Diana: 'They need to get rid of me'
PRINCESS Diana told her most trusted aides she feared the Royal Family wanted her killed, the long-awaited inquest into her death heard yesterday.
Sensational revelations about Diana’s fears for her life and her views on the future of the monarchy emerged on the first day of the hearings.
The Princess even believed that the Queen intended to abdicate in favour of Prince Charles and that he wanted herself and his acknowledged mistress Camilla Parker Bowles out of the way so that he could marry his sons’ nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke.
Diana believed Camilla was a decoy for Tiggy, his real love, who she claimed had been forced to have an abortion after she got pregnant. Her claims were given credence by her private secretary, Patrick Jephson, who “half-believed” them, according to details of a note written by her lawyer which were revealed for the first time yesterday.
The Princess even believed that the Queen intended to abdicate
On a day of high drama at the High Court in London, Lord Justice Scott Baker, an appeal court judge drafted in to oversee the inquest, set out the claims and counter-claims at the heart of a controversy that has divided the nation in the 10 years since Diana’s death.
Diana, 36, and her lover Dodi Fayed, 42, died when their chauffeur-driven Mercedes crashed into a concrete pillar in the Pont de l’Alma underpass in Paris on August 31, 1997, as they tried to shake off pursuing paparazzi photographers.
The coroner told 11 jurors – sworn in earlier in the day – how Dodi’s father, Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, was convinced the couple were murdered by British MI6 agents on the orders of Prince Philip.
Mr Al Fayed, he said, believed that Diana and Dodi were expecting a baby and planned to announce their engagement on September 1, 1997, the day after the crash but the Establishment could not stomach Diana marrying a Muslim and having his child.
They were told that the Egyptian-born tycoon had described how his friendship with the Royal Family had broken down after they discovered his son was romantically involved with Diana.
“They could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be step-father to the future King of England,” said the coroner, quoting Mr Al Fayed.
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Many other people across Britain and around the world also believed there was something sinister behind the crash, the coroner told them.
Two official investigations – one by the French authorities and another led by the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens – have concluded that the couple’s Mercedes crashed because their driver Henri Paul was driving too fast and was high on a cocktail of drink and prescription drugs.
But the coroner told the jury: “The conclusions of the French inquiry and the Paget, or Stevens report, are neither here nor there, if you take a different view of the facts. And what you make of the evidence is for you and you alone. No one can tell you what to decide.”
In his opening remarks, he tried to set out undisputed facts in the case and to raise issues of controversy that will be dealt with in detail later.
But he immediately ran into controversy after appearing to knock down some of the assertions that lie at the heart of Mr Al Fayed’s case. He dismissed suggestions that a famous photograph of the Princess in a leopard-print swimsuit with an apparent stomach bulge in July 1997 could be proof that she was pregnant with Dodi’s child, saying she had not started a relationship with him at that stage.
He also poured cold water on claims that a cryptic comment she made to the press on July 14, 1997, might have been alluding to their plans to wed.
Diana famously told journalists covering her holiday at the Fayed family villa in St Tropez, southern France: “You are going to get a big surprise, you will see, you are going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do.”
But the coroner said that the comment had been made before Diana and Dodi’s relationship had apparently begun.
The coroner riled Mr Al Fayed and his advisers by also appearing to suggest that the conspiracy theories were flimsy because Diana, Dodi and Mr Paul might have survived the crash if the collision in the Alma tunnel had been at only a slightly different angle.
He also suggested that if their chauffeur had only followed the normal route used by professional drivers, it would have been impossible to arrange for the couple to be killed in the tunnel because Mr Paul would have turned off before he reached there.
The jury were shown graphic photographs of the wreckage of the Mercedes as the coroner outlined the details of the crash itself.
Among them was the last picture ever taken of Princess Diana moments before she was killed in the crash.
The photo – shown in public for the first time – reveals the mother-of-two looking out the back window of the car, next to Dodi.
Henri Paul – his mouth open – is seen driving the couple away from the Ritz, while bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones – the only person to survive the smash – looks curiously through the front window.
The pictures were taken by photographer Jacques Langevin just minutes before the Mercedes crashed into the 13th pillar of the tunnel.
He was one of a number of paparazzi following the couple on August 31 but charges of manslaughter against him, and nine others, were dropped. Further footage – taken by the emergency services and seen for the first time at yesterday’s inquest – shows the mangled car after the fatal smash.
Lord Justice Scott Baker said: “The effect of hitting the edge of the pillar head-on was to stop the Mercedes immediately and bounce it back. Tremendous force was transmitted through the vehicle and its occupants.
“The photographs of the damage to the Mercedes convey vividly the violence of the impact.”
He added: “You will have to consider whether the precise nature of the impact could ever have been planned in advance or orchestrated in any confidence.”
But later, the coroner asked the jury to consider whether some or all of the paparazzi had knowingly or unwittingly created the conditions that gave MI6 agents or others involved in a conspiracy the opportunity to assassinate Diana and Dodi.
Were some of them working for MI6, he asked. He told them that Mr Al Fayed claimed that Mr Paul was a paid agent for MI6 and its French equivalent the DGSE who had paid him £2,000 in French francs found in his pockets after the crash.
Mr Fayed, he said, argued that Mr Paul was not drunk and that blood test samples apparently taken from his body had been fabricated to show he had been drinking.
The jury would also hear evidence, he told them, that Diana was under close surveillance by MI6, the CIA
and the American National Security Agency – the equivalent of MI5 – and that they were bugging her phone calls and knew she was set to announce her engagement.
They would also have to consider claims that MI6 agents had guns capable of firing a blinding flash of light to distract a driver and that witnesses at the crash scene had described seeing such a flash.
The inquest, which could last up to six months, is expected to cost £5.3million.
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