Ignoring pleas from Prince William and Prince Harry, Channel 4 has decided to go ahead with its documentary on their mother, Princess Diana’s death tonight, and to broadcast pictures taken at the scene of the crash.

Young Princes William and Harry at their mother’s funeral in 1997

The Princes’ private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, has written to C4 on their behalf asking that the station remove the images showing Princess Diana receiving medical treatment following her 1997 Paris car crash. He wrote: “Put simply, if it were your or my mother dying in that tunnel, would we want the scene broadcast to the nation? Indeed, would the nation so want it?”

It seems the broadcaster is more interested in the publicity than doing the right thing by Diana’s bereaved family, not to mention a future King of England. This is a very poor show on their part.

Our comments on the documentary will appear here tomorrow.

The Daily Mail is confirming what we wrote yesterday, that Prince William “is more than happy for his friends to look out for Miss Middleton”.

A source close to William said, “He has asked his mates to keep an eye out for Kate so that they don’t bump into each other anywhere too public.”

As I write, we haven’t been able to identify the mystery man in the pink shirt seen leaving the Mahiki club with Kate Middleton. There seems to have been a blonde woman involved too, so maybe the event was not as significant as some are suggesting.

We know that Jamie Murray Wells, of Glasses Direct fame, was on hand to shepherd Kate through the hordes of paparazzi waiting for anyone remotely connected with the Royal Family.

William himself was at the club last night, leaving at 1.30am with that familiar glazed-eyed expression common to night owls. No female was involved, just a burly male minder.

Channel 4, a UK commerical television channel, is once again under fire over a programme it intends to screen on June 6.

Royal Anecdotes’ response to Diana death pictures

The item is a documentary, Diana: The Witnesses In The Tunnel, which contains graphic images of the crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales. Despite protests from a Conservative party spokesman, and pleas from Prince William and Prince Harry, the broadcaster has refused, so far, to pull the film from its schedules.

Last year the Princes took the unusual step of issuing an emotional statement expressing their disgust after an Italian magazine printed a paparazzi photograph of their mother’s death. The documentary is said to include images taken by French photographers immediately after Diana’s fatal car crash in Paris in August 1997, including one picture of Diana receiving oxygen from a French doctor.

The programme also features new interviews with photographers and other witnesses to the crash.

Channel 4 has recently been forced to apologise on air over the alleged racist treatment of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on its Big Brother reality show. On Thursday it will raise Royal hackles again with a documentary on Camilla, now Duchess of Cornwall, claiming that Prince Charles is determined to make her Queen.

Royal Anecdotes banned the photographs of Diana’s death when they were made available, publishing a black space instead (pictured).

In an interview to be broadcast at 10.30 GMT tonight on BBC News 24, Royal photographer Arthur Edwards says that Prince Harry’s increasingly erratic behaviour is becoming embarrassing.

“He should be behaving a lot better,” Edwards insists. “I think Prince Harry is dangerously becoming an embarrassment to this country. He knows that if he goes to these nightclubs, paparazzi hang around. It’s par for the course.”

The 22-year-old has been training as an Army officer for deployment to Iraq next month. He will become the first Royal in 25 years to serve in a war zone.

Meanwhile, after girlfriend Chelsy Davy cancelled her stay in England, and amid talk of a rift between them, Harry flew to Barbados to spend three weeks with her before going to Iraq.

The Prince also faces a dressing-down from his senior officers after unseemly pictures of him, apparently falling into a gutter, appeared in the press.

To be in one doghouse may be seen as careless. To be in three at the same time is way over the top.

Harry says he wants the Army to be his career, but his recent antics must have seriously jeopardised his hopes of significant promotion.