COVID Inquiry: Shocking revelations and explosive evidence – the moments you may have missed this week
The COVID Inquiry took a political turn this week when a number of key figures who served in Downing Street during the pandemic faced questioning from the probe’s lawyers.
Hours of evidence were presented to the inquiry’s chair, and there were a raft of revelations uncovered – from the attitudes shown by senior ministers to the virus through to the shocking vocabulary of top advisers.
We’ll take you through the key moments from the headline grabbing week – and what we learned.
Indecision and chaos
The overarching theme coming out of the hearings was the apparent disarray playing out behind the door of Number 10 and how long it took for the people in charge to make the big calls – especially the prime minister.
In written evidence to the inquiry, Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, suggested this boss was distracted from his duties as the build up began in early 2022 – with a “divorce to finalise”, “financial problems” and his then girlfriend wanting to “finalise the announcement of their engagement”.
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson “wanted to work on his Shakespeare book”.
Concerns from scientists about the virus were growing in January and February, and frightening scenes began playing out in other countries.
But there still appeared to be a reticence to act, according to those working in Downing Street, and numerous senior figures – including Mr Johnson – took their half-term breaks regardless.
At the start of March, Mr Johnson’s former director of communications, Lee Cain, sent a message to Mr Cummings, claiming the PM “doesn’t think [the pandemic] is a big deal and he doesn’t think anything can be done and his focus is elsewhere”.
It added: “He thinks it’ll be like swine flu and he thinks his main danger is talking economy into a slump.”
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Cain asked if Downing Street was in ‘chaos’
In another message between the pair days before the UK’s first lockdown came into force, Mr Cummings said the prime minister was “melting down” and had gone “back to Jaws mode” – referencing the mayor in the 1970s film who kept the beaches open despite shark attacks.
The chief adviser said he warned Mr Johnson of the NHS imploding “like a zombie apocalypse film” on 12 March – 12 days before lockdown was implemented – and a decision was finally taken the next day to act.
But it still took a further 11 days for the lockdown to be implemented, with Mr Cain blaming days of “oscillating” from the PM.
“The system works at its best when there’s clear direction from Number 10 and the prime minister,” he wrote in his evidence. “These moments of indecision significantly impacted the pace and clarity of decision-making across government.”
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Mr Cain also told the inquiry that “anyone who’s worked with the prime minister for a period of time will become exhausted with him sometimes” as he can be “quite a challenging character to work with” due to his indecision.
And that lack of decisiveness appeared to carry on throughout the pandemic, with Mr Cain saying the prime minister hesitated yet again over a circuit breaker lockdown in 2020 because it was “very much against what’s in his political DNA”.
“[Mr Johnson] felt torn where the evidence on one side and public opinion and scientific evidence was very much caution, slow – we’re almost certainly going to have to do another suppression measure, so we need to have that in mind – [whereas] media opinion and certainly the rump of the Tory party was pushing him hard [in] the other direction,” he said.
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Cummings says PM was known as a ‘trolley’
Mr Cain concluded that COVID was the “wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skillset”, adding: “It required quick decisions and you need people to hold the course and have that strength of mind to do that over a sustained period of time and not constantly unpick things because that’s where the problems lie.”
Mr Cummings stood by his somewhat harsher view.
He said a text in which he called ministers “useless f***pigs, morons [and] c****” actually “understated the position as events showed in 2020”.
Lack of a plan
While the public was looking to the government for help as the country was hit by crisis, evidence given to the inquiry suggests they weren’t prepared for what was coming.
Deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara said she realised how much trouble the UK was in on 13 March 2020 – 10 days before the first national lockdown – after speaking to an official at the Department for Health, Mark Sweeney, who “had been told for years that there is a whole plan” for a pandemic.
“But there was no plan,” he told her.
Ms MacNamara described how she then walked into the prime minister’s study, where Mr Cummings was sat with other senior officials, and told them: “I think we’re absolutely f****d, I think this country is heading for a disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people.”
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‘Country heading for disaster’
Asked to what degree decision-makers considered ethnic minority groups, domestic abuse victims and others in the run-up to imposing a national lockdown, Mr Cummings said: “I would say that that entire question was almost entirely appallingly neglected by the entire planning system.”
