Piers Morgan claims BBC has ‘blood on its hands’ over Princess Diana’s Panorama interview

Piers Morgan has blasted the BBC over Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with Princess Diana, claiming it has ‘blood on its hands’.

An inquiry found the corporation covered up ‘deceitful behaviour’ used by journalist Bashir to secure his headline-making world exclusive, and ‘fell short of high standards of integrity and transparency’.

Tonight, a new Panorama team led by journalist John carried out its own four-month investigation, with exclusive interviews and revelations from internal BBC documents looking into Bashir landed his interview.

After the episode aired, former Good Morning Britain presenter Piers weighed in and shared his take.

‘Tonight’s Panorama was shocking – but mainly because it’s taken the BBC 25 years to finally tell the truth about the Bashir/Diana scandal,’ he wrote. ‘They have blood on their hands because that interview propelled Diana on a path to her death.

‘A shocking, criminal abuse of public money.’

During the interview, Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer said he believes the interview contributed to her death two years after in 1997.

‘The irony is that I met Martin Bashir on the 31st of August 1995, because exactly two years later she died, and I do draw a line between the two events,’ Earl said.

‘It’s quite clear from the introduction that I sat in on the 19th of September 1995 everyone was going to be made untrustworthy, and I think that Diana did lose trust in really key people.

‘This is a young girl in her mid-30s who has lived this extraordinarily turbulent and difficult time in the public eye.

‘She didn’t know who to trust and in the end, when she died two years later, she was without any form of real protection.’

The BBC has written to the royal family to apologise for the circumstances surrounding the interview.

Panorama is available for catch-up on BBC iPlayer.

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