Burrell took ring off Diana’s body, claims ex-bodyguard

PAUL BURRELL took an engagement ring off the dead body of Diana, Princess of Wales, and kept it, his former bodyguard claimed yesterday.

Michael Faux told the inquest into Diana’s death that the former royal butler also kept documents — including papers that were note-headed with the Buckingham Palace crest — and burnt them.

Burrell had also considered throwing some of the items off the side of a ship in order to get rid of them, according to Faux, who worked for him for a year until 2003.

He claims he saw Burrell take “one or two” bin bags with property he had “hidden” at a neighbour’s home in Farndon, Cheshire, and “frantically” burn them in his back garden in November or December 2002.

He told the jury in central London that an anxious Mr Burrell was “upset and virtually crying” when Mr Faux at first refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Mr Burrell stressed that he “needed” him to sign.

No sooner had he agreed than Mr Burrell told him that he possessed an engagement ring.

Mr Faux said he was “led to believe” it was Diana’s ring.

They had been speaking in Mr Burrell’s car outside his florist shop.

Under questioning from Nicholas Hilliard, for the coroner, Mr Faux told the court: “He said that he took it from the body in Paris.”

Mr Hilliard said: “Did he have any way of demonstrating this was hers?”

Mr Faux replied: “Yes, there was still blood on the ring and he could prove it was her by the DNA.”

Mr Faux said that he thought it “was not right that he had taken it off her finger”, probably in the hospital, and that he felt “disgusted” with him.

The jury has heard that Diana had received a gold Bulgari friendship ring from lover Dodi Fayed, which she wore on her right hand.

There was also a Repossi ring, which some claim was an engagement ring, bought in the weeks before the couple died.

But, since the crash, this could be placed either at Dodi’s Paris flat or under the control of his father, Harrods tycoon Mohamed al Fayed, the jury heard.

The now US-based Mr Burrell, who refuses to return to the witness box, rejects Mr Faux’s claims.

Mr Burrell has said it would have taken a truck to move all the jewellery and items.

In a written statement to the court, he said: “I have never told anybody that I have had possession of that ring. I am not in possession of that ring.”

The former butler said he did burn papers, such as old bank statements, in a brazier in his garden, but not anything “significant”.