C4 to screen dying Diana pictures

A documentary featuring photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales as she lies fatally injured following a car crash will be broadcast by Channel 4 on Wednesday despite pleas from Prince William and Prince Harry.

The royal brothers said plans to screen the images had left them “deeply distressed” but the broadcaster has remained determined to use the controversial pictures.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the Princes’ private secretary, said the brothers were attempting to “protect their mother’s memory” and repeated their calls to Channel 4 not to feature the photographs.

In a television interview he said: “It is their mother’s last moments on earth and it’s an invasion of her privacy. They are chipping away what little dignity there is in death.”

The private secretary, who earlier wrote to Channel 4 appealing on behalf of the Princes, added: “We are not objecting to the documentary, we are objecting just to these photographs.

“The photographs tell a story, the story could be equally well told by talking heads, the doctor (who treated Diana) himself describes the scene very, very vividly.

“There’s no need to distress these two young men in a way that these pictures will…”

The images due to be screened include one of Diana receiving oxygen from a French doctor as she lies dying in 1997, but her face is obscured.

Other pictures include the wrecked Mercedes and a view through the back of an ambulance in which the Princess was treated.

Julian Bellamy, head of Channel 4, said: “We have weighed the Princes’ concerns against the legitimate public interest we believe there is in the subject of this documentary and in the still photography it includes.”.

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