‘The Crown’ writers used information from previous reports about how the ‘Panorama’ interview was obtained

Last year, the BBC and former UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Dyson published the findings of an independent investigation into how Bashir secured the 1995 interview with Princess Diana.

However, the inquiry found that Bashir had breached the organization’s rules by producing fake documents that claimed to show security services had paid royal staff for information about Diana. Bashir allegedly used the documents to win the trust of her brother, Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl of Spencer, in order to gain access to the princess.

Following the report, for the first time, the BBC wrote apologies to Diana’s sons, William and Harry, her former husband King Charles, and Earl Spencer. The organization has also returned awards the interview received in the 1990s.

Despite this watershed moment, Puwanarajah told Insider that the plot used in “The Crown” was not based on the recent inquiry.

“A lot of the understanding around how that interview was arranged has actually been public record from towards the end of the nineties,” the Martin Bashir actor said.

“The BBC was investigating it internally at that time, so in a way, there was nothing recent that provided us with information that wasn’t already out in the world. I think it was just how those institutions were reacting and responding, which is the thing that had shifted.”

In 1996, Tony Hall, then-director of news at the BBC, did carry out an internal investigation of the interview. This was after a freelance graphic designer, who helped create the fake documents, and multiple media outlets questioned whether Bashir had secured the interview through deception.

Last year, Bashir admitted to faking documents, saying it was a “stupid thing to do,” but insisted the documents “had no bearing whatsoever on the personal choice by Princess Diana to take part in the interview.”

Before Dyson’s report was released, Bashir also stepped down from his position at the BBC as religion editor in May 2021 due to ill health.

Lord Dyson found that the BBC covered up the scandal and thus “fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark.”