New tapes reveal how Diana fell in love with police bodyguard

Princess Diana is said to have fallen in love with her police bodyguard, Sergeant Barry Mannakee. Photo / Getty Images

By Richard Kay and Geoffrey Levy

For a young woman whose troubled life had become the focus of the world, the lure must have been irresistible. "I want to bring a camera," actor Peter Settelen told Princess Diana as he gave her voice-coaching sessions. "I want you to see you and we will do your story. You can tell me your story, then you can watch."

The video exercise would, he explained, "show you who you are".

No doubt the charming Settelen, who trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, meant what he said. And in shooting a total of 16 videos of his pupil at Kensington Palace, the former Coronation Street actor undoubtedly achieved what Diana was after - more confidence and authority in her public speaking on issues such as Aids and eating disorders.

These were private £50 lessons at her London home, and the tapes are understood to have been kept under lock and key by Diana. But after her death, the tapes, containing five hours of footage, were discovered in the possession of her former butler, Paul Burrell.

Understandably, Settelen was concerned. He embarked on a legal battle over the material and won ownership of the tapes in September 2003.

Yet a few months later, most unchivalrously, he did a deal for an undisclosed sum of money for them to be shown on the American TV network, NBC.

Although NBC was universally condemned for the purchase, it broadcast the tapes in 2004. Critics described the programme as a "ghoulish striptease" and said those involved were no better than "grave robbers".

Now, 13 years on, Settelen has done another deal, this time with Channel 4, for the tapes to be seen for the first time in Britain. The programme, Diana: In Her Own Words, will be broadcast on Sunday, August 6, at 8pm.

Watching the Princess, many viewers are bound to wonder what the subject material had to do with voice coaching.

They will see a vulnerable Diana in January 1993, just a month after her separation from the Prince of Wales, talking openly about some of the most intimate aspects of her life: her relationship with Prince Charles (in particular the scarcity of lovemaking with him), his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, and her police bodyguard Sergeant Barry Mannakee, with whom she admits she fell "deeply in love".

She tells Settelen that after the birth of Prince Harry her sex life with Charles had deteriorated: "There was never a requirement for it from him - once every three weeks, about - and I kept thinking it followed a pattern. He used to see his lady [Camilla] once every three weeks before we got married."

Diana says she saw Mannakee, left, as a 'father figure'. Photo / Getty Images

Describing her thoughts as the marriage moved to crisis point, Diana told her voice coach: "If I could write my own script I would have my husband go away with his woman and never come back."

Of course, it must be stressed that these tapes were never intended to be made public. But her mention of Sgt Mannakee is most telling.

The policeman is one of the most intriguing figures in Diana's life. A burly, 6ft tall East End 'Jack the lad' whose father was a Ford car worker at Dagenham, Mannakee was 37 when he was posted to work as a personal protection officer at Kensington Palace in 1985, a year after the birth of Prince Harry, when the royal marriage was already in difficulty.

Diana doesn't name Mannakee on the tape but refers to him as "somebody who worked in this environment", telling Settelen: "He was the greatest fellow I have ever had. I was always waiting around trying to see him. Um, I just, you know, wore my heart on my sleeve. I was only happy when he was around."

Asked by Settelen if he provided "the intimacy you weren't getting", she replies: "Yeah."

The Princess adds: "I was quite happy to give it all up (her royal life), just to go off and live with him. Can you believe it?"

Laughing at the memory, she goes on: "And he kept saying he thought it was a good idea, too."

But Diana also says she saw Mannakee as a "father figure". She explains: "I was like a little girl in front of him the whole time. Desperate for praise. Desperate."

As for Mannakee, who was married with two children, he had an easy familiarity with the Princess that irritated other police bodyguards. Soon this evolved into a closeness that made his colleagues feel "quite uncomfortable".

"We could see she liked him," says a former colleague. "It was 'Barry this' and 'Barry that'. But we never dreamt there was anything between them because Barry was a blabbermouth about such things. We assumed he'd have boasted about it. But he didn't."