He told the inquiry there was no shielding plan for the most vulnerable, claiming the Cabinet Office had even tried to “block” Number 10 from implementing one.
But according to evidence from Mr Johnson’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, the then prime minister “blew hot and cold” over newly formed plans to tackle the vital issues arising, leading to “very difficult consequences” for the country.
Mr Reynolds said when he did decide on the course of action, “within hours or days, he would take a contrary position”.
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A chaotic picture of Downing Street
His evidence was echoed in messages from the head of the civil service, Simon Case, to Mr Cummings, accusing Mr Johnson of “changing strategic direction” and saying he “cannot lead”.
“IT HAS TO STOP!” wrote Mr Case, adding: “Govt [sic] isn’t actually that hard, but this guy is really making it impossible.”
But Mr Case’s criticism was not limited to the boss, blaming the “weak team” around him too – naming then health secretary Matt Hancock, then education secretary Gavin Williamson and the head of Test and Trace, Dido Harding.
The confidence of Mr Hancock
Mr Hancock came in for a lot of criticism during the week’s hearings.
Ms MacNamara told the inquiry he had shown “nuclear levels” of confidence at the start of the pandemic, describing one particularly “jarring” encounter after she expressed her sympathy that his job amid COVID must have been tough.
“He reassured me that he was ‘loving’ the responsibility,” she said. “And to demonstrate this, he took up a batsman’s stance outside the cabinet room and said: ‘They bowl them at me, I knock them away’.”
But the accusations went beyond bravado.
Ms MacNamara also claimed Mr Hancock “regularly” told colleagues in Downing Street things “they later discovered weren’t true”.
This accusation was backed up by Mr Cummings, who gave the example of the then health secretary having “sowed chaos” by continuing to insist in March 2020 that people without symptoms of a dry cough and a temperature were unlikely to be suffering from coronavirus.
In his coarser language, he also described Mr Hancock as a “proven liar”, a “problem leaker” and a “c***”.
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Cummings says he sent emails to Johnson that he was being “misled” by Hancock
By April 2020, there was a “lack of confidence of what he said was happening, was actually happening”, said Ms MacNamara.
This included Mr Hancock saying things were under control or being sorted in meetings, only for it to emerge in days or weeks that “was not in fact the case”.
There was a “pattern of being reassured that something was absolutely fine and then discovering it was very, very far from fine”, she added.
Andrew O’Connor KC, the lawyer for the inquiry, asked Ms MacNamara: “Does it come back to the fact that Mr Hancock regularly was telling people things that they later discovered weren’t true?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Sir Simon Stevens, who was head of NHS England during the pandemic, claimed that during discussions over what to do if the NHS was overwhelmed, Mr Hancock thought that “he – rather than, say, the medical profession or the public – should ultimately decide who should live and who should die”.
The health boss added: “I certainly wanted to discourage the idea that an individual secretary of state, other than in the most exceptional circumstances, should be deciding how care would be provided.”
Asked if Mr Hancock could be trusted, Sir Simon told the inquiry: “For the most part, yes.”
The former minister’s spokesperson said: “Mr Hancock has supported the inquiry throughout and will respond to all questions when he gives his evidence.”
Misogyny
Ms MacNamara told the inquiry of the “unbelievably bullish” approach to coronavirus by the government early in the pandemic, including the shocking revelation that ministers sat “laughing at the Italians” in meetings as the virus ripped through the country.
She said Mr Johnson was “confident the UK would sail through”, and her “injections of caution” in January and February 2020 “did not register”.
Why? Well, Ms MacNamara put this down to a “toxic” and misogynistic culture in Number 10, which saw “women being ignored”.
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Sky News’ Stuart Ramsay visited a Naples hospital back in 2020 to witness the extreme procedures they’re using to contain the coronavirus
Westminster and Whitehall are “endemically sexist” environments, she added, but Number 10 and the Cabinet Office became even worse during the pandemic when women had to “turn their screens off” on Zoom meetings or were “sitting in the back row” and “rarely spoke”.
As a result of the “macho” culture, certain issues were being ignored, including how to help domestic abuse victims, the impact on carers, childcare problems, and access to abortions.
