Princes' plea over Diana documentary
Updated on 05 June 2007
Channel 4 will broadcast graphic images of the crash which killed Princess Diana despite a plea by Prince William and Prince Harry.
Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel, which will be broadcast on June 6, includes the first public airing of images taken by French paparazzi immediately after the Paris collision in 1997.
The programme, made by ITN Factual, reportedly shows one picture of Diana receiving oxygen from a French doctor and other explicit images of the interior of her car.
Clarence House said Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the private secretary for the Princes, wrote to Hamish Mykura at Channel 4 on Monday as William and Harry believe the airing of the photographs is a "gross disrespect to their mother's memory".
He wrote: "If it were your or my mother dying in that tunnel, would we want the scene broadcast to the nation? Indeed, would the nation so want it?"
He said the images were "redolent with the atmosphere and tragedy of the closing moments of (the Princess's) life". They would cause the Princes "acute distress" and intruded on the "privacy and dignity of her last minutes", he said.
Mr Lowther-Pinkerton wrote: "I must ask you not to broadcast those photographs that depict the crashed car whilst the Princes' mother lies dying in its wreckage.
"Also, I ask on the Princes' behalf that the shot of the ambulance, with a medic clearly administering emergency treatment to the unseen figure of the Princess, not be broadcast.
"These photographs, regardless of the fact that they do not actually show the Princess's features, are redolent with the atmosphere and tragedy of the closing moments of her life.
"As such, they will cause the Princes acute distress if they are shown to a public audience, not just for themselves, but also on their mother's behalf, in the sense of intruding upon the privacy and dignity of her last minutes.
"As they said in their statement last year, '...we feel that, as her sons, we would be failing in our duty to her now if we did not protect her - as she once did us'."
In response, Channel 4 said it had weighed the Princes' concerns against the legitimate public interest of the documentary and will be broadcasting the images.
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