-old girl. - Simone Simmons is a psychic and healer. She was a friend and confidante of the princess at this time in her life. - Diana was an amazing lady. Inside, she was very, very naive. Erm, extremely so. So she wasn't worldly wise. - Two meetings which Diana had in secret shortly before the BBC interview showed just how impressionable she'd become. They're reported here for the first time on television. The first of those meetings took place three months before the interview. Diana drove 100km to a country estate in Berkshire. Friends had arranged a secure setting so that the princess could meet with one of the country's most powerful journalists. - I said, 'Well, I'm terribly flattered you've come all the way down the country to talk to me,' and she said, 'Oh, I was terribly anxious for my side of this to come out.' I spent the best part of a couple of hours with Diana. And she put on a wonderful show. Absolutely gripping stuff. It became clear, first of all, how much she hated Charles. Yes, she did hate Charles. When I said, 'Were there ever happy times?' and she said, 'No, the marriage was hell from day one.' (BROODING MUSIC) I was amazed by the frankness and the directness with which she said that. And she said that all she cared about was William's succession to the throne. And she said to me quite explicitly, 'I don't think Charles can do it.' The outcome she wanted to see was for Charles to stand aside as heir to the throne and for William to occupy the throne. This was pretty dynamic stuff. (CROWD MURMURS) - As the editor of a major newspaper, he then made a remarkable decision. - I felt that my job was to try and help them keep the lid on the worst of this rather than to lift it off. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) Diana said a lot of stuff, on several occasions, which I thought were for the fairies. She asked me what I knew about a conspiracy to, erm, sort of, have her put down. And I said, 'Well`' I mean, it sounded absolutely crazy to me. But she, I think, did believe this sort of stuff. And it was one of many, many things that made one feel so desperately sorry for her ` this sense of vulnerability. You may be a very streetwise, brilliant enchantress, but you can also be not very bright. If you've got nobody sensible to advise you or, if you have, you won't take their advice, you're in a pretty bad place. (BROODING MUSIC) (APPLAUSE ECHOES) (CHEERING, WHISTLING; CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) (DIGNIFIED MUSIC) - The rest of the media would have killed for an exclusive interview with Princess Diana. - It's hard to exaggerate Princess Diana's global media profile during these years. And naturally, some of the world's most prominent TV figures wanted to interview her. - David Frost, Clive James, David Puttnam; Barbara Walters was in the offing. So too was Oprah Winfrey. - She was always very courteous (CHUCKLES) but always said no. Or, more to the point, I used to say no on her behalf. - In the summer of 1995, another potential interviewer had entered the race, and one that few people had heard of ` a then 32-year-old TV reporter, Martin Bashir. He'd spent nine years at the BBC, the last three on the weekly current affairs programme Panorama, and he'd set his sights on winning journalism's greatest prize. - In relation to the pool of personalities trying to get an interview with Diana, he was a non-starter. He was a hundred-to-one outsider. - But one of his BBC colleagues back then knew better. - I'd met him a few times, and he's the sort of person who would be able to convince you to do something. I think Diana was feeling... slightly caged and that she wasn't getting her side across. Here's this personable young chap turns up; he's representing Panorama... - Martin Bashir has never talked publicly about how he got his exclusive. The BBC itself has said amazingly little about how it pulled off the greatest journalistic coup in its hundred-year history. But you can piece the story together from eyewitnesses and published accounts by insiders. The BBC's director general at the time, John Birt, described events in his memoirs. (BROODING MUSIC) Bashir claimed he had a source, a former intelligence officer, who said Princess Diana's rooms in Kensington Palace were bugged. Bashir met some of Diana's friends, then her brother Charles, before meeting Diana herself. - Charles Spencer, Diana's brother, was probably the closest of the Spencers to the princess. Having built up confidence with Charles, Bashir gets to meet Diana. - I was actually there the first time he came. He'd been introduced by her brother. Diana was terribly excited. - The princess and the reporter talked in private. Then... - Diana ran in ` flung the door open, she ran in; she said, 'He's gone. 'He's` He's gonna do it. 