Photographer shouted 'she's dead', Diana inquest told

One of the paparazzi who arrived at the wreckage of Diana, Princess of Wales’ Mercedes minutes after it crashed shouted to another “she’s dead, hurry up”, her inquest heard today.

The second man drove away from the scene on a scooter, a witness said.

Frenchman Yannick Chenna was driving through the Pont de l’Alma underpass in Paris with his girlfriend when he came across the horrific crash on the opposite carriageway.

As he got out of his car to see if he could help, several scooters were pulling up next to the Mercedes, he told the inquest at the High Court in London.

One of the scooter riders stopped in front of the Princess’s mangled car and remained on his machine, but there were also three people on foot around the vehicle, he said.

In a statement made to the French authorities which was read to the jury, Mr Chenna said: “The three people on foot were going round the car and were looking inside it.

“One of them was calling someone on his mobile phone. It was a brief conversation, about one or two minutes. I could not hear what the person said.

“The person on the scooter, still behind the handlebars, was located a distance of about 10 metres in front of the vehicle and was watching.

“Then suddenly that person left towards Trocadero, and one person ran after the scooter, shouting, ’she’s dead, hurry up’.”

The witness’s girlfriend, however, thought the person shouted, “she’s not dead, hurry up”, the inquest was told.

Mr Chenna said the man who ran after the scooter had opened the door of the Mercedes.

Giving evidence via videolink from Paris, he said: “He was quite solid, strong, tall, blond, with a round face, about 30.

“He was the one of the three that I can remember today who seemed to be the most worried.”

Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed were killed along with their driver Henri Paul following the crash in Paris on August 31 1997.

Mr Chenna was shown a series of photographs of paparazzi at the scene on the night of the crash.

The witness was not sure who the man who left on the scooter was, but indicated he could possibly be Serge Benhamou.

He picked out Romuald Rat as the man who shouted after the scooter, saying he was “quite sure” he was the one who opened the door of the Mercedes.

Michael Mansfield QC, counsel for Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, questioned this identification.

But Mr Chenna insisted: “That’s him, that’s the one, that’s the one who opened the door.”