Martin Bashir used a ‘forged’ Government document to try to secure an interview with Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who shot dead a teenage burglar, it was claimed last night.
It is the latest accusation against the reporter who is alleged to have fed Diana a string of preposterous lies to obtain a world exclusive interview.
Mr Martin, now 75, was jailed for life in 2000 after he killed Fred Barras, 16, and wounded his accomplice Brendan Fearon, then 29.
The case gripped Britain and sparked a national debate over homeowners’ rights.
Tony Martin (left) during his first television interview, with Martin Bashir (right) in 2003 for ITV
Now Mr Martin’s solicitor Nick Makin has revealed the methods he claims Mr Bashir used before securing an interview with his client. According to the lawyer, Mr Bashir told him Government figures wanted to block an appeal against the farmer’s murder conviction.
Mr Bashir tried to prove the conspiracy by producing what he claimed was a secret memo between Government departments, which outlined a plan to ‘interfere with the judiciary’ and keep Mr Martin behind bars.
Mr Makin last night told how he believed at the time that the heavily redacted document was a forgery.
He said he thought Mr Bashir was trying to gain his confidence to get an interview with Mr Martin in prison.
Diana, Princess of Wales, during her interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC, November 1995
The claim has a striking similarity to the way Mr Bashir showed forged bank statements to Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer so he could be introduced to her.
Earl Spencer said Mr Bashir peddled 32 lies about royals and courtiers supposedly betraying Diana to newspapers and MI5, to draw the princess into his confidence.
Mr Bashir was making special documentaries and features for ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald when Mr Martin was jailed.
Mr Makin told the Mail: ‘Bashir telephoned me unsolicited and asked me if I was aware that there was Government interference in the case and that the Government was trying to persuade the judiciary not to allow the appeal.
‘I told him that I neither understood what he was saying and frankly didn’t believe it. I questioned him about it, but he was very insistent.
‘He then asked if we could have lunch in London so he could show me something.’
Mr Makin, who is based in Leicestershire, said he agreed to meet Mr Bashir at the Quality Chop House restaurant in Farringdon, close to the ITV studios, when he was in London on business.
He said: ‘Over lunch he told me that he wanted to have an interview with Tony Martin.
‘He claimed that he was trusted by high up people in the Government as a result of his Diana interview, and tried to assure me that the Government wanted to interfere with the judiciary.
‘I thought it was bizarre and I could not see what his reliance on his Diana interview had to do with Tony Martin.
‘He produced a document which purported to be an interdepartmental Government document or memo containing words to the effect that the Government wanted to make an example of Tony Martin and keep him in jail.
‘The names on it were not names that I instantly recognised and the wording of it was not what you would expect. I took a look at the bit of paper and I frankly didn’t believe it, and he ended up taking it away. I thought the whole thing was incredible. I felt it was a lie and I perceived it as a lie…
‘He was basically trying to steal a leap on the other press and TV who were also trying to speak to Tony Martin. I thought Bashir was a nasty piece of work.’
Mr Makin, who stopped representing Mr Martin before his appeal, said he ‘was not at all surprised’ about the forgeries shown to Earl Spencer.
Mr Bashir ended up interviewing the farmer via a prison phone call that was broadcast on ITV. Mr Martin’s murder conviction was overturned in 2001 and reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was freed from jail in 2003 and then had a face-to-face interview with Mr Bashir for ITV.
The farmer told the Daily Mail: ‘He seemed slightly bewildered that I didn’t recognise him at first.
‘When he interviewed me, he was like a cobra trying to mesmerise me… He tried to put words into my mouth.’
The BBC has appointed Lord Dyson, a former Master of the Rolls and Justice of the Supreme Court, to investigate the Princess Diana scandal.
Mr Bashir, now the BBC’s religion editor, is on sick leave due to Covid complications and a heart operation.
His agent did not respond to a request for comment.