'He's gonna make a programme about all my charities. Yes!' - MAN: ...here and Sudan, countries still... - I was aware that Princess Diana was planning some kind of documentary to highlight the achievements of her main charities and so on. I had no idea that she was planning an exclusive for Martin Bashir for Panorama. None at all. The idea of the charitable documentary was` was a kind of a bluff to distract attention from the real project, the Panorama idea. - He noticed that just at this time, Diana was getting more and more anxious. - She was being encouraged to believe things that were not helping her maintain a clear grasp of reality. For example, erm, somebody told her that Kensington Palace was bugged, but the work that she thought was bugging of Kensington Palace was actually a new fire alarm. Diana was particularly susceptible to being told unlikely things and then believe them. (BROODING MUSIC) - Martin Bashir's record at Panorama was chequered by an earlier incident where he and a colleague claimed they'd obtained a confidential document and used it in their programme. It turned out that they hadn't. The document in question had simply been mocked up by a BBC graphic artist. Something similar was about to happen again. In his memoir, the BBC's former boss describes Diana's biggest fear. (BROODING MUSIC) She worried that some of her staff were informers, maybe working for Prince Charles or for a large newspaper group. Martin Bashir seemed to have inside knowledge that could help. He'd somehow acquired two remarkable documents ` bank statements confirming that Diana's brother had been betrayed by a former employee, his one-time head of security. The statement showed that the informer had been paid �4000 pounds ` that's over $5000 ` by the giant News International and �6500 by a mysterious Jersey-based outfit, Penfolds Consultants, perhaps a front company for an intelligence agency. Bashir showed the statements to Charles Spencer. Now there seemed to be proof that Diana's brother had been betrayed. Perhaps the same thing was happening to her. - By the autumn of 1995, Diana was in a very agitated state. What was routine anxiety, routine concern in her life had become far more sinister. Something had happened that made Diana feel that she was being monitored, that she was being watched. (CLAMOURING, CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - Diana was used to being pressured, but a once-secret document shows just how frightened she'd become when she agreed to talk on the BBC. (BROODING MUSIC) Just days before her BBC interview, a visitor arrived at Kensington Palace and was ushered into Princess Diana's sitting room. It was her personal lawyer, Lord Mishcon. Diana's private secretary, Patrick Jephson, was also present. What Diana had to say left her audience speechless. - Such was Lord Mishcon's concern that he took a contemporaneous memo about it, which is very revealing of Diana's state of mind at that time. - Diana said she had secret information regarding four different women. She'd had a tip-off that the Queen would abdicate in six months' time ` April 1996. She said that Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles' lover, was on her way out. She'd be, quote, 'put aside'. Diana didn't specify why Charles had flipped, but there was a clue ` she said that the royal nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, had just had an abortion. Woman number four was Diana herself. Her informant had told her that once Charles became king, she would be murdered. The lawyer took it all down, and not a word of it was true. - With Lord Mishcon, I recognised that the princess wanted this on the record, wanted her lawyer to hear her say this, but I was puzzled. Why was she saying these things? Where had she got these ideas from? The more outlandish the things she was being told, the more avidly she seemed to swallow them. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - The reason why she gave that statement to Lord Mishcon was in order to protect herself. Diana was afraid of being bumped off. Simple as that. She wanted people to know that if she died in the next few days, next few weeks, they would know where to look. - The time gap between Diana's astonishing allegations and her interview with Martin Bashir is slender. He and his crew would arrive at Kensington Palace in just six days' time. - You've got to look at the Panorama interview not as an act of self-indulgence but an act of self-preservation. (FIREWORKS POP, CRACKLE) (APPREHENSIVE MUSIC) - As fireworks exploded all over London, the secret recording took place on November the 5th. The tapes were edited under the strictest security. Seven days before the broadcast, the BBC announced what was coming. - The Queen was at Windsor, and I telephoned her from Buckingham Palace and told her immediately that we got the news from the BBC. There was certainly some concern about what the interview would contain. - And then, on November the 20th, 23 million people watched, enthralled, as Diana demolished her husband's reputation as an adulterer not suited to become king. Diana said that she knew Charles better than