A court in the UK has ordered public service broadcaster BBC to hand over more than 3000 emails relating to the controversial 1995 interview between Diana, Princess of Wales, and broadcaster Martin Bashir.
According to the BBC, journalist and documentary maker Andrew Webb filed a Freedom of information (FOI) request on all emails managers sent to each other during a two-month period in 2020 relating to his investigation of Bashir for the scandal surrounding the interview.
The ruling follows a tribunal hearing over whether details should be released under FOI law, as the BBC reported it disclosed “a small number of messages to Webb”. It has since emerged there were more than 3000 emails.
The corporation said these contained information that was either "irrelevant" or "legally privileged".
Webb argued these internal emails were "overwhelmingly in the public interest" to be divulged to the public and called the whole operation a "cover-up".
The BBC has reported that UK Judge Brian Kennedy said the corporation had been "inconsistent, erroneous and unreliable in the way it dealt with the initial request".
In 2021, an inquiry found Bashir had acted in a "deceitful" way and faked documents to obtain the interview, the same year he officially stood down from his role at the BBC.
The interview with Princess Diana was considered a "huge scoop" at the time for the BBC and was viewed by over 20 million people, raising questions about how Bashir came to secure it.
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