Who is Richard Aylard? Martin Bashir told Princess Diana that Prince Charles' aide paid by security services
In a damning report for the 99-year-stalwart reputation of the BBC, retired judge Lord Dyson found the organization culpable for covering up for Martin Bashir's fake bank statements. The statements were instrumental in scoring him the sensational 1995 interview with Princess Diana.
The interview saw Diana accuse Charles of openly cheating on her, and talk about being mistreated by the royal family. Earl Spencer has connected this BBC Panorama interview to not only her subsequent divorce, being stripping of the HRH title, but also, her tragic death.
Amidst the finer details that are emerging, came the revelation that Earl Spencer, Diana's brother, kept meticulous and detailed notes from the time Bashir met him and Diana to secure the interview. These notes proved the accusations against the 'rogue reporter'.
The scoop, that ultimately spurred the BBC to formally invite Lord Dyson to re-investigate the case in 2020, was Spencer's allegations that Bashir lied to him and Diana about senior royal aides assigned to her and Prince Charles receiving money from security services.
This stirred her paranoia that the royals were having her watched, secretly. One of the names Bashir cited in his forged bank statements to convince Diana was that of Richard Aylard, who was Prince Charles's head of private security.
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Who is Richard Aylard?
Commander Richard J Aylard, CVO is a designated member of the royal security. At nearly 70 years of age, his illustrious career has seen him as a British Royal Navy officer and as Prince Charles's head of private security for six years from 1991 to 1996.
For the next six years, from 1996 to 2002, Aylard worked as a consultant on environmental issues and public affairs at Burson-Marsteller. The year 2002 saw him move on to Thames Water as Corporate Responsibility Director, and soon he became their External Affairs and Sustainability Director. He is now a Director and Special Advisor to the Chief Executive of Thames Water. He is also a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, and an Ambassador for WWF-UK, and an Associate of Forum for the Future.
Aylard's name was mentioned in some of the most sensational of headlines last year in 2020 when Princess Diana's brother Charles Spencer had exposed Bashir's fraudulent claims regarding the fake bank statements. These documents would eventually be revealed to be forged statements, courtesy of then-BBC graphic designer Matthew Weissler. They showed Aylard getting payments from the royal security services.
Bashir showed both Earl Spencer and Princess Diana bank statements to 'prove' that private security members, Jephson and Aylard, had Channel Islands bank account in which they had received money from security services.
Was Aylard paid to spy on Diana?
“The awkwardness of how he was holding it stuck in my mind,” Earl Spencer told Daily Mail at the time, about why he felt suspicious of Bashir. Diana’s brother also said Bashir made more astonishing claims, including that the then 15-year-old Prince William had been given a watch with a listening device so his mother could be secretly recorded, and how Prince Edward was being treated for AIDS.
Bashir had initially argued about the allegations made by Spencer, who referred to his detailed documentation of every lie the reporter had fed them to secure the bombshell interview. In 'Point three' in Spencer's Althorp Papers (a moniker for the file of proof he maintained), Diana's brother says Bashir told them Mi6 had recorded Charles and Aylard talking about an alleged 'end game', and also that Diana had "told Aylard what she thought of him."
The Daily Mail reports that Bashir refuted this point asking "Why would I be telling the Princess of Wales what she had told Mr Aylard herself?" Aylard is yet to publicly reveal what he remembers of the events from 25 years ago.
Although Prince Charles' court has been described as a 'very medieval environment [full of] jealousies and intrigues and backstabbing and plots' by his former staff Mark Bolland, Aylard was one of the loyal ones writes Daily Mail. In 2017, for instance, a report stated that the then-senior aide stood by the Prince's side when he admitted his adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles in Richard Dimbleby’s biography and TV documentary.