First hearings for Diana inquest

Preliminary hearings for the inquest into Diana, Princess of Wales’s death will take place today.

The meetings come nearly a decade after Diana and lover Dodi Fayed were killed in a Paris car crash and three years after the inquests were first opened in 2004.

Britain’s former top female judge Baroness Butler-Sloss has come out of retirement to preside over the high profile case.

She called the initial hearings today and tomorrow in court four at the High Court in London to hear legal argument.

She will assess whether there is any need for a jury and discuss whether separate or joint inquests will be held.

Dodi’s father Harrods boss Mohamed al Fayed is to call for a jury to be made up of members of the public.

The body of Diana, who was still part of the British Royal Family when she died, lay in the chapel at St James’s Palace before her funeral, meaning any jury would have to be made up of members of the Royal Household.

Lady Butler-Sloss is also likely to set out a timetable for the inquests.

Today’s hearings were finally able to go ahead following the publication of Lord Stevens’s Metropolitan Police inquiry last month.

The multi-million pound probe, which took three years to complete, dismissed the many conspiracy theories surrounding the fatal incidents which took place in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

It concluded the crash was nothing more than a tragic accident and that driver Henri Paul was drunk and driving too fast.

Mr Al Fayed maintains the couple were murdered and claims their deaths were part of a secret plot by the British establishment.

He has branded Lord Stevens’s investigation “garbage” and a “cover-up”.

Mr Al Fayed’s legal team including barristers Michael Mansfield QC and Patrick Roche will make representations today, arguing for joint inquests and a jury made of 11 ordinary people.

Mr Al Fayed insists Diana was not a member of the royal family when she died.

The millionaire’s spokesman Michael Cole said: “It’s about the three js - joint, jury and jurisdiction. We think there should be a joint inquest as is normal practice when people die together and that there should a jury of 11 ordinary men and women drawn from the normal voting register.

“Jurisdiction is whether she (Lady Butler-Sloss) has jurisdiction in the case of Diana, Princess of Wales. She was appointed Assistant Deputy Coroner for Surrey and Deputy Coroner of The Queen's Household.

“Diana’s not in Surrey. She’s buried in Northamptonshire and as we known, she was booted out of the royal family the minute her decree absolute came through.”

Mr Al Fayed also wants the main dossier which was compiled for Lady Butler-Sloss by Lord Stevens and his team to be made public.

It includes witness statements which were not published in full in the 830-page Operation Paget report last month.

In December, Lady Butler-Sloss backed down on plans to hold the preliminary hearings in private after Mr Al Fayed threatened legal action

Diana, 36, and 42-year-old Emad El-Din Mohamed Monein Abdel Fayed, who was nicknamed Dodi, died when the car they were travelling in hit a pillar in a Paris underpass shortly after they left the Ritz Hotel pursued by the paparazzi.

A host of legal teams will descend on the High Court along with Mr Al Fayed’s lawyers.

The Queen is to be represented by the Attorney General’s Office.

Lord Goldsmith appointed the well-respected criminal barrister Sir John Nutting QC to represent her interests as monarch.

Prince William and Prince Harry’s private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton will attend, but Diana’s sons will not have legal representatives there, Clarence House said.

The Princess’s sister and executor of her estate Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Diana’s former private secretary Michael Gibbins are reported to be attending.

Henri Paul’s family will have a barrister, solicitor and French advocate in court, while the Ritz Hotel will also have lawyers.

Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones will not be there, but solicitors for Mr Rees-Jones, who was the sole survivor of the crash, will attend.

The inquests were first opened and adjourned in January 2004 when Royal Coroner Michael Burgess asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate the conspiracy theories surrounding the case.

Lady Butler-Sloss was asked to take on the task when Mr Burgess quit due to the heavy workload in the summer of 2006.

Mr Burgess was also required to provide evidence as part of the police inquiry over claims he once described the deaths as suspicious.

A two-year investigation in France, the three year Metropolitan Police inquiry and repeated legal action by Mr Al Fayed has led to the almost decade long delay in the inquests being heard in full.

Coroners aim to confirm the identity of the deceased and the details of how, when and where they were killed.

According to British law, inquests must be held into deaths abroad if they are deemed not to have occurred due to natural causes.

Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Diana, said he hoped the inquest would draw a line under the conspiracy theories.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I hope that the inquest has the benefit of putting some of those campaigning aspects to rest.

“At its best the inquest will show us that this sad matter is now settled and that we can concentrate on remembering the Princess in an entirely positive light as Princes William and Harry obviously want us to.

“It has been a long time and therefore it’s been, I imagine, an extremely painfully, drawn-out process for the Princess’ family.

“On the other hand, there has been such an atmosphere of suspicion about possible conspiracy feelings that’s grown up around it that that had to be tackled head on.”