Diana inquest: A decade of delays

By Peter Hunt
Royal correspondent, BBC News

The jury may consider whether Diana was pregnant when she died

I came across a newspaper article the other day.

It quoted a coroner's officer saying an inquiry into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, would take place some time in the future and they would need to find larger premises because the normal court was too small.

The article was published on 2 September, 1997.

A decade later and they have found a suitable setting. Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice on London's Strand is ready and empty.

On 2 October, 11 members of the public will be sworn in and take their seats in the specially constructed jury box.

'Enduring fascination'

Squeezed into three rows of benches next to them - and in front of the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker - will be barristers and lawyers representing, amongst others, Mohamed Al Fayed, Henri Paul, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, the Metropolitan Police and the security services.

Listening and watching in a temporary court annexe in a courtyard will be up to 300 members of the public and reporters from around the world - such is the enduring international fascination with the late princess.

Diana's relationship with Dodi Al Fayed will be scrutinised

Day after day, for at least six months, the jurors will be presented with many of the facts, the details and the allegations surrounding events leading up to that fateful night in a Paris underpass when Diana and Dodi Al Fayed died.

It has taken an inordinate amount of time to get to this point. We are now on to our fourth coroner.

The first hefty delay was inflicted by a two-year French investigation led by Judge Herve Stephan.

He concluded after seeing 300 witnesses and reviewing 6,000 pages of evidence that the chauffeur Henri Paul was drunk, on prescription drugs and driving too fast.

It is a conclusion Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has never accepted.

'Tragic accident'

In the years since his beloved son died, the owner of Harrods has brought legal proceedings in France, England, Scotland and America.

He believes his son was murdered in a conspiracy involving the Duke of Edinburgh, MI5 and MI6. Prince Philip has never responded in public to this allegation.

Mr Al Fayed wants, but is unlikely ever to get, a public inquiry. He believes this inquest is too limited in its focus.

The inquest was actually formally opened but speedily adjourned in 2004.

It was an opportunity to launch a British police investigation.

The task of Lord Stevens, the former head of Scotland Yard and some 15 police officers was simple - to establish whether or not a crime had been committed.

Their report - all 832 pages of it - published last year, concluded the Alma Tunnel in Paris had been the setting for a tragic accident and was not a crime scene.

Once again Mohamed Al Fayed rejected the findings of an official report into his son's death.

Embalmed body

The publication of the Stevens Report removed the last hurdle. Inquests have to take place when someone dies abroad and a coroner suspects the deceased died a violent or unnatural death, or died a sudden death of which the cause is unknown.

They are meant to be limited fact-finding inquiries to establish who died, when and where the death occurred, and how it was caused.

Mohamed Al Fayed wants Prince Philip to take the stand

The Diana and Dodi inquests will, inevitably, be rather different.

The coroner has already published a list of the 20 issues likely to be discussed.

These include whether the princess was pregnant and engaged to Dodi; the embalming of her body; her fears for her life; and whether the British or any other security services had any involvement in the collision.

No list of the witnesses who will be called has yet been published.

Mohamed Al Fayed's lawyers have demanded that Prince Philip and Prince Charles take the stand.

When Diana died the nation was convulsed and millions of words were spoken and written.

Back then, no-one would have dared to predict that 10 years on, the last years of her life would once again be examined in detail, in public, in a British court - and 11 men and women would be charged with deciding how a princess had died.