Martin Bashir doesn't believe he harmed Princess Diana by using deception to secure an interview with her, he says in first post-inquiry interview

• Martin Bashir used deception to secure an interview with Princess Diana, an independent inquiry found.
• He "never wanted to harm" the late princess, he told The Sunday Times.
• Bashir is also "deeply sorry" about what he put Prince Harry and Prince William through, he said.

Martin Bashir has said he doesn't believe he harmed Diana, Princess of Wales, and that he is "deeply sorry" to her sons, The Sunday Times reported.

The former BBC journalist, who secured a famous 1995 interview with Princess Diana, is under fire after an independent inquiry concluded that he had used deception to secure the BBC interview.

In his first interview since the damning conclusion of Lord Dyson's report, Bashir told The Sunday Times that he doesn't believe his "deceitful" tactics hurt the late princess.

"I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don't believe we did," he said. "Everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted, from when she wanted to alert the palace, to when it was broadcast, to its contents ... My family and I loved her."

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Bashir said he is also apologetic to her sons, Prince Harry and Prince William, he told the newspaper. "I can't imagine what their family must feel each day, although I know a little of that myself, having lost a brother and father prematurely," he said.

The 58-year-old journalist is hopeful that the public will forgive him for how he went about securing an interview in which Princess Diana opened up about her bulimia and the breakdown of her marriage with Prince Charles.

"I hope that people will allow me the opportunity to show that I am properly repentant of what happened," he said.

Bashir showed forged bank statements to Earl Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, to secure the 1995 interview, the inquiry found. He said that he regrets that decision.

"Obviously, I regret it. It was wrong," Bashir told journalist Rosamund Urwin in an exclusive interview. "But it had no bearing on anything. It had no bearing on [Diana], it had no bearing on the interview."

Spencer, according to notes from a 1998 interview included in the inquiry, said that Bashir's actions made his sister "paranoid about her phones and her channels of communications." He also accused the journalist of ruining several of her friendships and called him a "complete fraud," The Sunday Times reported.

Bashir, however, said he should not be the only one to take the hit. "I don't feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life and the complex issues surrounding those decisions," he said.

"I can understand the motivation [of Earl Spencer's comments] but to channel the tragedy, the difficult relationship between the royal family and the media purely on to my shoulders feels a little unreasonable ... The suggestion I am singularly responsible, I think, is unreasonable and unfair," Bashir added.