THE independent production company at the heart of the row over the royal photoshoot accused the BBC last night of ignoring repeated requests to show it the controversial footage before it was made public.

Sources at RDF, which filmed the monarch sitting for Annie Leibovitz as part of A Year with the Queen, say it asked to see the promotional tape “several times” before it was shown to journalists. The apparent failure of the BBC to respond will increase pressure on Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1. His fate is likely to be decided on Wednesday when Mark Thompson, the director-general, is summoned before the BBC Trust to explain the royal fiasco.

The BBC was forced to make a grovelling apology last week after wrongly claiming the Queen had walked out of the photoshoot with Leibovitz. The Queen’s supposedly stormy exit was in fact footage of her arriving for the shoot.

Filming for the documentary has not been completed and palace sources suggested RDF was unlikely to be granted further access to the royal family. “They have been filming us for a year. They don’t need anything else,” said an aide.

The BBC says it acted “in good faith” by including clips of the royal series in the promotional tape. The material was provided by RDF, which claims it was “an early assembly . . . never intended to be seen by the public or the press”.

The BBC described RDF’s requests to see the footage as “low key” and “noninsistent”.

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