[ad_1]
The BBC will pay damages to a former royal nanny after one of the British broadcaster’s ex-journalists alleged that the carer had an affair with Prince Charles.
The corporation will provide Alexandra Pettifer, also known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, a “substantial” sum estimated to be around £200,000 ($239,200) over false claims made by former BBC presenter Martin Bashir.
The network also extended an apology to Pettifer at the High Court over the allegations.
Bashir had manipulated Princess Diana into believing that Charles had gotten Pettifer pregnant and produced bank statements as proof to land his 1995 interview with the late royal for the BBC’s “Panorama” documentary program, People reported.
His claims included “the very serious and totally unfounded allegations that the claimant was having an affair with HRH Prince of Wales, resulting in a pregnancy which was aborted,” Pettifer’s solicitor, Louise Prince, told the court.
“These allegations were fabricated,” Prince said.
Bashir’s interview with Diana was broadcast three years after the late princess and Charles separated, and it was viewed by 22.8 million people in the U.K., according to the BBC.
The “bombshell” interview destroyed the British royal family’s image of being “contented, caring and united,” commentators at the time claimed.
It also caused “serious personal consequences” for Pettifer, a former nanny to Prince William and Pince Harry.
The BBC hired former British Supreme Court Judge John Dyson to lead an independent investigation into Diana’s appearance on “Panorama.”
Bashir had used “deceitful methods” and breached the network’s editorial guidelines with his actions, the investigation found. He would quit his post at the BBC ahead of the broadcaster’s release of Dyson’s inquiry report.
Despite the findings, the Metropolitan Police had “not identified evidence of activity that constituted a criminal offense” after looking into Dyson’s review.
For its part, the BBC dubbed Bashir’s allegations as “completely untrue and without any foundation whatsoever,” according to Prince.
It also recognized that his claims “were wholly baseless, should never have been made, and that the BBC did not, at the time, adequately investigate serious concerns” over how the “Panorama” interview was secured.
Aside from Pettifer, the BBC has also apologized to Prince Charle, Prince William and Prince Harry “for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent impact on all their lives,” according to BBC Director-General Tim Davie.
“Now we know about the shocking way that the interview was obtained, I have decided that the BBC will never show the program again; nor will we license it in whole or part to other broadcasters,” Davie said.
While Pettifer was “relieved that the BBC accepts that the allegations are completely untrue and without any foundation whatsoever,” she was disappointed “that it needed legal action for the BBC to recognize the serious harm I have been subject to,” the ex-royal nanny was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times.
“[I was] 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 program,” she said.
The 1995 BBC interview with Princess Diana saw her detail her troubled marriage to Prince Charles
Photo: AFP / Johnny EGGITT
[ad_2]
Source link