anyone. He was fine as Prince of Wales, but the top job, she said, would be too much for him. And Diana made it plain that she wouldn't be silenced. She told Martin Bashir that a campaign was being waged against her ` the rest of the royals didn't know how to handle her ` but she would fight to the end. And was she ever likely to become queen? A simple answer ` no. Diana talked about her husband's affair and admitted one of her own ` with a young army officer, James Hewitt. - (GRAVEL CRUNCHES) - Can you make any comments about the allegations that are in the papers this morning? - No. - So many revelations in one interview. Diana didn't watch it go out. She spent the evening here, at a charity dinner. By the time coffee was served, her life had changed irrevocably. - Panorama, I think, will be seen as significant in that it marked the point at which Diana and the royal family finally parted company. (REPORTERS CLAMOUR, CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - I watched it in my office... and, of course, was shocked. It was so frank on a number of quite private matters... and, obviously, a huge news story. - The interview made headlines here and across the world. Inside the BBC, there was elation and congratulations on the scoop of the century. (PENSIVE MUSIC) (HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRRS) But just a few days later, inside the Panorama office, the celebrations came to an abrupt halt. A story was beginning to emerge that cast a shadow on the BBC's incredible triumph. A whistle-blower had come forward saying something odd had happened just before the interview. He wanted the bosses to look into it urgently. He worried he may have been dragged into some sort of con trick involving the princess. And isn't forgery a crime? (UNEASY MUSIC) The problem lay with the documents Martin Bashir had acquired suggesting Diana's brother was being spied on. The whistle-blower said they were forgeries, without a shadow of a doubt. He could be certain because he'd been ordered to create them himself on his computer. In reality, the convincing-looking details of the �4000 payoff by a newspaper group were fictitious. So was the mysterious company who'd paid off the supposed traitor in Earl Spencer's camp. Penfolds Consultants was pure invention. These were the documents shown to Charles Spencer. How could they help the reporter achieve his goal? - Charles Spencer had had his own run-ins not just with the media but what he considered to be outside forces. I mean, he thought that his phones were bugged. And so when Martin Bashir contacted him, he was a receptive vessel to stories of MI5 surveillance and so on. As Diana's gatekeeper, he was the one who said, 'Well, you can go and speak to Diana.' - For this film, we've been briefed by the whistle-blower who created the forgeries and talked to someone who met him soon after the Panorama programme went on air. - This was somebody who was genuinely concerned about the situation he found himself in. He explained that he had already been internally to various people in the BBC to explain his unhappiness and uncertainty about what he'd been asked to do post hoc ` after the event, as it were ` erm, and that he didn't feel that that had gone anywhere. - The way Martin Bashir's forged bank statements came into being sounds a little like spy fiction. At the heart of the story is a graphics artist, Matt Wiessler. He didn't wish to be seen on camera but has provided a detailed written account from the time of what took place. In October 1995, Matt Wiessler was a freelance. One of his regular jobs was creating computer graphics for Panorama. But the job he was given one night by Martin Bashir was like nothing he'd undertaken before. He was given a list of names ` money paid in, money going out. It all had to look just like the real thing... and it was a race against the clock. - The main thing about this job was the speed with which he had to do it. He had nine hours. - Creating these top-quality forgeries was an astonishing feat. His computer, 25 years ago, was state of the art... but with just a fraction of the power of a modern one. Working through the night at his flat in North London, he finished just as the sun was rising, and the forgeries were superb. - Anybody looking at them would not in any way question them. - A BBC car arrived, and the forgeries were rushed off to a delivery point at Heathrow Airport, Terminal 2. There, someone would be waiting to collect the package. Martin Bashir did not respond to a request to appear in this film or to written questions. The BBC say he is seriously unwell. The BBC have confirmed that the forgeries were shown by Mr Bashir to Princess Diana's brother. Andrew Morton believes the documents played a key role in securing the interview screened in November. - I spoke to people who were very, very close to the Princess of Wales who said that they'd discussed these statements, these bank statements, in October 1995 ` they were