What was revealed in the Diana Tapes, why did Channel 4 show them and when were they recorded by Peter Settelen?
INTIMATE video recordings of Princess Diana talking about her troubled marriage have been shown for the first time on British TV.
Friends of the late royal begged Channel 4 not to broadcast the "tawdry" tapes made by voice coach Peter Settelen. Here's all you need to know about them.
What are the Princess Diana tapes?
Princess Diana hired former Corrie actor Peter Settelen as a voice coach as she wanted to appear more confident when speaking in public.
The £50-an-hour sessions also helped her prepare for the famous 1995 Panorama interview when she revealed she knew of Prince Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles saying "there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded".
Diana let Settelen set up a video camera as she poured her heart out, revealing intimate details about her love life and marriage.
The footage - 50 hours filmed over 18 months in 1992 and 1993 - was never meant to be shown in public but courtiers warned her Settelen might sell it for his "pension".
Seven of a total of 12 tapes were found by cops in a 2001 raid on the home of Diana’s butler Paul Burrell.
Settelen launched legal action to have them returned to him and then sold them to US network NBC, which broadcast some of the material in 2004.
At the time Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor asked broadcasters not to use the tapes in Prince William or Harry's lifetimes.
In 2007 the BBC paid £30,000 to use excerpts in a documentary, but it was shelved amid controversy.
The other five tapes are said to be missing.
Kevin Sim, who produced the stalled BBC documentary and is also behind the new Channel 4 programme, said: “I believe we’ve got seven tapes.
"There are more but who knows where they are and what is on them.”
What did the Diana tapes reveal?
In the tapes, Diana admits she and Charles did not have sex for seven years before their split.
She also claims Prince Philip had encouraged Charles to cheat on her, telling him he could always go back to Camilla.
And she recounts how she once went sobbing to the Queen for help saving her marriage.
She says the monarch replied: “I don’t know what you should do. Charles is hopeless.”
In another section Diana reveals how she "got burned" after she fell "deeply in love" with a bodyguard - believed to mean cop Barry Mannakee, who was was sacked amid rumours they slept together and was killed in a motorbike crash weeks later.
And she says she was driven to bulimia because she did not feel she was good enough for the Royal Family.
Some of the footage shows genuine voice coaching exercises.
A young Prince William is heard walking into one recording session.
Why did Channel 4 show the Diana tapes now and why is it controversial?
The candid footage is revealed for the first time on British television next Sunday in the Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own words.
It will be shown around three weeks before the nation marks the 20th anniversary of her death in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997.
Diana's friends blasted the show as "intrusive" and said it will hurt Diana's sons Prince William and Prince Harry, while Diana's brother Charles Spencer also pleaded with Channel 4 to axe the programme.
Dickie Arbiter, former spokesman for The Queen, said: “The tapes were private. It doesn’t matter if the princess is alive or dead, private should mean private.
“Selling tapes like this is grubby blood money and tawdry.”
Ralph Lee, deputy chief creative officer at Channel 4, defended the decision to broadcast it saying the tapes were historically important.
He said: “The word that’s been used is that the footage is somehow ghoulish. I don’t think anyone can watch the footage and actually think this footage is ghoulish.
“I think she is self-consciously and clearly taking part in a film process and I don’t think viewers will feel greatly uneasy with that.
“For British viewers to be able to see a candid, relaxed, informal Diana talking about her life and revealing her personal perspective on events that are now familiar to us is remarkable.
“Given that the only filmed interview that we’ve ever seen with her is the Martin Bashir Panorama interview this is a really unique historical archive.
“I think a lot of viewers will feel for the first time that they are really seeing a natural, relaxed and personal Diana.
“I felt I was being given an opportunity for the first time to get to know her.”
This week William and Harry spoke at great length about memories of their mother in the ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy.
It was also said that the revelations in the documentary could spell disaster for Prince Charles' hopes of making Camilla Queen.
Experts said the broadcast had scuppered Clarence House's long running PR campaign to win support for the Duchess of Cornwall.
Ingrid Seward editor of Majesty magazine said: “This is a blow. I shouldn’t think anyone at Clarence House dared watch it.
“They would have hated it because it just rakes up all the muck again.”
Who is Peter Settelen?
Actor Peter Settelen had appeared in Flambards, Pride and Prejudice and A Bridge Too Far in the 1970s and 1980s.
He was also in three episodes of Coronation Street and devised the show Through The Keyhole.
In the early 1990s he was hired as a voice coach to Princess Diana as the shy royal increasingly appeared independently of Prince Charles.
He sold tapes of their sessions to NBC in 2004 for a rumoured £500,000.
Documentary producer Charles Furneaux said Settlelen was “not particularly forthcoming” about the missing tapes.
He added: “He’s reluctant to become part of the story. It was hard work trying to persuade him.”
Settelen, 65, who is estranged from wife Sarah, now lives in a £750,000 house in Twickenham, South West London.
His spokesman said: “There has been a great deal of interest in the tapes and a valid debate as to whether or not it was appropriate to allow them to be broadcast 20 years after her death.
“But it is very clear Diana wanted the world to know about the causes of the problems in her marriage.
“Peter was not her priest, doctor, therapist or lawyer.
"Diana was not disclosing bed-pillow confidences and the tapes were not secretly recorded.
“The issues which her concerns raised at the time, are as valid today as they were over 20 years ago, no matter how inconvenient or embarrassing it may be for the Royal Family or the establishment to have to deal with them.”
