Daily Mail: BBC executives joked Bashir scandal would give them 'Tower' sentence

Story from Daily Mail:

BBC executives joked that the Martin Bashir scandal would see them sent for a 'ten-year stretch in the Tower', newly released documents reveal.

In previously unseen internal messages, senior figures appeared to quip that the bombshell 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, would also cost them knighthoods.

Their 'unguarded' exchanges bore the subject heading 'Hussy [sic]/Panorama' and came after the late Queen's lady-in-waiting Lady Susan Hussey had emailed the BBC over the affair. The emails are part of a trove of 10,000 pages of documents released by the corporation relating to the programme in which Diana famously declared 'there were three of us in this marriage'.

Her interview was so explosive, the BBC's then-chairman Lord Hussey was kept in the dark in case he told his wife, Lady Susan, who the BBC feared might tip off Queen Elizabeth. In 2020, as the scandal reared its head again, with the Mail revealing Bashir forged and lied his way into Diana's trust, Lady Susan emailed the BBC's head of history Robert Seatter asking why the BBC felt it was right to have given ITV footage of an interview her late husband had recorded for the corporation about the Panorama saga.

A few days later Mr Seatter engaged in a 'reply-all' email exchange with two BBC lawyers, Peter De Val and Elizabeth Grace, with the subject 'Hussy/Panorama' (sic). In one, Mr De Val wrote: 'Get you a 10-stretch in The Tower... do they still have the Rack there? I expect so.'

In another, Mr Seatter joked: 'Is my knighthood to follow after this?! I somehow think not...', to which Ms Grace answered: 'Can you do a deep curtsy?' and Mr De Val replied: 'I don't think any of us will be appearing in the honours list for a while... And the Grenadier Guards do still work for Her.'

It is not possible to understand exactly what the trio were talking about, because the BBC has blanked-out several pages from the email trail. It argues these pages contain 'legally privileged' information. The gap in the correspondence means the precise context of their remarks has not been revealed. Last night the BBC categorically denied the distasteful jokes were about Lady Susan.

A spokesman insisted: 'They were unguarded exchanges between colleagues working remotely during lockdown.'

The corporation has spent more than £200,000 of licence-payers' money trying to prevent the 10,000 pages being made public, fighting a two-and-a-half year legal battle against journalist Andy Webb's freedom-of-information requests.

It finally gave up on Tuesday night, handing the documents to Mr Webb – but many were swathed in censor's black ink or were just blank pages. One of the emails that was not censored, from 2020, revealed Mr Bashir blamed his 'non-white' status at the BBC and 'professional jealousy' for the scandal erupting.

Last night another email showed that the BBC deliberately held back internal documents which Mr Webb had asked for in 2020.

Despite successfully finding the files he had asked for, an email from lawyer Miss Grace to a former BBC executive said 'we are not releasing all of the internal investigations documents at this present time'.

Mr Webb told the Mail: 'This is the first time we've seen an internal email indicating this was their thinking.' And he told GB News: 'Now, as we speak, people at the Information Commissioner's Office are looking to see whether the BBC has, as I alleged, committed a criminal offence.'

The BBC rejects allegations it acted unlawfully by not revealing information. A spokesman said: 'Far from attempting to conceal or cover up matters, the BBC commissioned Lord Dyson to conduct an independent investigation so that he could gain a full picture of what happened in 1995.'