quite specific ` and they discussed with Diana the import of these documents, and they discussed with Diana whether or not she should give an interview. (PAPARAZZI CLAMOUR) (CLATTERING) It all makes sense when you realise that she lived in a world of anxiety and possible surveillance and that Martin Bashir very cleverly, in a very sophisticated way, played on that. Speaking to those in Diana's circle at that time, you could get a sense of why the bank statements were a tipping point that made her mind up to sit down at Kensington Palace and speak about her life to Martin Bashir. (WHOOPING) - The BBC admit that their reporter did commission the forgeries and show them to Diana's brother. So was this a breach of professional ethics, or was it a crime? (BROODING MUSIC) The interview, filmed by BBC Panorama 25 years ago, was one of the most famous and momentous pieces of television there's ever been. For Princess Diana, the fallout was sudden and dramatic. - The Queen wrote to both Prince Charles and Princess Diana, er, around Christmas '95, saying ` a very short letter ` erm, 'You must finalise the divorce.' And I remember... Diana was... (INHALES DEEPLY) SIGHS: Er... She said to me, 'Patrick, that's the first letter she's written to me.' - For many who watched, Diana came across as a strong, articulate survivor. Others saw an overprivileged woman with little to complain about. - Diana said to me, 'What did you think of the programme?' I said, 'Oh, God. You made a real prat out of yourself. 'Don't think about you in all of this. 'Look what you have done to the boys. 'What do you think their friends are going to say? 'You've publicly admitted to having an affair 'with a man other than their father.' She said, 'Oh, my God. I never thought of that.' (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - It was a missed opportunity for Diana to be who I knew her to be ` a strong, influential woman. Instead, she turned it into an opportunity for a self-indulgence. She had stamped her foot and made everybody listen, and she had nothing to say. Nothing new. - The interview was a crucial turning point in Diana's life ` the catalyst for divorce... and the beginning of a search for someone who could make her happy, without the constraints of a royal family. Her relationship with a billionaire's son, Dodi Fayed, was tracked avidly by the paparazzi. It ended tragically for both of them... (SIRENS WAIL) ...in a Paris road tunnel in August 1997. (HELICOPTER ROTOR WHIRRS) - Panorama burnt her bridges with the rest of the royal family, cut herself off, ultimately fatally, from the protection of the royal institution. All editors, er, filmmakers have to live with their conscience. - He got her at a very, very weak moment. She said, 'He really talked me into it, you know?' She regretted every minute. (MUFFLED SPEECH) - But what of the reporter who won the amazing scoop and the methods he used to get it? We asked a barrister, a specialist in forgery law ` what do prosecutors look for in a case like this? - What the prosecution authorities would be asking themselves is, 'Why has somebody put this false bank statement together 'if they are not considering using it to deceive somebody?' - The interview was a journalistic coup, but we've learned that the BBC also sold broadcast rights for more than �100,000 ` roughly $130,000 ` and the chances of being prosecuted increase if the forgery leads to financial gain. - If a false document is used to induce somebody to give an interview and that interview is a valuable commodity ` in those circumstances, that will be an argument that a criminal offence has been committed. The law, obviously, does take it very seriously. There is no time bar on the launching of prosecutions. Really, the prosecution could be launched at any point if the criminality comes to light. (BROODING MUSIC) - Martin Bashir became famous after the Diana interview and moved to the USA. But after early success, his career stalled, suspended by one major network. He resigned after controversy at a second. In 2016, he returned to the BBC and was offered a senior position ` Editor of Religion. Patrick Jephson, Diana's private secretary, resigned shortly after the Panorama interview, feeling he'd been side-lined but also that he'd let the princess down by failing to see all that was going on. It's a regret he carries to this day. - When Panorama came out, part of my visceral reaction was outrage that somebody should have exploited the princess in this way. - The image of Diana, captured at a time in her life when she'd come to believe that dark forces were out to get her, is burned into the memory ` part of her legacy that will always live on. And perhaps that's also something to regret. - Knowing the princess as I did... (CROWD CLAMOURS) ...making her perform like this was a combination of both seduction and betrayal. (BROODING MUSIC) Captions by Maeve Kelly. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 (BROODING MUSIC CONTINUES)