The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies (63 page)

Al-Fayed nonetheless maintained that his son and Diana died as the result of a vast conspiracy by the Royal Family and MI6. In response, the coroner of the royal household requested Lord Stevens, a former chief of the Metropolitan Police, to head an investigation into the deaths. The subsequent Operation Paget agreed that some questions asked by Al-Fayed were “right to be raised” and confirmed that Paul had been a low-level informer for the French domestic secret service, DST. The Operation Paget report also pointed out that hotel security staff the world over act as low-grade informers for their national spy organizations.

Essentially, the Operation Paget report came to the same conclusion as had the French inquiry into the tragedy. Mme Coujard, the prosecutor heading the French inquiry, determined: “The direct cause of the accident is the presence, at the wheel of the Mercedes S280, of a driver who had consumed a considerable amount of alcohol, combined with … medication, driving at a speed … faster than the maximum speed-limit in built-up areas.”

In 2007, Mohamed Al-Fayed forced a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Dodi and Diana, which was held at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, and headed by Lord Justice Scott Baker. On 7 April 2008, the jury released its verdict (see Document, p.443), stating that Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by the grossly negligent driving of chauffeur Henri Paul and the pursuing paparazzi. The jury also named the intoxication of the driver, the victims’ decisions to not wear seat belts and the speed of the Mercedes as contributing factors in the deaths.

There may be an innocuous reason for the serially identical conclusions of the French inquiry, Operation Paget and the Scott Baker inquest: they are correct and the goddess-like Diana suffered the fate of many poor mortals. She was killed by a drunk driver.

Further Reading

Noel Botham,
The Assassination of Princess Diana
, 2004

Peter Hounam and Derek McAdam,
Who Killed Diana?
, 1998

Trevor Rees-Jones and Moira Johnston,
The Bodyguard’s Story: Diana, the Crash, and the Sole Survivor
, 2000

DOCUMENT: CORONER’S INQUESTS INTO THE DEATHS OF DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES AND MR DODI AL FAYED: RULING ON VERDICTS [EXTRACTS] AND JURY’S VERDICT

Ruling on Verdicts [Extracts]

Introduction

1) I propose to leave the following verdicts to the jury:-

1) Unlawful killing (grossly negligent driving of the paparazzi);

2) Unlawful killing (grossly negligent driving of the Mercedes);

3) Unlawful killing (grossly negligent driving of the paparazzi and grossly negligent driving of the Mercedes);

4) Accidental death;

5) Open verdict.

These are my reasons. I have received written and oral submissions from Interested Persons and from Counsel to the Inquests. My reasons are necessarily in relatively summary form because of the limited time available and the need to prepare the summing-up. I shall not, therefore, deal with all the points made in over 450 pages of written submissions.

2) The inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed heard evidence over a period of 5 ½ months. They have covered a wide range of topics. At the heart of the evidence has been detailed consideration of the circumstances of the crash in the Alma Tunnel in Paris just after midnight on 31 August 1997. We have heard from dozens of witnesses who saw some part of the journey of the Mercedes from the rear of the Ritz Hotel to the scene of the crash. Some have given oral evidence, others have had their evidence read under rule 37 of the Coroners Rules as uncontroversial. Yet more has been introduced as hearsay evidence when it has not been possible to secure the attendance of a witness. The circumstances of the crash have also been considered in detail by a range of experts, whose opinions have been explained to the jury. There was considerable agreement between those experts. Similarly, we have heard an enormous quantity of evidence that goes, in one way or another, to conspiracy theories that have abounded since the crash. [...]

4) There is some common ground on the verdicts which should be left. All are agreed that the verdicts accidental death and open verdict should be left to the jury. All are agreed that, whatever “short-form” verdict is returned by the jury, it can and should be supplemented by a short, non-judgmental narrative conclusion. The debate has focussed on the following questions:

i) Should unlawful killing be left to the jury on the basis that the crash was deliberately staged, with the intention of killing, harming or scaring? Deliberately causing the crash with the intention of killing the occupants of the car or causing them serious injury would support a verdict of unlawful killing by murder. Deliberately causing the crash with a view to scaring the occupants of the car would support a verdict of unlawful killing on the basis of unlawful act manslaughter. Mr Al Fayed submits that such a verdict should be left to the jury, whereas the Metropolitan Police submit that it should not.

ii) Should unlawful killing be left to the jury on the basis of gross negligence manslaughter by the driving of following paparazzi? The Ritz Hotel submits that it should, while the Metropolitan Police disagree. There is a subsidiary issue. The Ritz contends that this verdict should be left both on the basis of gross negligence manslaughter and on the basis of unlawful act manslaughter; the latter founded on a hypothetical offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

iii) Should unlawful killing be left to the jury on the basis of gross negligence manslaughter by the driver of the Mercedes (Henri Paul)? The Metropolitan Police say that this verdict should be left, while the family of Henri Paul argue that it should not.

[...]