At a time of mounting turmoil for the Princess, Mannakee was a good listener who became an unexpected confidant, especially on their 90-minute drives taking William and Harry to Highgrove in Gloucestershire for the weekend. The pair referred to them as their 'M4 chats'.

He would also often accompany her when she took William from Kensington Palace to his nursery school in Notting Hill.

Mannakee's relationship with the Princess also infuriated palace domestic staff. "Diana was forever asking his opinion of just about everything and they saw this as Mannakee encroaching on their territory," says one close figure.

Settelen also tape-recorded Diana saying, shockingly: 'I think he [Mannakee] was bumped off'. Photo / Getty Images

Brazenly confident, Mannakee flirted with Diana in front of servants. Once, when she had dressed for a dinner engagement in a tight mini-skirt, she playfully wiggled her bottom at him. "Do I look all right?" she asked him.

Apparently, Mannakee replied: "Sensational, as you know you do." Then he added: "I could quite fancy you myself." Diana giggled and retorted: "But you already do, don't you?"

Yet could Diana have been merely indulging in a fantasy about an affair with the entertaining police officer?

On the tape, as Channel 4 viewers will see, she denies having a full affair with him. Asked by Settelen if there was a sexual relationship between them, her reply is "No".

In later years, when emboldened to discuss her relationships with men more freely, although she spoke about James Hewitt, her Household Cavalry officer lover, Mannakee's name as a lover never passed her lips.

In 1986, after Mannakee had worked for the Princess for a year, he was called before his superiors and challenged about being 'over-familiar' with her. They decided he should be put back in uniform and transferred from royal to diplomatic protection. A year later he was killed in a road crash, as a pillion passenger on a Suzuki motorcycle that collided with a car driven by a girl of 17.

It was Prince Charles who broke the news of his death to Diana, as they were travelling to the 1987 Cannes Film Festival on an official engagement.

The Princess is said to have wept uncontrollably and torn at her clothes in the car en route to RAF Northolt for their flight to the South of France. She suggested the Prince was cruel in breaking the news to her at that time.

"Charles just jumped it on me like that," she said, "and I wasn't able to do anything". Within minutes she had to put on her public face. "I just sat there all day going through this huge high-profile visit to Cannes," she later recalled. "Thousands of press. Just devastated. Just devastated."

Reflecting on the matter to Settelen six years later, she said: "I should never have played with fire, but I did, and I got burned."

He tape-recorded her saying, shockingly: "I think he was bumped off." Of course, there have been conspiracy theories that the car crash in Paris which led to Diana's own death was staged deliberately because she was with the 'unsuitable' Dodi Fayed.

But the allegation that Mannakee's death was anything other than an accident has never been taken seriously. After these remarks were first broadcast in 2004, Scotland Yard considered re-opening the investigation into the policeman's death.

Claims had surfaced over the years that Mannakee had been deliberately killed by intelligence officers, presumably because of fears of a scandal. But they were never substantiated and the Yard inquiry went nowhere.

For her part, Diana continued to be haunted by the relationship. "I used to have really disturbing dreams about him," she said in the tapes used by NBC.

Diana told actor Peter Settelen that her sex life with Prince Charles deteriorated after the birth of Prince Harry. Photo / Getty Images

"He was really unhappy, wherever he's gone to. And I went and found out where he was buried. I went to put some flowers on his grave."

According to Diana, that was when she realised he had been cremated. "He was just chucked over the ground," she recalled.

"That absolutely appalled me, but there we were. I wasn't in any position to do anything about it. The day I did that (left flowers), the dreams stopped. It's strange, isn't it?"

In an attempt to quash the conspiracy theories, Joy Chopp, the mother of the 17-year-old novice driver whose car collided with Mannakee, has said "it was just an accident".

Princess Diana also relates on tape the story of her first meeting with Charles.

He "followed me around like a puppy", she says, and made a fumbling attempt to kiss her, which she repelled.

