BBC will censor 3,000 emails it must release over Martin Bashir’s controversial Diana interview
THE BBC will censor emails it must release about Martin Bashir’s Princess Diana interview.
A tribunal has told the Beeb to hand over 3,000 messages linked to how he got the 1995 Panorama chat.
It comes more than two years after journalist Andrew Webb used freedom of information laws to ask for them.
Mr Bashir was found to be in serious breach of BBC guidelines when he asked a graphic designer to create misleading bank statements he then showed to Di’s brother Earl Spencer.
It helped seal the interview in which Di told Bashir “there were three of us” in her marriage to then-Prince Charles.
Yesterday, a remote information rights tribunal heard the BBC will release the documents but redact some.
Mr Webb told the hearing: “We all know that some documents, roughly 300, will be claimed by the BBC to be withheld.”
He said earlier: “I have been waiting 2½ years.
“We have been told this whole mass of data was initially meaningless, irrelevant and nothing to do with a cover-up, etc.
“The BBC has been fairly forcefully told that is not good enough.”
The BBC must hand over the info by January 24. Mr Webb can challenge any redactions if he wishes.
Case was adjourned.