Martin Henry Bashir

The Prisoner will 

please rise : --

Martin Henry Bashir, 

You have pleaded Not Guilty to 

The Charges brought by This Court, and 

it is now My Duty to Pass Sentence. 

You are An Habitual Criminal, 

who accepts Arrest as an 

Occupational Hazard, 

and presumably accepts 

Imprisonment in the 

same casual manner. 

We therefore feel constrained to 

Commit You to The Maximum 

Term allowed for These Offences : 

You will Go to Prison for Ten Years.

And again, that that is one of 

the difficult questions that 

Davey today in 2025 

has to answer :

'What did you know? and 

When did you know it?

And if you did know that Bashir 

was A Liar, why didn't you say that 

to Charles Spencer?'

Um, and as I say, it 

will be very interesting to 

see how he handles that. 

I my childhood I remember sort of

Basher always being about you know

there's the MJ documentary and he was on

TV doing this and that was he night or

continued on Panorama, I don't even know

where but he was just always there and

then he just disappeared completely and

when I've seen him since all this news

came out he always looks very 

sort of frail -- is he unwell...? 

What's going on with him?

Well, 'unwell', um.... He currently lives 

in a -- I mean let's not say the

actual term for what with, but 

it's a very very pleasant little 

market town in Hampshire.

Uh he's I as I understand it, he's a

keen member of his um local church.

Um, Health -- who knows?

He had a walking stick or something,

didn't he? I swear I saw him 

with a walking stick.

The reason I sort of hesitate here, is

that there is evidence that Martin, if

he thinks that um -- it will, you know, be 

beneficial or somehow to his advantage 

that People Think he's maybe a little 

Iller than he is --

-- Harvey Weinstein.

-- Uh yeah, then then then then he might go

down that road. But um yeah, 

his health --

His Health became a a very very

important issue during the time

when this came out... this was this 

was coming out, and it became very 

important and again, there is a whole 

chapter on this in the book, because 

What The BBC did

was um and 

I believe they did it very, very --

for a very very clear reason but I

got to say to you, if you like it,

other versions of The Truth 

are available. 

The

the BBC will say, "Oh, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We we we

were forced into um you know what what

we had to do." Anyway, let's put it this

way. The BBC said, "Look,

we

would love to be able to put out more

information on this, but we can't

because Martin Basher is too ill.

He's too ill. We we we can't um

with what?

We can't discuss this with him because

because Martin's too Have they disclosed

what illness?

Well, no. In fact, it is Martin Mashia

did actually go in and have an elective

heart operation.

So, he he did have he did have heart

surgery. Um but the point is the BBC

said, "Look, oh, he you know, can't we

we just can't approach him, you know, we

can't approach him because he's so ill."

Now, I was able to get hold of um again

through good old Freedom of Information,

a whole raft of emails

that show that the BBC were actually in

virtually daily contact with Martin at

great level. Oh, they were daily

contact. I mean, they were discussing

the the scandal and and points of the

scandal and who did what and why and

when. At one point, there's one and it

is in the book. I think it is absolutely

priceless. It is an email

to Martin Basher who again the the

official line is that he's too ill. We

can't we can't contact him

unfortunately. And this is during um

important to say this is during

lockdown. So people aren't coming into

the office anyway. Everybody's at home.

So the BBC position is look terribly

sorry people you know just can't talk to

him because he's too ill. Anyway, this

email that is in the book shows that he

was actually the the point man with him

at the BBC. They're communicating

virtually every day. And the the the

subject under discussion in this email

is look Martin, we're just renewing our

press release on how we can't contact

you. And so there's a discussion and

what's sort of Alice in Wonderland about

this or through the looking glass about

this is the discussion was about how

they couldn't discuss it. That was that

was the advice they were getting from

Martin is what should we say? Look, we

said we can't contact you because you're

too ill. What? What? Oh yeah, we say

this. We say that. And I'm thinking,

hang on.

But but but

that is a discussion. Yeah. Orwellian.

It's double speak.

And what's what's more Orwellian if you

like is that that discussion was with a

chap called Richard Burgess who is a

senior um executive at the BBC. Richard

Burgess actually runs and again you

couldn't couldn't make this up. 

He actually runs the 

BBC unit called BBC Verify.

Oh, don't  —stop.

Which is the super squeaky 

clean Truth is Us.

Yeah, he runs this. 

He he runs BBC Verify and

he's the chap in my book who 

we see his emails, his daily emails 

with Martin Bashir who at that time 

in The BBC Official description 

is too ill to be

contacted. 

So

that's that's that's that's the s that

that's the BBC that

makes me so angry that BBC verify the

amount of stuff that they get wrong time

and time again that they we're going to

fact check this and they tell you their

version of and then they've doctor the

Trump footage or they've done what you

know that where was BBC verify then.

Well, sure. I mean, there's a lot of um

a lot of this story that I would, you

know, the sort of devil on my shoulder

says, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun if you

just put this to BBC Verify and said,

could you just check whether Martin

Bashier was ill because seems to be an

email here from your boss that

indicates he wasn't." BBC Verify, get on

to that. You know,

is there gonna have you got like a the

film, right? I mean, I can't remember

how it all works with um you get the the

rights to your book because that's that

should be a a dramatized film.

Well, well, I have been I got to say

been approached by several people to to

do exactly that to sort of turn this

into your

who'd play me.

Yeah.

I don't know. I mean it it's got to be

between you know there's Pierce Broman

and there's you know I mean

is that Scottish guy who was just on the

traitors Mark someone he could probably

do you

car No

joke um yeah Mark thingy but yeah who

knows but no I think it

yeah for sure I mean pe some people have

said to me it's a bit like um Mr. Bates

and the post office because there's me

because One thing we haven't even talked

about yet is the getting of these

Freedom of Information documents.

[Music]

Um, my my my latest latter freedom of

information request then resulted in a

three-year court battle

on which the BBC spent just in external

lawyers, fancy lawyers. They they hired

a KC, the top graded lawyer, etc., etc.

The BBC has spent more than a million

pounds of license fee money to

effectively like to stop this book being

written, you know, to stop the these

emails emerging.

So, I know why you work with Andrew

Looney then. The two of you are always,

you know, being told not to publish

this, don't publish that, and you still

do. I have so much respect for that. I

appreciate I mean, we all appreciate

that because this story wouldn't be

being told otherwise.

Bloody hell. Um, will is any is what

Bashier did then? I mean this is it's

fraud, right, isn't it? Could he go to

prison?

Well, it's it's a very very good

question. Uh and I talked to, you know,

specialists barristers specializing in

in forgery here. Fraud forgery. Yeah. I

mean forgery is a clearly defined

criminal offense. You do 10 years. You

can 10 years. Yeah. 10 years. There is

no time bar as well. So you if you did

your forgery back in 95 96 that that

that works. Um Yeah. I mean Yeah. Tell

me about it.