inquest 'to crash theories' princess diana
8 January 2007

London - Lawyers gathered on Monday for preliminary hearings ahead of a coroner's inquest into the death of Britain's Princess Diana in a 1997 Paris car crash, with more legal wrangling expected.

The hearings come a few weeks after a British police probe rejected allegations of a conspiracy behind the deaths of Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, which it called a "tragic accident".

The hearings, being held on Monday and Tuesday in court four of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, will notably decide if there should be a jury at the full inquest, expected later this year.

It will also look at whether separate or joint inquests will be held into Diana's and her boyfriend's deaths.

Former senior High Court judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has come out of retirement to act as deputy coroner of the Queen's household after the royal coroner, Michael Burgess, stood down in July last year.

Butler-Sloss - who earned a no-nonsense reputation as Britain's senior-most female judge - is likely to set out a timetable for the proceedings, which like other inquests in England and Wales have a limited remit to formally confirm the identity of the deceased plus how, when and where they died.

Lawyers for Dodi Fayed's father, Mohammed Al Fayed, are expected to argue for joint inquests and for any jury to be made up of ordinary members of the public.

An archaic constitutional law requires any jury considering a verdict on the death of a member of the royal family to be selected entirely from the royal household.

But Fayed argues that the princess - who was divorced from heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles in 1996 - was not a member of the royal family when she died.

Not to have ordinary members of the public on a jury would raise potential issues of bias and confirm his claims of a cover-up, he believes.

The tycoon owner of the plush London department store Harrods - who alleges that Diana was killed as part of an establishment and royal family plot - has successfully pushed for the preliminary hearings to be in public.

Patrick Jephson, a former private secretary to Diana, said he hoped the inquest would finally quash the conspiracy theories.

"At its best the inquest will show us that this sad matter is now settled," he told BBC radio.

"On the other hand, there has been such an atmosphere of suspicion about possible conspiracy feelings that's grown up around it that had to be tackled head on."

Lord John Stevens, the former head of London's Metropolitan Police, led the British inquiry into the deaths, probing into the conspiracy theories.

His report, published last month, reached the same conclusions as a previous French inquiry that the crash was a "tragic accident", caused because chauffeur Henri Paul was drunk at the wheel.
 
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