The anti-monarchist campaigning group Republic has called for an investigation into the reasons that the BBC failed to screen a documentary about Princess Diana in 2007.
The programme, Diana In Her Own Words, was made by the freelance producer and director Kevin Sim and due to be broadcast on the 10th anniversary of the princess’s death.
In the second instalment of another BBC documentary, Reinventing the Royals, to be shown tonight*, Sim says: “We were under the impression when it was first postponed that it was going to be a relatively short postponement”.
But it happened to coincide with the BBC obtaining an exclusive deal with Prince Charles for a film marking his 60th birthday.
Sim says: “When it began to look as if it was going to be a little longer before it was shown, we were told, ‘well, it’s quite difficult – Prince Charles is 60 and we’ve got exclusive access to him, with Charles, and we don’t really want to offend him at this juncture. We wouldn’t want to do anything at all, for example, that would mean he would pull out of the film’”.
Reinventing the Royals, presented by Steve Hewlett, was also postponed for a couple of weeks after objections from royal aides.
Republic’s chief executive, Graham Smith, said: “The BBC’s track record on reporting on the royals is appalling. Despite the good work of some excellent journalists the overall output is timid, deferential and celebratory”.
He argues that the BBC has a “cosy and deferential relationship with the royals” which “seriously undermines its independence and integrity”.
It was time, he said, for “an independent, open and honest, warts-and-all look at how the BBC handles its reporting of Britain’s head of state”.
The existence of the Sim documentary was not a secret. He spoke in advance of making it, as reported by Reuters, and a year after it was shelved, in August 2008, the Daily Mail reported that it included “intimate footage” of Diana talking to her voice coach.
The video tapes were made by the actor Peter Settelen during his coaching sessions with the princess in 1992 and 1993. She talked about her relationship with her husband, his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and her love for her police bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, who had died in a road accident in 1987.
The conversations were not intended to be made public, and the tapes are thought to have been broadcast only once, in 2004, on the US television network NBC.
According to the Mail, the BBC paid more than £30,000 in order to use three minutes of the tapes.
The Mail quoted a source who had seen a rough cut of Sim’s documentary, describing its as “well made and well thought-out”. The source added:
“Kevin is a brilliant film-maker and, because he’d never done a toyal programme before, he brought a really fresh eye to the project. It’s a great pity that it’s not going to be shown”.
*BBC2, 9pm
Sources: Republic press release/Daily Express/Daily Mail/Reuters
