BBC to pay 'substantial damages' to former royal nanny over 'deceitful' claims

LONDON

The BBC on Thursday announced it will pay “substantial damages” to Prince William and Harry’s former nanny over “deceitful” allegations made against her by a journalist to get an exclusive interview with Princess Diana.

Journalist Martin Bashir, known for his infamous interview with Diana, claimed that royal nanny Alexandra Pettifer, formerly known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, had an affair with Prince Charles while working as his assistant in 1995.

At London’s High Court, Pettifer received a public apology from the BBC after winning her defamation claim against the public broadcaster.

“I am disappointed that it needed legal action for the BBC to recognize the serious harm I have been subjected to. Sadly, I am one of many people whose lives have been scarred by the deceitful way in which the BBC Panorama was made and the BBC’s subsequent failure to properly investigate the making of the programme,” Pettifer said in a statement.

“The distress caused to the royal family is a source of great upset to me. I know first-hand how much they were affected at the time, and how the programme and the false narrative it created have haunted the family in the years since. Especially because, still today, so much about the making of the programme is yet to be adequately explained.”

Pettifer’s lawyers said in a statement that she was pleased the BBC agreed to apologize “unreservedly” and will “assist her in repairing the substantial harm it has caused her.”

They added that the BBC also agreed to pay her a “substantial sum of damages,” as well as her legal costs.

The BBC’s legal team said the corporation “accepts that the allegations were wholly baseless, should never have been made, and that the BBC did not, at the time, adequately investigate serious concerns over the circumstances in which the BBC secured the Panorama interview.”

“Following the publication of the Dyson Report last year we been working with those who suffered as a result of the deceitful tactics used by the BBC in pursuit of its interview with Diana, Princess of Wales for the Panorama programme in 1995,” said Tim Davie, director-general of the BBC.

The damning report into the interview, published in May 2021, found that Bashir used “deceitful behavior” to land his world exclusive 1995 interview.

“The BBC has agreed to pay substantial damages to Mrs Pettifer and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise publicly to her, to the Prince of Wales, and to the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent impact on all their lives,” said Davie.

He termed it “a matter of great regret that the BBC did not get to the facts in the immediate aftermath of the programme when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained improperly.”

“Instead, as the Duke of Cambridge himself put it, the BBC failed to ask the tough questions,” he said.

“Had we done our job properly Princess Diana would have known the truth during her lifetime. We let her, the royal family and our audiences down.”

Davie added that the program would never be shown on the BBC’s channels again.​​​​​​​