Unlawful Killing: Staged Accident

12) For some years, Mr Al Fayed has expressed the firm belief that his son and the Princess of Wales were murdered in furtherance of a conspiracy to kill them or do them serious harm. This “broad and overarching allegation” was elaborated in written submissions before the inquest began. Mr Al Fayed believes that the conspiracy was orchestrated by the Duke of Edinburgh and executed by the Secret Intelligence Service on his orders. In the light of the evidence, Mr Mansfield QC has, quite properly, accepted that there is no direct evidence that the Duke played any part in the deaths and has accepted that there is no direct evidence of any involvement of the SIS. Mr Mansfield now submits that the jury should consider an alternative scenario, which he terms the “troublesome priest thesis”: a plan by unknown individuals (perhaps rogue SIS operatives) to stage the crash in order to serve the perceived interests or wishes of the Royal Family or “the Establishment”, as he and Mr Al Fayed term it. He also now submits that the aim of the plot may have been to scare the Princess. That submission may rest in part on a realistic acceptance that there could have been no certainty that the Princess and Mr Al Fayed would die or be seriously harmed. The lethal forces that resulted in the deaths of Diana, Dodi and Henri Paul resulted from the high speed of the Mercedes (about 65 mph at the moment of the collision) and the fact that it impacted with the corner of a pillar. Had the Mercedes hit the side of the pillar or gone out of control and hit the wall on the other side of its carriageway, it would probably have been deflected and the outcome may well have been different. Additionally, the occupants were not wearing seat belts. The expert evidence was that wearing a seat belt would either have prevented or at the very least diminished the prospect of a fatal injury.

13) As I said in my Reasons regarding the decision not to call the Duke of Edinburgh to give evidence, the question of whether this was a staged crash is different from the question of whether the Duke could have been involved. But because it is impossible for anyone to argue that particular individuals or agencies were involved, beyond what amounts to speculation, it is necessary to focus on the issue whether the circumstances of the crash point to a staged accident. In other words, would the evidence of the events on the evening of 30/31 August 1997 enable the jury to be sure that the crash was staged by somebody of whose identity there is no evidence? In my judgment it would not.

14) It is common ground between the reconstruction experts, and has not been disputed by anybody, that, either at the entrance to the Alma underpass or shortly into it, the Mercedes had a glancing collision with a white, slower moving Fiat Uno. The collision was between the right front corner of the Mercedes and the left rear corner of the Uno. There was a 17 cm overlap between the vehicles at the time of collision, and the point of impact was around the dividing line between the two lanes of the carriageway. Debris from the rear left light cluster of the Fiat was found at the scene, as was debris from the front right light cluster of the Mercedes. Additionally, the Fiat left a smear of paint on the Mercedes. There is some doubt about where precisely the collision took place, but of the fact that an impact took place between the Mercedes and the Fiat there is no doubt. The Mercedes clipped the slower moving Fiat as it went past. It would, in my view, be irrational for the jury to come to any conclusion other than that the presence of the Fiat was a potent contributory factor in the loss of control of the Mercedes and thus the crash and the deaths.

15) Mr Mansfield made clear in his oral submissions that the driver of the Fiat Uno, who has never been traced, was not involved in any plot. That is obviously right. The evidence to which he pointed as supporting a staged accident was different. He argued that there was evidence of a dark-coloured vehicle in front of the Mercedes in the left hand lane and evidence of a motorcycle behind it in that lane. As a result, he says that the Mercedes was “boxed in” and, on the evidence, collided with the dark vehicle. He also argues that there is evidence to support a conclusion that a bright light of some kind was deliberately flashed in the eyes of Henri Paul to disorientate him, and that this light may have been flashed by the motorcycle rider or from elsewhere. These are the physical features which he identifies as pointing to a plot.

16) As regards the “blocking vehicle” and the motorcycle, the difficulties with the argument are as follows.

a) Given the speed of the Mercedes, any vehicle ahead in its lane and observing the speed limit, or even driving close to the limit, would have impeded its progress and would have appeared to be blocking it. The witness who used the term “blocking” (Olivier Partouche) said in his first statement to French police that he thought the car in front was being used to slow the Mercedes down to allow paparazzi to take photographs from behind. When asked specific questions in the French investigation, he said that he could not say whether or not the car in front was deliberately being driven slowly. In any event, he maintained that it did not perform any dangerous manoeuvre. See 24/10/07 at p. 10–11, 23–24 and 33–34. The evidence of his colleague, M. Gooroovadoo, was to similar effect (12/3/08, p. 93).

b) The other witnesses who saw a vehicle in front of the Mercedes in its lane were the driver and passenger of a car in the opposite carriageway: Benoit Boura and Gaelle L’Hostis. They did not conclude that the car was being driven deliberately slowly or manoeuvring dangerously. They described the car as being in front of the Mercedes as it was going out of control, and then driving off. See 24/10/07 at p. 47–48, 63–64, 72–74, 83–84, 85–86. In that regard, their evidence should be seen in the context of the evidence of Mohamed Medjahdi and Souad Mouffakir [sic], who were in a car ahead of the Mercedes. See 6/11/07 at p.57ff; 12/3/08 at p. 108ff. They gave evidence that they were in the tunnel when they saw the Mercedes behind them out of control, and that there was no vehicle between their car and the Mercedes. They drove on. Their evidence would seem to suggest that their car was the closest in front of the Mercedes when it lost control in the tunnel. M. Boura and Mlle L’Hostis describe the car in front of the Mercedes as rather different from M. Medjahdi’s car, but their descriptions of the car are also inconsistent from each other. They say that there was a shorter distance between the Mercedes and the car in front than M. Medjahdi and Mlle Mouffakir [sic] say separated their car from the Mercedes, but judgment of distances in these circumstances can be very problematic.