Aftermath News

Lord Justice Scott Baker had specifically instructed the jurors to reject conspiracy theories that the accident was staged.

Telegraph | Apr 8, 2008

Diana inquest: William and Harry welcome verdict after jury blames paparazzi and Paul

By Gordon Rayner and Andrew Pierce

Princes William and Harry were hoping last night that 10 years of speculation over the death of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, would finally end after a jury decided that she was unlawfully killed.

After six months of extraordinary claims and counter-claims, the inquest jury decided that the paparazzi who pursued the Princess’s car through Paris and its driver Henri Paul, who had been drinking, were both to blame for the crash because of their “gross negligence”.

Sources close to the Princes said they were “optimistic” that the verdict would draw a line under the countless conspiracy theories about the accident in 1997. “They just want it to end after all this time,” a source said.

In a statement issued by Clarence House last night, the Princes said they agreed with the verdict and thanked witnesses who had given evidence that had “in many cases reawakened their painful and personal memories”.

Trevor Rees, the former bodyguard who survived the crash despite suffering severe injuries, was singled out for praise and the Princes expressed their “profound gratitude” to the medical staff who fought in vain to save their mother’s life.

By a majority of 9-2, the jury at the Royal Courts of Justice in London returned verdicts of unlawful killing on both the Princess and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed - the equivalent of manslaughter in a criminal court.
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It means that after two exhaustive investigations, and with an estimated £10 million of taxpayers’ money spent on the unprecedented inquest, the blame has once again been attached to the very people who were accused within minutes of the Princess being declared dead.

But the paparazzi - 10 of whom were arrested after the crash - will not face fresh legal proceedings in France, as a police investigation there cleared them of any criminal responsibility, a decision that was upheld on appeal. Yesterday’s verdicts were rejected by Mohamed Fayed, who maintained that Princess Diana and his son Dodi were “murdered” by MI6 on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Last night, a poll suggested that almost a third of Britons still agree with him, despite the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, declaring that there was “not a shred of evidence” in support of the conspiracy theories.

The survey for BBC2’s Newsnight showed that although 62 per cent of people believed the crash was simply a tragic accident, 31 per cent thought there was “something suspicious” about it. Only 19 per cent thought the estimated £10 million the inquest cost the taxpayer was money well spent.

Rosa Monckton, one of the Princess’s closest friends and a witness at the inquest, said she hoped the public would now remember Diana for her “extraordinary” work with hospices and children’s charities and not simply the “sordid six weeks” she spent with the Fayed family before her death.

“What I really very much hope is that people will eventually forget [this] and if they do remember then that they also remember that this was only six weeks out of her life.

“I think that has been forgotten because the focus has been on only six weeks of a truly extraordinary life. I think it has been incredibly intrusive. Much of her life has come into the public domain which should never have been there.”

Princess Diana, who was 36, and Dodi Fayed, 41, died after the Mercedes S280 in which they were travelling ran head-on into a pillar in the central reservation of the Alma underpass in Paris, a blackspot.

Following six months of evidence from more than 250 witnesses, the jury decided that the couple were unlawfully killed through a combination of the gross negligence of Henri Paul, who was speeding and was more than three times the French drink-drive limit, and the paparazzi.

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