"He was all over me like a rash. He'd ring me up every day for a week, and then he wouldn't speak to me for three weeks. Very odd. And the thrill when he used to ring up was so immense and intense."

Diana also recalls how she confronted Charles over Camilla.

"I remember saying to my husband: 'Why, why is this lady around?' and he said: 'Well, I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.'"

Diana had been introduced to Peter Settelen by her fitness instructor Carolan Brown, who had worked with him on exercise videos. He had played the Duke of Windsor in an ITV comedy series, a prince in an episode of Jackanory Playhouse and a commando in the World War II epic A Bridge Too Far.

When he encountered Diana, she was a princess suffering from low self-esteem, full of ideas about her public responsibilities but with little idea how to marshal them.

On one occasion, when Settelen accompanied her to make a speech, he used a bizarre technique, telling her to see herself as a prostitute whose life had hit rock bottom but who had turned things around. Afterwards, Settelen has recalled, as her car arrived she "opened the door, kicked her leg out and said: 'Not bad for a hooker, eh?'"

Having clients talk freely about themselves was part of Settelen's technique. He explained that it was a key to injecting passion into the spoken word.

He taught Diana how to breathe properly and appear more conversational in her delivery. His unorthodox approach also included placing marbles in clients' mouths as he massaged their shoulders, though he didn't do this to Diana.

All the same, he is credited with giving her a new assertiveness. Certainly, some weeks after these sessions began, Diana surprised an audience she was addressing on issues such as Aids with dramatic language and flourishes as she talked of the 'aching loneliness and rejection' of sufferers.

But from the very beginning of his coaching, there was unease about him filming Princess Diana and encouraging her to open up about her life.

For hour after hour, over the weeks, she sat on her pink drawing room sofa facing Settelen and his camera mounted on a tripod.

One senior palace figure became very concerned about Diana being videoed and recalls asking her where the tapes were.

"She told me: 'Oh, Peter's got them,' he says. 'And I said: 'What! You must get them back. They could be his pension.'"

The tapes revealed a vulnerable Diana in January 1993, just a month after her separation from the Prince of Wales. Photo / Getty Images

But such confessionals were not new to Diana. She had secretly talked to writer Andrew Morton, who first revealed the problems in her marriage. Later there was her raw, confessional BBC Panorama interview.

Today, living in a modest semi in Twickenham, South-West London, Settelen, 65, is a director of Chakra Productions Ltd, which provides 'support activities to performing arts'. His wife Sarah resigned as a director in 2014.

Mrs Settelen is director of a charity called The Promise, helping children with special needs in Russia, which was set up following the death of their 'profoundly disabled' daughter Ellie in 2000.

Over the years, Settelen has continued to offer 'motivational mentoring', public speaking training and 'crisis communications' advice.

He has one recent acting credit, in a short 2015 European crime film called Schwarzwald.

His website lists previous corporate clients including the Metropolitan Police, the Labour Party as well as journalists from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Describing what he does, it says: "Peter's work originally came to public attention through the help he gave to Diana, Princess of Wales.

"During the most difficult period in her all-too-short life, he helped her to move from 'Shy Di' to become a confident and passionate public speaker, able to express what she really wanted and needed to say.

"As her adviser, speech coach and speechwriter, he worked with her on subjects ranging from Aids to eating disorders through to women's mental health."

Undaunted by the controversy about the planned broadcast on Channel 4, Settelen's lawyer, Marcus Rutherford, said last night: "His view has always been that the tapes were as much private to him as they were to Diana. Had she still been with us, I have no doubt they would have remained private as long as both Peter and Diana wanted it.

"It took a lot of persuading for Peter to accept that the time had come to let people in the UK look at the material itself and form their own views."

For its part, Channel 4 says: "This unique portrait of Diana gives her a voice and places it front and centre at a time when the nation will be reflecting on her life and death." True, it was hardly becoming of the Princess to talk so liberally about her sex life. But even so, how many people will excuse Peter Settelen - and Channel 4 - for airing these private thoughts so publicly?

Additional reporting: Emily Kent Smith