French police 'always said Diana crash was accident'

French police investigating the car crash which killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed never once suggested it was anything other than a tragic accident, the inquest into their deaths heard today.

Retired detective chief superintendent Jeff Rees, who acted as senior liaison officer between the Paris police investigators and Scotland Yard, said he asked the question at every meeting he had with them.

“The answer was always an unequivocal ’No’,” he said.

Mr Rees said he was initially put in charge of organising the attendance of police photographers, exhibits officers and others at Fulham mortuary, west London, where the bodies of Diana and Dodi arrived in the late afternoon of August 31 1997 for post-mortem examination.

Dodi’s body was accompanied by his father and Harrods’ head of security.

“I expressed my condolences to Mr al Fayed and he implored me to do whatever I could to speed up the process at the mortuary because it was important for religious reasons that the body was buried before sunset that day,” said Mr Rees.

Neither Mr al Fayed nor his security chief said or implied that the deaths had been caused deliberately.

Mr Rees said he became concerned that he might be accused of a conflict of interest because, in addition to his liaison role over the accident, he was expecting to arrest Mohamed al Fayed and five of his staff on charges of theft in a case which, in the event, never came to trial.

The theft allegations had been made by Mr al Fayed’s long-term business rival Tiny Rowland who claimed property had been stolen from safe deposit boxes at Harrods. Much publicity had been given to the case and to parallel civil proceedings.

“From the outset I have made no secret of my unease that I have been involved in both inquiries,” Mr Rees said. “I was uncomfortable.”

He prepared a report about his worries, but Commander Niall Mulvihill, head of the Yard’s Organised Crime Group, told him: “There is a clear distinction between the two roles being undertaken and only the most paranoid of conspiracy theorists are likely to be drawn towards any misinterpretation.”

Mr Rees denied he was brought in by Assistant Commissioner David Veness as part of a cover-up because the deaths might have been suspicious.

He said he had an “open mind” about the crash, adding that this was an “unprecedented situation” and he wanted to take a cautious approach to the post-mortem.

He did not restrict the number of samples taken from the bodies in the post-mortem and no one at Scotland Yard had suggested to him that the deaths might be suspicious, he said.