LONDON – She suffered property damage in one of the most sensational reports in British television history, a royal nanny for Prince William and Prince Harry was blinded by the BBC’s search. an interview with their mother, Princess Diana.
On Thursday, the BBC apologized to the former nanny, Alexandra Pettifer, then known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, for launching false allegations that she had an affair with Prince Charles and had an abortion. after becoming pregnant with his child. The BBC also agreed to pay her a substantial amount of damages, if undisclosed.
“These allegations are fabricated,” Ms Pettifer’s lawyer, Louise Prince, read in a statement agreed to at the High Court in London.
The BBC said in a statement that it was “deeply sorry for the serious and prolonged harm” the accusations have caused to Ms Pettifer, and that they were “completely baseless” and “should never have been”. given now.”
Mrs Pettifer, 57, became a dull footnote in the lives of Charles and Diana when an aspiring young BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, began publishing reports of alleged sexual relationships. was hers to Charles, apparently a way to gain Diana’s trust. she’ll give him an exclusive interview that tells it all.
Mr Bashir also told Diana that people close to her were selling stories about her to London tabloids, and that he had created fake bank statements to sabotage a rival news organisation. . These secret methods landed Mr. Bashir interview for the BBC’s “Panorama” in 1995, proved to be as big a bomb as the interview with Harry and his wife, Meghan, for Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.
“There are three of us in this marriage,” Diana famously said to her husband’s Mr. Bashir and Camilla Parker-Bowles, with whom he had a relationship before and during the marriage, and with whom he married kiss later.
The show has since become a source of shame and expense for the BBC. The broadcaster apologized to the royal family, compensated others for its discredit, and promised to never broadcast it again.
Bashir’s tactics were asked shortly after the interview aired, mostly to Diana’s brother Charles, Earl Spencer. An internal BBC investigation vindicated Mr Bashir, but in 2021 an investigation conducted by a former judge of the UK Supreme Court, Lord John Dyson, concluded that “the BBC has does not meet the high standards of integrity and transparency that are its hallmark. “
On Thursday, the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, issued another apology to the royal family, as well as a new apology to Mrs Pettifer.
Mr Davie said: “Unfortunately the BBC did not learn the truth immediately after the programme, when there were warning signs that the interview might have been conducted improperly. “If we do our job right, Princess Diana will know the truth in her lifetime.”
Mr Davie reiterated that the BBC would never re-broadcast the program or license it to other broadcasters. Because of its historical value, he did not rule out broadcasting excerpts from the interview.
Mr Bashir, who went on to cover for ABC News and returned to the BBC as a religion correspondent, resigned from the broadcaster in May 2021, citing ill health. He has expressed regret over his methods but insists they ultimately played no role in getting Diana to be interviewed.
Mrs. Pettifer was one of the characters that alternated in the endless tabloids about Charles and Diana. The daughter of a wealthy banker who served in the Royal Guard, she grew up in an aristocratic world with the finishing touches of Swiss schools and ancestral estates in Wales and later. that opened a kindergarten. Charles hired her as a nanny for his sons shortly after he and Diana separated in 1993.
Newspapers carried rumors that Diana opposed Mrs Pettifer’s childcare – she smoked while taking care of William and Harry – and circulated reports of her views on what young princes really were. need (“fresh air, a rifle and a horse”), The Guardian reported in 1999.
But there was never any confirmation of the rumor that the nanny had an affair with the boys’ father.
In 1999, she resigned from the family of Prince Charles and married Charles Pettifer, a former officer in the Cold Line Guards. William and Harry, who are said to love her, attended their wedding.
In a statement published by The Sunday Times, Ms Pettifer said, “I am disappointed that legal action is needed for the BBC to recognize the serious harm I have suffered.” She said she knew “firsthand” how the Diana interview affected the royal family and that their suffering “is a source of great sadness for me.”
