In July, Alexandra Pettifer, better known to royal watchers as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, the former nanny to Princes William and Harry, received ‘substantial damages from the BBC’ over the ‘false and malicious allegations’ linked to the 1995 interview. In reaction, Earl Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales penned a 993-word essay detailing the ‘deceitful methods’ used by the BBC to secure Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with his sister. Now, the BBC has paid ‘its final damages’ to Alan Waller, Earl Spencer’s former head of security, who has reportedly received £60,000 from the corporation more than 25 years on.
In 2020, findings of the Dyson Report, commissioned in November 2020 and published in May 2021, disclosed that Bashir had used fake documents to obtain access to Diana. In the now infamous interview broadcast, Princess Diana revealed that her husband King Charles III, then Prince Charles, had been having an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, now the Queen Consort. A public revelation that would, according to Earl Spencer, lead to Diana feeling 'even more exposed and alone’.
Martin Bashir reportedly used fake bank statements that he said belonged to Waller ‘to gain Earl Spencer’s trust’ and obtain an interview with the princess. The payment to Mr Waller brings to an end a series of settlements made by the BBC ‘to victims of Bashir’s deceit’. According to the Telegraph, in total, the corporation has paid put approximately £2.7 million, which includes £1.5 million to charities chosen by Diana's sons, the Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex.
Waller, who lives in Norfolk, did not give a comment on the proceedings, although last year he told the Telegraph that he believed Bashir had behaved ‘despicably’ and that he had been used as ‘leverage’ to secure his interview with Diana.
Earlier this year, Legge-Bourke received an apology at London’s High Court in light of what her solicitor, Louise Prince, dubbed ‘the very serious and totally unfounded allegations that the claimant was having an affair with HRH Prince of Wales’. According to the Times, the former nanny received in the region of £200,000 from the corporation.