“[The] failure to appreciate all the time that what we were doing was making decisions that were going to impact on everybody’s lives, and that meant lots of real people and real consequences,” said the former civil servant.
“I don’t think there was ever enough attention paid to that.”
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Ex-civil servant on ‘macho culture’
Asked about Mr Cummings’ use of a four letter to describe her, she said it was “both surprising and not surprising to me, and I don’t know which is worse”.
She added: “It is disappointing to me that the prime minister didn’t pick him up on the use of some of that violent and misogynistic language.”
Mr Johnson’s attitude to the elderly
In particularly galling revelations for the families of those who died, Mr Johnson’s approach to older people was raised during the hearings.
Notes from the government’s former chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance dated August 2020 described a “bonkers set of exchanges” with the prime minister, saying he was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”.
Another note from Sir Patrick shown to the inquiry and dated December 2020, revealed the influence of the wider Tory party on decision making in Number 10, saying while the PM had acted early and “the public are with him”, a number of his MPs were not.
The key scientific adviser wrote: “[Mr Johnson] says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and COVID is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much’.”
Amid serious concerns over the editorial mistakes made by the BBC, the downfall of its leaders has been greeted with undisguised glee by many on the right of British politics.
Former prime minister Liz Truss was quick off the mark to retweet gloating posts from Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt with clapping emojis.
Ms Truss argued not just for the abolition of the licence fee, but for the end of nationalised broadcasting altogether.
Her former cabinet colleague Suella Braverman has also called for the licence fee to be scrapped.
It’s an idea long advocated by Nadine Dorries during her time as culture secretary. The recent Reform convert is particularly pessimistic about the BBC’s future – telling me she believes its “core bias” has worsened in recent years.
“I’m afraid the resignation of Tim Davie will change nothing,” she said. “Under this Labour government overseeing the new appointment… it will probably get worse.”
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Why ‘Teflon Tim’ resigned from BBC
All three politicians were close allies of Boris Johnson, who has been instrumental this week in piling the pressure on the BBC.
He dramatically threatened in the Daily Mail to boycott the licence fee until Tim Davie explained what happened with the Trump Panorama documentary – or resigned.
The official Conservative Party line is slightly more restrained.
Shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddleston told Sky News “we want them to be successful” – but he and his boss Kemi Badenoch are calling for wide-ranging editorial reforms to end what they describe as “institutional bias”.
Their list calls for changes to BBC Arabic, its coverage of the US and Middle East, and “basic matters of biology”, by which they mean its stories on trans issues.
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‘Catastrophic failure’ at BBC
The irony of demanding editorial changes from a supposedly independent organisation dealing with allegations of bias has been lost in the furore.
Similarly, Nigel Farage is calling for the government to appoint a new director-general from the private sector who has “a record of coming in and turning companies and cultures around”.
As part of its editorial independence, the appointment of the BBC’s next editor-in-chief is meant to be entirely down to its own independent board – and out of the hands of ministers.
The government’s own response to the scandal has therefore been relatively muted. In a statement, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy thanked Mr Davie for his long service to public service broadcasting – and paid tribute to the BBC as “one of our most important national institutions”.
Tim Davie and Deborah Turness. Pics: PA
Before the news of the resignations broke, she had been expressing her “complete confidence” in how the BBC’s leadership were dealing with the “serious allegations” described in the leaked memo from Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the corporation’s editorial standards committee.
The departure of Mr Davie and the CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness just hours later seemed to be something of a shock.
A more detailed government response is sure to come when parliament returns from recess on Monday.
The Culture Media and Sport Committee of MPs – which has played an active role in the scandal by writing to the BBC chairman and demanding answers – is due to receive its response on Monday, which is expected to include an apology for the Panorama edits.
Its chair Dame Caroline Dinenage described Mr Davie’s resignation as “regrettable” but said that “restoring trust in the corporation must come first”.
Read more:
Analysis: ‘Teflon Tim’ has come unstuck
The past controversies faced by Davie
Read their resignation letters in full
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Ex-Panorama staffer: ‘Worst crime imaginable’
So far, the only British political leader prepared to mount an outspoken defence of the BBC is Sir Ed Davey.
The Liberal Democrat argues that seeing the White House take credit for Mr Davie’s downfall – and attacking the BBC – “should worry us all”.
