Will we ever see the letter written to the BBC by the Princess of Wales, about her interview with Martin Bashir ? Will the BBC seek cover under Freedom of Information legislation ? ('The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you and will not be doing so on this occasion.')
Lawyer David Hooper (formerly of Carter Ruck) has posed the important questions....
• The enquiry will need to look at the issue of the letter. There seem to be a number of issues which arise:
(1) Was there in fact such a letter?
(2) If so, who asked the Princess to provide it, given that it is the BBC’s case that she was not shown the documents which she is said to be confirming did not influence her?
(3) Who received the letter and to whom was it shown and when?
(4) Why was it not filed with the other documents and why was it not copied?
(5) Why are there no documents which say in terms (as to which see above) that the BBC had a letter from Princess Diana which states that she was not influenced by the (fake) documents. This would have then been apparent to the Board of Management and the facts would have been clearly established
and investigated as appropriate. Given the documents that were produced and the enquiry which took place into what was a serious act of wrongdoing, one would have expected to see some form of chronology or recital of events saying that such a letter had been received, when and by whom.
(6) What exactly did this letter say and were there are things in the letter (if it existed) which people at the BBC did not wish the Board of Management to see?
(7) If the letter did exist, what is the evidence that it was indeed written by the Princess or was it itself a forgery?
(8) Alternatively, does the evidence show that there was in fact no such letter, given that it was not produced in the 1995–96 enquiry and given the response to the 2007 FOIA enquiry denying the existence of any such correspondence and the fact that it has seemingly disappeared. Lindley’s [long-serving Panorama reporter] book published in 2002 had written about the alleged letter sent by the Princess. Presumably this was the correspondence Andy Webb [Channel 4 documentary maker]was seeking in his 2007 FOIA request. The BBC categorically denied there was any such correspondence,
just as they denied there were any notes about the making of the programme.
or the enquiry into the programme. It was not said that there had been
correspondence but it had been lost.
(1) Was there in fact such a letter?
(2) If so, who asked the Princess to provide it, given that it is the BBC’s case that she was not shown the documents which she is said to be confirming did not influence her?
(3) Who received the letter and to whom was it shown and when?
(4) Why was it not filed with the other documents and why was it not copied?
(5) Why are there no documents which say in terms (as to which see above) that the BBC had a letter from Princess Diana which states that she was not influenced by the (fake) documents. This would have then been apparent to the Board of Management and the facts would have been clearly established
and investigated as appropriate. Given the documents that were produced and the enquiry which took place into what was a serious act of wrongdoing, one would have expected to see some form of chronology or recital of events saying that such a letter had been received, when and by whom.
(6) What exactly did this letter say and were there are things in the letter (if it existed) which people at the BBC did not wish the Board of Management to see?
(7) If the letter did exist, what is the evidence that it was indeed written by the Princess or was it itself a forgery?
(8) Alternatively, does the evidence show that there was in fact no such letter, given that it was not produced in the 1995–96 enquiry and given the response to the 2007 FOIA enquiry denying the existence of any such correspondence and the fact that it has seemingly disappeared. Lindley’s [long-serving Panorama reporter] book published in 2002 had written about the alleged letter sent by the Princess. Presumably this was the correspondence Andy Webb [Channel 4 documentary maker]was seeking in his 2007 FOIA request. The BBC categorically denied there was any such correspondence,
just as they denied there were any notes about the making of the programme.
or the enquiry into the programme. It was not said that there had been
correspondence but it had been lost.
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