Who is Matt Wiessler? Man who 'forged' docs for Martin Bashir says he 'played a hand' in Princess Diana's death
Princess Diana's 1995 Panorama interview -- a tell-all that caused turmoil inside the royal family and across the world -- has been found to have taken place under shady circumstances. An inquiry report found that dubious means were employed by former BBC journalist Martin Bashir to get access to the princess. Retired judge Lord Dyson, who led the inquiry, found that Bashir had breached BBC rules by making fake bank statements to gain access to the princess.
As per Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, Bashir allegedly showed him bank statement that showed two senior royal aides, Patrick Jephson, the princess’s private secretary, and Commander Richard Aylard, who held the same position in Prince Charles’s office, had a Channel Islands bank account in to which they had received money.
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By gaining access to Diana in this way, Bashir was allegedly able to persuade her to agree to give the interview. The report claimed that the BBC covered up what it had learnt about how Bashir secured the interview in 1996. Lord Dyson said this "fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark".
Who is Matt Wiessler and how is he linked to Martin Bashir?
Matt Wiessler is the graphic artist who was commissioned to create the fake bank statements for Bashir. The journalist asked Wiessler to create bank statements showing fake payments from a newspaper and from an offshore company going into a bank account of a firm owned by Earl Spencer’s former head of security.
Wiessler said, “I got a phone call from Martin Bashir and he wanted me to do a favour for him and it was really urgent and really important. Martin said that they really, really, really had to be done by the morning as he needed them at Heathrow Terminal Two. He said: ‘I need to show them to someone’. It’s almost like he was inventing it as he was going along.”
Wiessler also said he started to become suspicious because one of the names used on the documents had appeared in previous Panoramas. He said, “All I want is for the BBC to come forward and honestly make an apology because it has had a huge impact."
As per reports, he feels he "played a hand" in events that lead to Princess Diana's death. Wiessler, who worked on a freelance basis for the BBC, was sacked following his role in the forgeries.
He said, "When the whole story did play out and Diana unfortunately lost her life, I felt that I could trace it back to the interview Martin had done with her. And because I had played a hand in that interview, if you have a part of something that lasts out badly -- then it does sit in your mind."
Wiessler claimed that he was never told what the bogus bank documents were being used for. He said, “I copied documents Martin said existed. He couldn’t show them to me on the night. That responsibility is his. That should all be put to him.” He added that the incident "changed my life a lot" and led to him being called a "forger." He said, "Forgers are criminals. The impact is that everybody you know, it’s sort of somewhere in their mind."