The fake bank statements

[miniming]

The fake bank statements



To help prepare the "information", Bashir made an urgent call to a former colleague, Matt Wiessler, begging him to drop everything for a job that couldn't wait. The graphic designer doesn't recall the exact date except that it was at the junction of August and September. Wiessler's business partner at the time told me that Bashir called him first and remembers it being around the time of the Notting Hill Carnival, which in 1995 ended on 28 August. He says that because Bashir wanted a rushed overnight job, he couldn't do it and suggested he call Wiessler instead.

Both Wiessler and his business partner are also clear that the call came after hours. Since Spencer's diary shows he had his first meeting with Bashir on the evening of the 29th, the evidence points to Bashir having called Wiessler soon after his drink with Spencer.

Wiessler says Bashir came to his flat and dictated from his notebook details of what he said were two of Alan Waller's bank statements, which he claimed to have seen - £4,000 from News International on 8 March 1994, and £6,500 from a Jersey-based company called "Penfolds Consultants" on 4 June. Bashir didn't mention the story he was working on was about Princess Diana, only that it "could lead to something big" in relation to "surveillance by MI5 or MI6".

The designer assumed that Bashir had actually seen Waller's original bank statements. He told Bashir the job of recreating them would take all night. Wiessler says that since Bashir was due to fly somewhere the following morning, he instructed him to courier the graphics to him at Heathrow at 07:00. Presumably Bashir wanted them ready for his trip to Althorp first thing on the 31st.

Spencer's note of that meeting shows that Bashir mentioned "payments" to Waller, which he said were regular: "8/3/94 £4K News International £4K quarterly" and "4/6/94 £6.5K Penfolds, 4 payments". "Penfolds Consultants", said Bashir, was a Jersey-based front company for the intelligence services.

What had really hooked Spencer, however, was another false claim by Bashir - that the private secretary of Prince Charles, Commander Richard Aylard, was conspiring against Diana. Spencer's notes show Bashir having claimed that Aylard had been handed secretly recorded conversations and, in an apparent reference to the possibility of divorce, told journalist Jonathan Dimbleby: "We are in the end game. Shit or bust."

Spencer says this knocked him sideways so he called Panorama editor Steve Hewlett. Although Spencer didn't list Bashir's claims to Hewlett, he did ask him if he could be trusted. Hewlett, according to Spencer, assured him that Bashir was "one of my best".

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