Channel 4 to go ahead with Diana film

The sons of Princess Diana pleaded today with Channel 4 not to broadcast graphic photos in a documentary about their mother's…

The sons of Princess Diana pleaded today with Channel 4 not to broadcast graphic photos in a documentary about their mother's death 10 years ago.

The channel said it had considered the princes' concerns against the legitimate public interest of the documentary about the Paris car crash but will be broadcasting the images in Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunneltomorrow.

Princes William and Harry said the photos were "a gross disrespect to their mother's memory".

"It was not our intention in commissioning this programme to cause them distress, and we do not believe the film is in any way disrespectful to the memory of Princess Diana," Channel 4 said. "No images of the victims of the crash are shown in this film."

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In a letter written by their private secretary, the princes asked Channel 4 to remove several images depicting the crashed car while Diana was still in the wreckage and pictures of a medic administering emergency treatment.

A senior royal aide said the princes "believe the broadcast of these photographs to be wholly inappropriate, deeply distressing to them and to the relatives of the others who died that night".

Diana died with her companion, Dodi al Fayed, when the car driven by their chauffeur, Henri Paul, crashed in a Paris road tunnel while being chased by paparazzi on motorbikes. Mr Paul was also killed.

Last year, the princes criticised the Milan-based magazine Chiafter it published a photo that showed Diana slumped in the Mercedes after the high-speed crash.