BBC journalist "deceived and induced" to land bombshell interview with Princess Diana, report says

 

London — A formal investigation has found that a BBC journalist used deceit in securing his bombshell 1995 interview with Princess Diana. It was in that interview that Diana famously told reporter Martin Bashir about cheating in her marriage and her struggles with mental health.

The BBC commissioned the independent investigation and apologized after its findings were made public. 

The report published on Thursday detailing the findings of the investigation by former top U.K. judge Lord John Dyson said Bashir "deceived and induced" Diana's brother Earl Spencer into arranging a meeting with the late royal.

"By gaining access to Princess Diana in this way, Mr. Bashir was able to persuade her to agree to give the interview. This behavior was in serious breach of the 1993 edition of the BBC's Producer Guidelines on straight dealing," the report states. 

In a statement Thursday, Diana's son, Prince William, thanked Lord Dyson and his team for the report, but called on the BBC to never air the program again to due to ways it was obtained and how it directly contributed to his mother's paranoia, isolation, and fear during her final years. 

"What saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived," the Duke of Cambridge said in a statement. "She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions. In an era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important. These failings, identified by investigative journalists, not only let my mother down, and my family down; they let the public down too."

The explosive interview revealed intimate details about Diana's failing marriage to Prince Charles, and her battle with depression after the births of her children and bulimia.