Diana death crash driver's parents start legal action

The parents of the French driver blamed for the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, have taken legal action in a French court to clear their son’s name.

Henri Paul died in the August 31 1997 crash in a Paris traffic tunnel that also killed Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed. An investigation concluded that Paul had been drinking and was driving at a high speed.

Jean and Gisele Paul have filed a complaint for “falsification of expert evidence,” without naming a defendant, judicial officials said in Paris.

The parents say they are not convinced the blood sample used to judge his alcohol level was their son’s.

“We don’t want anything more than the truth,” Jean Paul at his home in the western town of Lorient.

“We are just little people who are easy to push around.”

He said the suit was filed last month, but did not specify when.

In a BBC radio interview, Gisele Paul said that she and her husband “are certain that our son wasn’t drunk.”

Gisele Paul said 30 autopsies were done at a Paris morgue on the day Paul’s body was taken there.

“You can imagine how they could have been mixed up. You can see how there could have been a mistake,” she told the BBC.

Jean Paul said his son drank from time to time, but didn’t overindulge. “He didn’t have any problems with alcohol _ at all. That’s why we are asking ourselves so many questions.”

The suit contests the expert analyses of blood samples carried out several days following the accident, which showed Paul was drunk and had ingested medicines that interact poorly with alcohol.

The Pauls’ complaint seeks to force the French government to hand over the blood sample for DNA tests. They say the high level of carbon monoxide found in his blood would have rendered him incapable of walking, let alone driving a car.

In 1999, Paul’s parents asked the French courts to have a second opinion on blood tests that showed Paul had high carbon monoxide levels. Lawyers for the Paul family believed the carbon monoxide may have accentuated the alcohol reading.

According to a court-designated expert at that time, the carbon monoxide level was due to Paul inhaling gas from the car’s air bags.

Dodi Fayed’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, has refused to accept findings by French courts that the accident was caused solely by Paul.

Al Fayed has relentlessly contested the findings, which exonerated photographers who were pursuing the princess’s car at the time.

Al Fayed, the Egyptian-born owner of Harrods department store in London, also has suggested the deaths were a murder conspiracy plotted by people who disapproved of Diana’s relationship with his son.

The Pauls said their legal case was being bankrolled by friends. They said Al Fayed was not involved.

The Pauls, in the BBC interview, said they don’t know whether their son was blamed through a mistake or deliberate deception. They said they just want to clear his name.