Which tapes are these? Are these new ones that have never been heard? I have been reading this thread but I still cannot figure it out.
The tapes referenced in the thread title are not the Settelen tapes which were made in 1992-1993, but they are not new tapes either given that this thread was started in 2014.
The article that I posted was from the Daily Mail but then they are sourcing another tabloid The Sun. What is not clear to me is did The Sun publish this story simply to capitalize on the attention being generated by the Settelen tapes and the 20th anniversary of Diana's death, or are they revealing information that while available outside of Britain since 2014 was not partially or fully available to the British public. ETA: Actually the article was published by Canada Free Press in 2006, I wrongly assumed that since the thread was created in 2014 that was when the story about the 1997 tapes broke.
Here is
a link to the article published in the first post of this thread and some excerpts (less than 20% of the full article):
Diana's secret tapes
By Gordon Thomas
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
[snip]
the cameraman revealed he had kept a diary of that momentous month in March 1997, when he secretly filmed Diana.
[snip]
The story of those tapes is complex and revealing -- and casts new light on Diana's mindset in the months before she died in 1997.
The very existence of the tapes had been a closely-guarded secret until the collapse of the Paul Burrel trial.
[snip]
It began on a cold January day in 1997. For months Diana had been telling friends of her dissatisfaction with her now notorious
Panorama "three in a bed" interview, in which she had revealed her own adultery with James Hewitt.
[snip]
Within the implacably hostile Royal Family, she had managed to maintain one friendship. That was with Prince Edward.
[snip]
In January, 1997, Diana asked [Prince] Edward if he knew of a good TV cameraman. He had to be trustworthy.
[snip]
She wanted him to film a set of videos in which she would speak directly to the camera. [snip] She did not know, then, how many videos she would make. But after each one was completed it would be handed to her. There would be no other copy made. The schedule for filming would depend on her other engagements.
A fee of ��5,000 was accepted for the assignment.
[snip]
Paid in full, the cameraman never saw Diana again.
[snip]
The reason the cameraman originally told Wilcox -- and may also be the same reason the broadcaster shared the secret with a second person -- is that both Wilcox and the cameraman had been questioned in the aftermath of Diana's death by MI5 security officers about the existence of the tapes.
[snip]
"They are Diana's video diaries of her marriage. In a sense they are an oral history of the Royal Family. She deals with each member in detail", he said.
The videos reserve her most stringent criticism for Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles.
[snip]
"Diana paints a portrait of how she pleaded with him for the sake of the children to give up Camilla. She says that she turned to Anne (Princess Anne) and Andrew (Prince Andrew) for help. Both, she says, refused to lift a finger", said the source.
[snip]
Diana was "highly upset" about Charles' relationship with Fawcett.
[snip]
She said there was something of the night about Fawcett. Diana reveals on one tape that she didn't like the way he seemed to dominate Charles, not just in a physical way, but mentally also."
[snip]
A member of Charles' staff told her about sexual misconduct within the Royal Household staff -- and that Charles "tolerated it".
[snip]
According to the cameraman's recall, there was also "a terrible anger" at the way she was being treated by the Royal Family -- especially Prince Philip.
"She talks about how his welcome into the Family had turned to cold hostility once the marriage had broken up.
[snip]
Undoubtedly, the most revealing part of her video diaries is how Diana saw her future.
"She makes it clear that she would do everything possible to make sure Charles never became King. She wanted William to succeed to the Throne when the Queen died. Diana clearly saw her role as the power behind William. She had this somewhat romantic idea of being a king-maker -- the mother behind the monarch", said the source.
He explained that the cameraman had told him last week that his abiding memory from the videos was of a very determined princess that nothing would stand in her way.
[snip]
I think I'd rather watch cartoons. 
