Scotland Yard won’t investigate Martin Bashir’s Princess Diana interview tactics as crime
As deceitful as the BBC’s Martin Bashir’s was in his long-ago interview with Princess Diana, he did not commit a crime, London’s Metropolitan Police announced Wednesday.
It was the second time the department has made that determination. The first time was in March of this year, before an independent, six-month inquiry commissioned by the BBC and conducted by former judge Lord John Dyson found that Bashir’s infamous sit-down with the princess stemmed from forged bank documents and other “deceitful methods” used to procure her cooperation.
Diana famously said there were “three of us in this marriage” in describing her union with heir to the throne Prince Charles, referring to his former girlfriend (and now wife) Camilla Parker Bowles. Not long after the 1995 interview, Queen Elizabeth advised Diana and Charles to divorce. Two years later, Diana was killed in a car crash while outrunning paparazzi.
Bashir was relatively unknown at the time, and the interview put him on the map. The release of Dyson’s report in May sparked the second look by the Metropolitan Police Service .
On Wednesday, Scotland Yard said “specialist detectives” had examined the Dyson Report, compared it with the law and sought independent legal advice from both prosecutors and the British government.
While it did prompt an internal BBC look at its own editorial standards, the department determined that the interview did not rise to the level of a crime.
“The MPS has not identified evidence of activity that constituted a criminal offence and will therefore be taking no further action,” the department said in a statement obtained by USA Today.
Diana’s sons, Princes William and Harry — aged 15 and 12, respectively, when their mother died — had condemned Bashir’s tactics in May, issuing strongly worded statements laden with sorrow, saying the interview had fueled their mother’s “fear, paranoia and isolation,” according to BBC News.
Bashir had moved on to become BBC News’ religion editor but resigned earlier this year for health reasons, the network said. He has apologized to both princes and to the late princess’ extended family.
