Diana was bugged by security services, says detective

The Sunday Times in London published new revelations on 25th August 2002, saying the British security services bugged the mobile phone conversations of The Princess of Wales and then rebroadcast the tapes until they were picked up by amateurs.

Princess Diana’s former police bodyguard has alleged that the intelligence agencies routinely taped her telephone conversations at the time of her infamous Squidgygate call to James Gilbey. Inspector Ken Wharfe, who was her senior police protection officer at the time, suspects that security personnel were responsible for recording and rebroadcasting the embarrassing conversation so that amateur radio hams could pick it up.

He is the first authoritative insider to provide support for Diana’s belief that, as he puts it, "the Establishment was out to destroy her".

Wharfe’s revelations are disclosed in his book Diana: Closely Guarded Secret and written together with Robert Jobson in which he describes his six years as Diana’s bodyguard. Wharfe's book is reported to have made William and Harry "incandescent" with rage.

Wharfe writes that a secret inquiry by the internal security services identified all those involved behind the scandal. He knows who made the original recordings but says he cannot say more for because that would "breach the Official Secrets Act".

Squidgygate arose from an intimate conversation on 31st December 1989 between Diana and James Gilbey when Diana was at Sandringham with the royal family.

Gilbey called her "darling", "honey" and "Squidgy" and spoke of looking forward to wrapping his "warm, protective arms around you in a couple of days