Martin Bashir ‘tells inquiry it was DIANA who came up with “smears”‘

Martin Bashir has blamed Princess Diana for the catalogue of royal smears he allegedly spun to clinch his Panorama scoop with her.

Giving evidence to the official inquiry into how he secured the historic interview, the BBC’s religious affairs editor has denied inventing preposterous lies about the royals.

Instead, he is said to have claimed that Diana herself – and the ‘mystics’ she consulted – were more likely to be responsible for the outlandish remarks.

Martin Bashir has denied inventing smears against the royals to land his interview with Diana – reportedly telling an inquiry they came from the Princess herself 

The BBC religious affairs editor allegedly faked bank statements to trick the princess into taking part in the infamous 1995 Panorama broadcast

Former Supreme Court judge Lord Dyson’s inquiry is examining claims that the BBC covered up a trail of deceit and forgery, and that Bashir allegedly peddled 32 lies and vile smears to the vulnerable princess to land his explosive 1995 Panorama interview, in which she famously said: ‘There were three of us in this marriage.’

But Bashir is believed to have told Lord Dyson it was Diana, rather than him, who was to blame for the vast majority of the shocking comments.

Last year Diana’s brother Earl Spencer revealed a string of falsehoods Bashir allegedly told Diana to gain her trust, including cruelly playing to her paranoia by pretending he had evidence her staff were spying on her to newspapers and MI5.

The smears included an allegation that Prince Edward was being treated for Aids in a London hospital, the Queen was a ‘comfort eater’ with ‘heart problems’, and Prince Charles was ‘in love’ with their children’s nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and went on a secret holiday with her.

Instead he insists smears about senior members of the royal family were misattributed to him in notes made at the time by Earl Spencer (pictured) 

Bashir has told Lord Dyson that many of the allegations were consistent with Diana telling him on a later occasion that she spoke with mystics and clairvoyants, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The Panorama interview led to the Queen demanding that Charles and Diana swiftly divorce. 

The princess died in a car crash in August 1997. Lord Dyson, a former Master of the Rolls, was commissioned by the BBC to investigate claims revealed in the Mail about how the interview was obtained.

Bashir was said to have used forged bank statements, and the BBC was accused of a cover-up.

Earl Spencer said he introduced Diana to Bashir but was astonished as the BBC journalist fed her lies about her bodyguard plotting against her, her friends betraying her and MI6 taping Charles and his private secretary planning the ‘end game’.

At one meeting, Bashir showed Diana’s brother fake bank statements that he ordered a blameless BBC graphics artist to forge, purporting to show Earl Spencer’s security head was in the pocket of a newspaper group.

Lord Dyson, who is expected to heavily criticise Bashir as well as senior corporation executives, will deliver his findings late next month or in early May.

Struck down by Covid and then recovering from a quadruple heart bypass, it was unclear until now if Mr Bashir was cooperating with the inquiry.