Andrew Neil claimed there was a “clear line” between Princess Diana’s BBC Panorama interview in 1995 and her death in a car crash two years later. The veteran BBC presenter slammed the company as he claimed Diana chose to give up her security team because of the “paranoia” presenter Martin Bashir allegedly instilled in her. Speaking to CNN, Mr Neil said: “We now know the way that he conned Diana into giving this interview.
“We all wondered why she had given it to him. He played on her paranoia, he said, ‘senior officials in the Palace are selling stories to the tabloids, here are the bank statements that prove it. You can’t trust anybody, even your security.’
“And what she did is get rid of her security. When I met Diana in 1996, she had no security with her.”
Mr Neil said Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed took on the challenge of providing the protection the mother of the future King of the UK would need from the constant public attention.
He continued: “And then she met Dodi Fayed, son of the billionaire owner of Harrods.
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“He provided the security, he provided the limousines, the armoured-plated cars.
“There’s a clear line now between that interview and that terrible night in Paris in 1997. If she still had British security, they would never have let her leave the Ritz Hotel that night.
“They certainly wouldn’t have been driving at the speed she was driven, and the driver would not have been drunk.
“So there’s a clear line between 1995 and 1997.”
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Mr Bashir has so far failed to respond to questions on the interview, with the BBC claiming the reporter is “seriously unwell so we are unable to put these questions to him.”
They added: “More broadly, questions surrounding Panorama’s interview with the Princess of Wales a quarter of a century ago, and in particular the ‘mocking up’ of bank statements, were covered in the press at the time.
“BBC records from the period indicate that Martin had explained to the BBC that the documents had been shown to Earl Spencer and that they were not shown to the Princess of Wales.
“They indicate that Martin had met the Princess of Wales before the mocked up documentation existed.
“These BBC accounts also say that the Princess of Wales confirmed in writing that these documents played no part in her decision to give what was, and still is, one of the most iconic interviews of the last half of the twentieth century.”
