Queen's royal privilege

The trial collapse has raised many questions

The collapse of the Paul Burrell case has raised the question of the Queen's historic royal privilege after her intervention in the trial. Should the Queen have immunity from giving evidence in the courts?

Breakfast debated with Lord St John of Fawsley and Baroness Helena Kennedy QC.

Click here to watch our discussion with Lord St John Fawsley and Baroness Kennedy

Lord St John of Fawsley said:

I don't believe the Queen would have succeeded. The Queen should not have immunity as privilege rather as something which enables her to carry out her duty as monarch. It is based on case law, otherwise you would get any eccentric summoning the Queen. The Queen is a protector of common law.

Baroness Kennedy said:

Where it is crime, human rights law comes into place, this case is different, that is why Queen could be called, the law has moved on, no one has immunity you cannot protect against someone having a fair trial.

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Following the collapse of the trial of Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell, many commentators have raised questions about how events came to unfold as they did.

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The BBC's royal correspondent Jennie Bond

The Royal Family comes out of this damaged.

You can only say perhaps the palace have been forgetful or the Queen has been forgetful, or she has been naive.

Why the main witness has waited for months in order to come forward and give this extraordinary evidence I don't know

Bob Marshall Andrews MP

Perhaps she did forget this conversation did take place; there is a possibility, but of course there are conspiracy theories all over the place.

If there was a conspiracy by the palace or a decision by the palace to halt the trial because Paul Burrell had so many secrets to divulge, it has been incredibly incompetently handled.

If they did not want to go into the witness box why did they not say. Why did they not give this piece of evidence. Why did they ever let the trial get this far?

That is what everyone is asking.

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Labour MP and QC Bob Marshall Andrews

Why the main witness has waited for months in order to come forward and give this extraordinary evidence I do not know.

Paul Burrell was Diana's 'rock'

The Queen must have been aware this case was going on. If she was not, her equerries must have told her this was happening and so she could totally exculpate the main defendant.

I am just very pleased we had a very good high court judge who was dealing with this and has rapidly stopped it in its tracks, but it is a great pity it ever got there.

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Former Conservative minister Lord St John of Fawsley

The Queen is the greatest constitutional monarch we have ever had.

She knows she is the fount of justice.

She knows she cannot appear in a court and her majesty to have intervened would have not only been unconstitutional, but it would have been highly dangerous politically to intervene in the case where members of her own family were involved.

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Harold Brooks-Baker from Burke's Peerage

The case against the butler has become so involved and included so many more people than originally thought necessary that even the monarch became involved.

The statement from the late Princess of Wales's mother Frances Shand Kydd, was perhaps the most disturbing so far.

A crisis of sorts would have developed if this case had gone on further.

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Former Greater Manchester Police deputy chief constable John Stalker

We have got to accept this is wholly unprecedented.

It was very convenient for the royal family that the Queen suddenly remembered her conversation with Mr Burrell, just before he was due to give evidence

Tom Utley, Telegraph columnist

Nothing like it has ever happened in my 40 odd years of being involved in detective work and I doubt if anything similar will happen for the next 40 or 50 years.

The judge has not actually said anything of a critical nature or indeed of any nature about anybody.

My concern would be that if there is to be blame attached to the police, that it is not attached to some humble detective sergeant who has given evidence in the case and if there are any fingers to be pointed, they should be pointed rather further upwards."

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Daily Telegraph columnist Tom Utley

There is obviously an awful lot more to the collapse of the case against Burrell than meets the eye and I do not pretend to have the faintest idea what it is.

It must surely be fair to say, however, that it was very convenient for the Royal Family that the Queen suddenly remembered her conversation with Mr Burrell just before he was due to give evidence that his lawyers said would be "long, detailed and extremely interesting".

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The Sun's royal correspondent Charles Rae

There is clearly some embarrassment for the Queen that as a result of her intervention the sensational case has collapsed in a heap.

But surely that is better than an injustice being done in which Mr Burrell could have been jailed for up to seven years for a crime we now know he did not commit.