Media
Princes ask for Di crash photos to be scrapped
Published Tuesday, Jun 5 2007, 10:53 BST | By Joanne Oatts
Despite a request from Princes William and Harry, Channel 4 will go ahead with using photos of the crash that killed Princess Diana in a documentary this week.
The prince's private secretary, Major James Lowther-Pinkerton, has written to Hamish Mykura, the head of history, science and religion at Channel 4, saying they felt showing the photographs taken of the August 1997 car crash in Paris, would be a "gross disrespect" to their mother's memory.
The letter said: "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?"
"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," Lowther-Pinkerton added.
The matter relates to three colour pictures from inside the tunnel, taken by a passer-by, Mike Walker, which Channel 4 claim were used several TV documentaries and in press coverage of the accident. These include a BBC Panorama documentary in the week following the accident, another BBC documentary, Diana: The Conspiracy Files in December 2006, in The Sunday Times and in a recent Five documentary.
Channel 4 states that a photograph showing the ambulance has been commercially available from picture agencies since 1997 and was used in the Panorama report in 1997. Additionally, a picture of Dr Mailliez, a medic who attended to Princess Diana, is said to have been used in the same obscured form on the front page of The Sun in July 2006.
Though the letter was sent to the channel on Friday, Clarence House said the princes felt they needed to make their feelings public. A statement from the house said: "In publishing the letter, the princes reluctantly feel that they have been left no choice but to make it clear publicly that they believe the broadcast of these photographs to be wholly inappropriate, deeply distressing to them and to the relatives of the others who died that night, and a gross disrespect to their mother's memory."
The prince's private secretary, Major James Lowther-Pinkerton, has written to Hamish Mykura, the head of history, science and religion at Channel 4, saying they felt showing the photographs taken of the August 1997 car crash in Paris, would be a "gross disrespect" to their mother's memory.
The letter said: "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?"
"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," Lowther-Pinkerton added.
The matter relates to three colour pictures from inside the tunnel, taken by a passer-by, Mike Walker, which Channel 4 claim were used several TV documentaries and in press coverage of the accident. These include a BBC Panorama documentary in the week following the accident, another BBC documentary, Diana: The Conspiracy Files in December 2006, in The Sunday Times and in a recent Five documentary.
Channel 4 states that a photograph showing the ambulance has been commercially available from picture agencies since 1997 and was used in the Panorama report in 1997. Additionally, a picture of Dr Mailliez, a medic who attended to Princess Diana, is said to have been used in the same obscured form on the front page of The Sun in July 2006.
Though the letter was sent to the channel on Friday, Clarence House said the princes felt they needed to make their feelings public. A statement from the house said: "In publishing the letter, the princes reluctantly feel that they have been left no choice but to make it clear publicly that they believe the broadcast of these photographs to be wholly inappropriate, deeply distressing to them and to the relatives of the others who died that night, and a gross disrespect to their mother's memory."
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