Diana was not pregnant - Ex-royal coroner

Diana, Princess of Wales was not pregnant at the time of her death, the former Royal Coroner said today.

Dr John Burton, who attended the Princess’s post-mortem examination, said he could tell she was not expecting a baby when he looked at her womb.

“I was actually present when she was examined. She wasn’t pregnant. I know she wasn’t pregnant,” he told The Times newspaper in England.

Dr Burton was speaking the day after his successor Michael Burgess opened inquests into the deaths of Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed.

Mr Burgess said he had asked the Metropolitan Police to probe speculation that the deaths were not the result of a “straightforward, road traffic accident”.

Police in England would be asked to interview possible witnesses to find out whether their evidence was relevant to the inquests, Mr Burgess said.

Fresh allegations were made last month that Diana was pregnant at the time of the fatal car crash in Paris in August 1997.

A senior French police source told the Independent on Sunday newspaper the Princess was pregnant and that there was a “cover up of sorts” following the accident.

The source, who claimed to have seen all the relevant documents, said the pregnancy was not mentioned in the official investigation into the crash by a French judge because it was not considered relevant to either the causes of the accident or Diana’s death.

But Dr Burton, who retired as Coroner of the Queen’s Household in 2002, said the French would not have carried out a post-mortem on the Princess.

He said: “The French don’t normally examine the bodies of the passengers.”

Under the Coroners Rules in Britain, post-mortem reports must include the results of internal examinations of the deceased’s generative organs.

Dr Burton said a blood test would not be necessary to tell if the Princess was pregnant if she had been internally examined.

“You wouldn’t need to do any tests if you looked at the womb, and you are required to by the Coroners Rules,” he added.

The claim that Diana was carrying Dodi’s baby has been repeatedly voiced by Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed.

It has been consistently denied by people close to the late Princess.

Rumours were sparked in part by the decision to embalm Diana’s body in France before it was flown back to England.

It is argued the use of formaldehyde would subsequently have distorted blood tests and made it impossible to tell if she was pregnant.

Diana, 36, and 42-year-old Dodi were killed with chauffeur Henri Paul when their Mercedes crashed in a Parisian underpass on August 31, 1997.

They were pursued by paparazzi photographers after leaving the Ritz Hotel for Mr Fayed’s apartment.

A two-year investigation in France blamed Paul for losing control of the car because he was high on drink and prescription drugs and driving too fast.