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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

"If held"

Freedom of Information enquiry, from P. John

In recent days, a number of images been circulated in the press showing falsified bank statements 
prepared for the BBC journalist Martin Bashir. 
 
By an extraordinary co-incidence, a corresponding letter from Princess Diana has purportedly been 'found' by the BBC that suggests Princess Diana was fully aware the bank statements were falsified, and yet had no bearing on her willingness to be interviewed by Mr. Bashir. 
 
Given the falsified bank statements are in the public domain, please could you also disclose; 
 
1) a scan of the purported letter from Princess Diana to the BBC acknowledging & disregarding the 
existence of the BBC journalist's falsified bank statements. I would be particularly keen to see the 
handwriting & signature. 
2) identify the address/recipient, and state the date that letter was received by the BBC  
3) confirm or deny that you consider the letter is genuine and not also a creative fraud, and on what basis you take that view

 
Freedom of Information response,  from the BBC

Questions 1 and 2 
The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because if held it would be held for 
the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ ........ As you may be aware, the Rt. Hon. Lord Dyson has been appointed to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances around the Panorama interview. We consider it would not at this stage be in the public interest to disclose any further information that is or could be relevant, as that will not be conducive to the orderly conduct of the investigation. We have made it clear that we will hand over records to Lord Dyson’s investigation, and publish the report of the investigation at its conclusion. 
 
Question 3 
Please be advised that the Freedom of Information Act gives a general right of access to all types 
of  recorded  information  held  by  public  authorities.    As  this  is  not  a  request  for  recorded 
information, and we are not required to create new information to respond to a request, or give a 
judgement  or  opinion  that  is  not  already  recorded,  we  cannot  provide  the  information  in  your 
request.  

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