Diana considered fleeing palace to be with bodyguard ‘lover’, according to tapes

PRINCESS DIANA nearly fled the Royal Household to be with her alleged lover, policeman Barry Mannakee, according to new tapes broadcast today.

The Princess admits on the tapes that she had fallen “deeply in love” with a man in the palace “environment.”

In tapes broadcast last week on the US television network NBC, the Princess said she suspected the Royal Protection Officer was “bumped off” because of their affair.

Diana said on one tape, recorded in September 1992, by her voice coach Peter Settelen, that she had fallen “deeply in love with somebody who worked in this environment.”

“I was always wandering around trying to see him,” she said of the lover, widely presumed to be Mr Mannakee. “I just, you know, wore my heart on my sleeve. I was only happy when he was around,” she said.

Diana said she even considered running away with her lover because he gave her the intimacy she was missing at home.

In the first round of tapes, shown last week, Diana said she and the Prince of Wales had sex just once every three weeks during their marriage.

“I was quite happy to give all this up,” she said. But she added: “Well not all this, at this moment, at the time, it was quite something to have all this.” The video shows her saying: “Just to go off and live with him. Can you believe it?”

Rumours of an affair between Diana and Mr Mannakee spread throughout the Royal Household and he was assigned to other duties, or “chucked out” as Diana put it.

He was killed in a 1987 motorbike crash.

“I used to have really disturbing dreams about him. And he was very unhappy wherever he’s gone to,” Diana said.

“I went to put some flowers on his grave,” she said.

But she learned that his body had been cremated and his ashes scattered.

“He was just chucked over the ground. That absolutely appalled me, but there we are,” she said.

“I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it.”

She said Prince Charles broke the news of Mr Mannakee’s death to her as she was in a limousine, about to arrive at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987.

She said: “That was the biggest blow of my life, I must say.... he just jumped it on me like that and I wasn’t able to do anything.”

The tapes were due to be shown on NBC at 3am GMT this morning.