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A graphic designer who created fake bank statements that were allegedly used to persuade Princess Diana to participate in her 1995 television interview demands an apology from the BBC.
Matt Wiessler says he mocked two documents at the request of Martin Bashir, the journalist who conducted the landmark Panorama interview with him. Wale’s princess.
The late princess’ younger brother, Earl Spencer, is now demanding an independent investigation into the interview, as well as a posthumous apology to his sister and a donation to charities established in her memory.
The BBC says that Bashir is currently severe discomfort with COVID-related complications after quadruple bypass surgery and is therefore not in a position to answer the allegations.
Diana’s 1995 interview with Bashir was a landmark moment on television, one that some feared could bring down the Royal Family.
According to reports, a photo showing Bashir following a alleged visit to a takeout and wine shop was printed in The Mail On Sunday this weekend.
The newspaper says the photo was taken Friday night outside the 57-year-old home in north London.
Speaking for the first time on television for the new ITV documentary The Diana Interview: Revenge Of A Princess, Wiessler says the BBC has made him a scapegoat.
He told the show, “I agreed to talk to you because I’m this guy who is remembered for falsifying the document and I want to clear my name.”
He says the documents he was asked to create allegedly falsely showed that people were being paid to watch over the princess.
Mr. Wiessler, 58, continued: “I clearly felt that I was the one who was going to be the scapegoat for this story.
“All I want is for the BBC on this case to come forward and honestly apologize. Because it has made a huge impact.”
The revelations included ‘three people’ in the royal marriage. Photo: ITV
He said he was “blacklisted,” causing his job to run out. He has since left the industry and now works for a bicycle design company in Devon.
At the time, revelations that included Diana describing Camilla Parker Bowles as the “third person” in her marriage and her own infidelity with Army Captain James Hewitt sent shockwaves to the monarchy.
Matt Weissler was a graphic designer at the BBC from 1986 to 1995. Photo: ITV
In response to the earl’s request for an investigation, BBC Director General Tim Davie said in a statement: “The BBC is taking this very seriously and we want to get to the truth. We are in the process of commissioning an investigation. solid and independent.. “
A 1996 BBC investigation cleared Bashir of any wrongdoing.
The Earl has called the earlier investigation a “cover up” and says he has decided to speak up now as the new information has led him to understand that the BBC was aware of the situation.
He told his 18.3k Twitter followers: “It is understandable that many people wonder why I have waited until now to tell the truth about how the BBC Panorama came about with my sister. Even though I knew Martin Bashir used bank statements and other dishonesties for my sister to do the interview.
“What I discovered just two weeks ago, thanks to the persistent use of the Freedom of Information Act by journalist Andy Webb, is that the BBC knew it too. Not only did it know it, it covered it up.”
Earlier in the week, he shared a childhood photo of himself and Diana as kids.
The count says the forged documents were related to alleged payments made to two members of the royal house by the security services to obtain information about the princess. He says he would never have put his sister in contact with Bashir if he hadn’t seen the statements.
In the ITV documentary, Wiessler describes the 1995 phone call in which he says that Bashir asked him to create the documents urgently.
Earl Spencer has criticized the BBC for failing to ‘stand up’ to the allegations
“Martin asked me to make up a couple of bank statements about people getting paid to do surveillance he needed the next day.
“And he said they were only going to be used as copies … I’ve never been informed in that way before.”
He added: “There was a name in one of the statements that had been used in a previous Panorama program that I did with Martin and I thought ‘you cannot repeat the same name in two completely different projects.
“‘It must mean that the current project you are working on is fake.'”
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Mr. Wiessler says that the computer disks containing backup copies of the statement were later stolen from his home.
The two-part documentary, The Diana Interview: Revenge Of A Princess, begins on ITV at 9 p.m. tonight, and the second episode airs at the same time on Tuesday.
