THE Princess of Wales put on a determined front yesterday, smiling and waving to the crowds as she launched a new AIDS appeal, while surveillance experts debated whether a video film supposedly depicting her cavorting with her former lover, Mr James Hewitt, was a fake.
Stills of the 80 second video film, which were published an yesterday's Sun and shown on several British news programmes, appeared to confirm Princess Diana's repeated claims that she was under surveillance, with her phone calls bugged and letters opened. The pictures, which were believed to be at least five years old, were allegedly filmed through a window at Prince Charles's home Highgrove.
However, late last night Mr Stuart Higgins, the editor of the Sun, was forced to admit the stills were fake and that the paper had been conned by "one of the most elaborate hoaxes of the decade".
If only Mr Higgins had listened to the advice of Colour Sgt Glyn Jones, a former Royal Marine who claims he was asked to monitor and film Princess Diana's movements when she visited Mr Hewitt in Devon in 1988. He emphatically denied filming any of the Sin's video footage and suggested that it had been doctored.
"I definitely did not take these new pictures and in my view they are garbage. I have seen the video because I was flown to America to try to authenticate it when it was offered to a TV station, and on my advice they did not buy it.
"It has been made to be of poor quality on purpose. The time and date groups have been superimposed afterwards. If it had been genuine it would have been in colour. They may have been copied from something genuine and altered, but I do not believe they were shot at Highgrove. I do not believe the man in the shots is James Hewitt, but I will not comment on whether the woman is Diana," he said.
Mr Hewitt initially told the Sun he had heard rumours that an old film depicting Princess Diana and him in a compromising situation was being circulated while she was in the middle of her divorce negotiations with Prince Charles. But he is now taking legal advice over the hoax.
"I heard about some tapes and some film of us together and one theory was that the princess's settlement was only half of what she wanted because of this sort of material," he said.
The Ministry of Defence has consistently denied that Princess Diana was ever under surveillance, but Colour Sgt Jones insisted her movements were initially monitored as part of a legitimate security operation.
"At the start we were only meant to be keeping an eye on the princess because there was a threat of terrorism, but when they realised what they [Princess Diana and Hewitt had been up to they started watching her," he said.
PA adds. Yesterday as she comforted AIDS sufferers on a visit to London Lighthouse, the princess cradled a baby in her arms, played with young children and shared in the sadness of their parents struggling to live with HIV and AIDS.