UK TV Channel Defiant Over Diana Crash Pics
By Raza Mumtaz 'Pakistan Times' Executive Editor/UK Bureau Chief

LONDON (UK): UK's private television Channel-4 has insisted that it will show controversial images of the crash that killed Princess Diana despite her sons asking the broadcaster not to.

A senior aide to Princes William and Harry wrote to the company, saying the royals believe airing the graphic images would be a gross disrespect to their mother's memory.

A documentary called Diana: The Witnesses In The Tunnel, due to be shown on Wednesday night, includes a picture of the Princess receiving oxygen from a French doctor in Paris.

The letter was written by the Princes' private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton.

It asked Channel-4 to remove several images depicting the crashed car while the Princess was still in the wreckage, and an image of a medic giving emergency treatment to Diana.

Clarence House said William and Harry felt that they had been left no choice but to make public their feelings about the photos.

The channel said it had weighed the Princes' concerns against the legitimate public interest of the documentary and will be broadcasting the images.

Company chief, Julian Bellamy, stressed it was not their intention to cause the brothers distress, and no images of the victims of the crash are shown in the film.

But former royal spokesman Dickie Arbiter accused the broadcaster of "basking in publicity" and said "they don't care about anybody other than their documentaries".

The Conservatives have already called for Channel-4 to pull the plug on the documentary but the Liberal Democrats are backing the broadcaster and say the images should be shown because of the public interest.

The documentary features new interviews with photographers and other witnesses to the crash.

Yet, the shadow culture secretary Hugo Swire has urged Channel-4 to reconsider its decision to air the programme.

He said it was especially important for the channel to show good taste after its editorial policy came under scrutiny last week when television regulator Ofcom ordered it to apologise publicly for mishandling the Celebrity Big Brother race row.

Diana, 36 and her lover Dodi Fayed, 42, were killed when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31 in 1997.●