Investigations which followed the death of Princess Diana are being explored in a new TV series. Channel 4's 'Investigating Diana: Death In Paris' will recount the two inquiries into the tragedy – the first by the French Brigade Criminelle in 1997, the second by the Metropolitan Police in 2004.
A co-production between Channel 4 and Discovery Plus, it will feature interviews with detectives from both forces, some of them speaking publicly for the first time. The story will also explore “how powerful individuals, the press and the internet created and fuelled conspiracy theories that overwhelmed facts and called into question the very nature of truth”.
Princess Diana was just 36 when she was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. The series, which starts on August 21 on Channel 4 and All 4, examines the subsequent public demand for answers.
It will also look at the ongoing conspiracy theories. And specificially online chatrooms, where speculation on the ‘real cause’ of Diana’s death became one of the first viral sensations of the early internet.
Henry Singer, executive producer for Sandpaper Films, said: “This was a really important series to make — not only because we hope it will lay to rest the conspiracy theories that continue to obscure the truth of what happened in the Alma tunnel that night — but because the story is a window into the world today, where conspiracy theories no longer reside in the dark corners of the internet but have gone mainstream and are actually pushed by people in positions of real power.”
Shaminder Nahal, head of specialist factual and commissioning editor at Channel 4, said: “This utterly compelling series explores in forensic detail what happened in the investigations following the death of Princess Diana - what it was like for the detectives working on a huge global news story that was not just a tragedy for the families involved, but a massive internet phenomenon too. In the end the series asks profound questions about ourselves as a society, and the nature of truth.”
Another documentary charting Diana’s life, The Princess, will also air this month after attracting controversy for including footage from her 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. The Duke of Cambridge has previously called for the footage of his mother never to be shown again and the BBC has vowed not to broadcast or license it.