He’s called on the PM and all British political leaders to stand united in “telling Trump to keep his hands off it”.
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What did the BBC do to anger Trump?
Given the diplomatic contortions Sir Keir Starmer has gone through to develop close relations with the current president, this seems entirely unlikely.
But for a prime minister already juggling an overflowing in-tray of problems, controversy over the national broadcaster as the government prepares to enter negotiations about renewing its charter for the next decade is another political tripwire in waiting.
The worst offending areas for uninsured driving in the UK have been revealed – as a hit-and-run victim described how he was “left for dead” with catastrophic injuries.
Every 20 minutes, someone in the UK is hit by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) said, based on claims from over 26,000 victims each year.
Every day, at least one person is so seriously injured by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver that they need life-long care and every week, at least one person is killed by an uninsured driver, according to the bureau.
Thurrock in Essex is the worst offending area for uninsured driving, according to claim data from the MIB, a non-profit organisation created to protect people from the impact of uninsured and hit-and-run drivers.
Four different postal areas in Birmingham are among the 15 hotspots highlighted by the MIB, with areas in Peterborough, Manchester, Belfast and Havering also named due to housing a large number of defendants per 1,000 residents.
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Map shows worst areas for uninsured driving in UK
The 15 worst postal areas for uninsured driving
• 1. Thurrock (RM19)
• 2. Birmingham (B25)
• 3. Birmingham (B18)
• 4. Peterborough (PE1)
• 5. Sandwell (B66)
• 6. Havering (RM1)
• 7. Birmingham (B21)
• 8. Manchester (M18)
• 9. Birmingham (B35)
• 10. Belfast (BT17)
• 11. Epping Forest (IG7)
• 12. Belfast (BT13)
• 13. Buckinghamshire (HP18)
• 14. Bradford (BD7)
• 15. Luton (LU1)
One of the victims of an uninsured driver is cyclist Cahal O’Reilly, 55, who was five miles from the ferryport in Holyhead, Wales, when he was hit from behind in September 2021.
He was thrown on to the windscreen and 20m through the air until he landed on the side of the road, seriously injured.
The uninsured driver, who police estimate was driving at 70mph, fled the scene.
Mr O’Reilly suffered catastrophic injuries, including a broken neck and back. Pic: MIB
‘Left for dead’
“I was left for dead, bleeding to death on the side of the road,” Mr O’Reilly told Sky News.
“Nobody knows how long I was on the floor for. When I came to my senses, I could taste my own blood and feel the road on my cheek.”
He realised he was “pretty seriously injured” when he could not move his ankles, and lay still until help arrived.
A passing motorist, who initially thought Mr O’Reilly’s lifeless form was debris before realising it was a body, called the emergency services.
Mr O’Reilly was left with serious injuries, including a broken back and neck, shattered pelvis, smashed bone in his leg, and dislocated shoulder and required several surgeries in the days after the crash.
Police said Mr O’Reilly would be dead if he had not worn his helmet. Pic: MIB
The back tire of Mr O’Reilly’s bicycle was completely ripped apart. Pic: MIB
“I suffered a polytrauma, which is multiple horrendous injuries,” Mr O’Reilly said. “The police said if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I would be dead, and officers didn’t think I would make it.
“The hospital consultant told my wife that most people don’t survive the impact, the time until the ambulance arrives, and 22 hours of operations in 48 hours.”
Doctors had to use rods to reconnect Mr O’Reilly’s knee and ankle on his right leg, as the bottom of his foot “was just hanging on by skin and muscle”, and use an arterial skin graft from his left arm to help patch up the damage to his smashed leg.
Mr O’Reilly, who lives in Wandsworth, south London, also had to wear a neck brace for more than five months to stabilise his shattered neck and had to learn how to walk again, with serious setbacks on the way.
Mr O’Reilly had to learn how to walk again after extensive surgery. Pic: MIB
‘Challenging’ recovery
“My pelvis and back fused and healed very quickly, but my leg took the main force of initial impact, with bits of my leg tissue found in the headlight of the car,” Mr O’Reilly said.
Just when he started seeing some progress in the rehab for his leg, about 18 months after the crash, doctors discovered that the metal work supposed to hold the bones together was falling apart, causing a serious infection in his leg.
Mr O’Reilly required another surgery and was told that if the bone did not heal, his leg would have to be amputated.
Mr O’Reilly’s blood and tissue were found in the headlights of the driver’s car. Pic: MIB
Four years on from the horrifying crash, he was told that his bone had finally fused last month.
“If you walk past me in the street, you wouldn’t know now, but the process to get there was very difficult and psychologically quite challenging,” Mr O’Reilly said.
The former British Army major hopes he will be able to return to work as a business consultant next year.
Read more:
Victim criticises ‘appalling’ sentence for uninsured driver
Nurse describes ‘horrific’ fatal crash
He is now campaigning with the MIB to stop uninsured drivers from hitting the roads, as he wants “nobody to go through what I had to go through”.
“We have to do something in this country,” he said. “People are morally making a choice where they don’t care about their fellow citizens and fail to insure their car and make sure it is properly taxed. Something like that is a social responsibility.”
Mr O’Reilly is campaigning with the MIB to stop uninsured motorists. Pic: MIB
£1bn cost of uninsured drivers
Uninsured driving costs the government £1bn a year, including compensation for victims, emergency services, medical costs and loss of productivity.
An uninsured vehicle is seized every four minutes across the UK, with almost 120,000 seized so far this year, the MIB said.
The bureau has launched a week-long road safety initiative in collaboration with police forces across the UK, including targeted enforcement in problem areas and public education to urge people to check their insurance status.
“Our aim is to end uninsured driving, which means working closely with the police across the UK to remove dangerous vehicles from our roads,” Martin Saunders, head of enforcement at MIB, said.
“At the same time, we are ramping up our support for motorists who want to drive legally, providing them with the knowledge they need to have the right cover in place.”
Tim Davie stepping down as director-general of the BBC comes after several controversies faced by the broadcaster in recent years.
His resignation came at the same time as that of BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness, at the end of a week in which concerns about impartiality were raised over how a speech by US President Donald Trump was edited in an episode of Panorama.
“While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision,” Mr Davie wrote in a note sent to staff.
“Overall, the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility.”
Tim Davie is stepping down as director-general after five years. Pic: PA
Mr Davie has been in the role for five years and at the BBC for 20 in total, having previously worked as director of marketing, director of audio and music, and chief executive of BBC Studios.
Here are the controversies the broadcaster has faced in recent years.
The Trump documentary edit
A memo sent in the summer by a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, highlighting the edit of a Donald Trump speech as well as other concerns about impartiality, was first reported by The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
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What did the BBC do to anger Trump?
The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of a speech made by the US president on 6 January 2021, featured in the Panorama programme Trump: A Second Chance?
It made it appear that Mr Trump told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell”, although the quotes were made during separate parts of the speech. The episode was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.
Bob Vylan at Glastonbury
Bob Vylan frontman Bobby Vylan on stage at Glastonbury. Pic: PA
In July, punk-rap duo Bob Vylan led chants of “death to the IDF” while on stage at Glastonbury, a performance which was live-streamed as part of the BBC’s coverage of the festival.
Afterwards, the broadcaster said it would no longer live broadcast “high risk” performances, and suggested disciplinary action could be taken against staff who failed to halt the stream.
The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit received four complaints about the performance relating to incitement to violence, terrorism or ethnic cleansing, hate speech and expressions of antisemitism.
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Trump hits out at ‘dishonest’ BBC
In a ruling given in September, it found the stream of the performance had breached its editorial standards.
Following the backlash over the Glastonbury gig, Bob Vylan said in a post on Instagram that “we are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people”.
MasterChef
Pic: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
In the same month, presenter Gregg Wallace was sacked from cooking show MasterChef after an investigation into historical allegations of misconduct upheld multiple accusations against him. These first emerged towards the end of 2024.
Wallace, who co-presented the show for almost 20 years, said he was “deeply sorry for any distress caused” and that he “never set out to harm or humiliate”, but also said in a statement released ahead of the publication of a summary of the report that he had been “cleared of the most serious and sensational accusations” made against him.
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Mark Stone: Trump enjoys ‘having a scalp’ as BBC director-general resigns
His co-presenter John Torode left the show the following week after an allegation he used an “extremely offensive racist term” was upheld, the BBC said.
In October, Wallace announced he was suing the broadcaster for “distress and harassment”.
Gary Lineker
Pic: PA 2024
No stranger to controversy during his last few years at the BBC, Gary Lineker stepped down from hosting Match Of The Day and World Cup coverage in May.
It came after he apologised unreservedly for sharing a social media post from the Palestine Lobby group that had been illustrated with a rat – which has been used to represent Jewish people in antisemitic propaganda, including Nazi Germany.
He said he had not known about the rat’s symbolism.
“I would never consciously repost anything antisemitic – it goes against everything I stand for,” Lineker said in a statement as he confirmed his resignation. “However, I recognise the error and upset that I caused, and reiterate how sorry I am. Stepping back now feels like the responsible course of action.”
The former England star had previously been temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023, after an impartiality row over comments he made criticising the then Conservative government’s asylum policy.
His temporary suspension led pundits Ian Wright and Alan Shearer to both announce they would not appear on Match of the Day, and a shortened show went ahead without commentary, pundit analysis, or post-match interviews.
The incident sparked a report, which decided that high-profile BBC presenters outside of its news coverage should be able to express their views on political issues as long as they stop short of campaigning.
Gaza documentary
Mr Davie and BBC chairman Samir Shah were questioned about the documentary by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee earlier this year. Pic: PA
Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone was pulled from BBC iPlayer in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old boy narrating the programme was the son of a deputy minister in the Hamas-run government.
The documentary was made by independent production company Hoyo Films.
A BBC review into the controversial programme said three members of the independent production company knew about the role of the boy’s father – but no one within the corporation was aware.
In July, the BBC said it had breached its own editorial guidelines by failing to disclose the full identity of the child narrator’s father – Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
In October, an Ofcom investigation found the documentary had breached the broadcasting code.
Huw Edwards
Huw Edwards appeard in court in September 2024. Pic: PA
In April 2024, veteran news presenter Huw Edwards resigned from the BBC, nine months after coming off air following accusations of paying a teenager thousands of pounds for sexually explicit pictures.
Just a few months later, it emerged he had remained one of the broadcaster’s highest-paid stars of the year, despite his suspension.
Days later, new allegations emerged – and he was charged and pleaded guilty in court to three counts of “making” indecent images of children, after receiving the illegal images as part of a WhatsApp conversation.
The court heard how he paid up to £1,500 to a paedophile who sent him 41 illegal images between December 2020 and August 2021, seven of which were of the most serious type.
The disgraced broadcaster avoided jail, but was given a six-month suspended sentence.
Strictly Come Dancing
Pic: BBC
Ahead of the 2024 series of BBC favourite Strictly Come Dancing, producers said they would introduce staff chaperones into all future rehearsals.
It followed the departure of two professional dancers following complaints about their behaviour.
Following an investigation, the BBC upheld “some, but not all” of the allegations made against Giovanni Pernice by his 2023 dance partner Amanda Abbington.
Abbington described an apology from the corporation as vindication, while Pernice denied displaying “abusive or threatening behaviour” and said the majority of the complaints had not been upheld.
Another professional dancer, Graziano Di Prima, also left the show amid reports of alleged misconduct.
Apology over Diana interview
Diana, Princess of Wales, during her interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC in 1995. Pic: PA
In 2021, a report into Martin Bashir‘s bombshell 1995 programme with Princess Diana found the journalist had “deceived and induced” her brother to secure the interview.
By using fake bank statements, Mr Bashir made a “serious breach” of BBC guidelines on straight-dealing, the Lord Dyson report concluded.
Mr Davie, who was not at the BBC at the time the programme was made, issued a “full and unconditional” apology after the findings were released, and the corporation sent written apologies to Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as to Prince Charles and Earl Spencer.
Mr Bashir also apologised and said the faking of bank statements was a “stupid thing to do” and “an action I deeply regret”, but added he felt it had “no bearing whatsoever on the personal choice by Princess Diana to take part in the interview”.
Former director-general Lord Hall, who was the BBC’s director of news and current affairs when the Diana interview was screened, said he accepted the corporation’s 1996 inquiry into how the sit-down was secured “fell well short of what was required”.
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