1 April 2008 - Morning session
1 Tuesday, 1st April 2008
2 (10.00 am)
3 SUMMING-UP (continued)
4 (Jury present)
5 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Good morning, members of the
6 jury.
7 Burrell: in December 1996, Burrell joined Royal
8 service as a footman. He rose up the employment ladder
9 and became the Prince of Wales' butler at Highgrove. In
10 the spring of 1992, he ceased to work for the
11 Prince of Wales and moved to become Diana's butler in
12 London.
13 His wife was also in Royal service. They had met
14 when they were both working at Buckingham Palace.
15 Burrell's children grew up with Princes William and
16 Harry and there is no doubt that over the five and
17 a half years up to the crash, Burrell became very close
18 to Diana.
19 He described himself as being the hub of the wheel
20 to which all the spokes were connected. Not everyone
21 knew everything, he said, but he was pretty well
22 informed.
23 How should you approach his evidence, you may ask.
24 You heard him in the witness box, and even without what
25 he said subsequently in the hotel room in New York,
1
1 it was blindingly obvious, wasn't it, that the evidence
2 that he gave in this courtroom was not the truth,
3 the whole truth and nothing but the truth? He had
4 written books, one was into its second edition, and in
5 a number of ways he had cashed in on his self-styled
6 position as having been Diana's rock. It was later
7 pointed out to him in cross-examination by Mr Keen QC
8 that he had become rather a porous rock, you may
9 remember.
10 You may think that a thread running through his
11 evidence was the impression that he thought he was
12 giving and a consideration of the impact whatever he
13 said might have on any of his future enterprises. He
14 was prosecuted for theft in late 2002, but the case
15 against him was stopped and so there is no stain on his
16 character in respect of that. However, you may think
17 that he is rather bitter about having been prosecuted.
18 It may be that having heard him give evidence in this
19 court, you are left with a concern about whether what,
20 if anything, he told you can be believed.
21 I advise you to proceed with caution, especially
22 when and if you are left with the impression that he
23 only told you what he wanted you to hear. On the other
24 hand, he was close to Diana and he was particularly well
25 placed to pick up information that others were not.
2
1 I have already touched on some of his evidence when
2 considering particular topics. The fact that he has not
3 told the truth on some occasions does not mean that you
4 cannot accept anything he has told you, but you should,
5 as I say, proceed with caution.
6 He told us he was in London up until 11th July 1997
7 when Diana went to St Tropez. He went to Ireland for
8 the last two weeks of August. Earlier in August, he
9 went to Bosnia with Diana. He arranged to come back
10 from Ireland to meet Diana on Saturday 30th August 1997,
11 but she telephoned to say that she would be a day late
12 and he put back William and Harry's return from Balmoral
13 until the Monday.
14 He described Diana's relationship with Dodi as
15 being, by mid-August, "fresh, new and exciting".
16 Nevertheless, he did not have the impression that he was
17 the one. When he telephoned her from Ireland, she was
18 looking forward to coming home and seeing the boys. She
19 mentioned generous gifts and he suggested a ring would
20 be coming soon. He suggested she put it on the fourth
21 finger of her right hand. She thought this was a good
22 idea.
23 The next day she rang him via his brother-in-law's
24 telephone in Farndon and, during a long conversation,
25 said that the ring had arrived. It was a Bulgari ring
3
1 and matched the jewellery she had previously been given.
2 We have seen Diana wearing that ring, or a ring, in some
3 photographs.
4 Burrell does not mention the Farndon telephone call
5 in his first book. He says he thinks Tebbutt gave him
6 that Bulgari ring in Paris, saying, "I think you had
7 better take care of this". He says he put it in
8 the pantry at Kensington Palace along with other
9 jewellery. There were empty Bulgari presentation cases
10 among Diana's belongings. The Bulgari ring is, of
11 course, quite different from the "Tell Me Yes" ring
12 about which we have heard so much.
13 Burrell corroborates Hasnat Khan's account that
14 the relationship with him was broken off in
15 Battersea Park one night in July. But, he said, he
16 thought Diana had hopes of rekindling it and that she
17 flaunted her relationship with Dodi in public to make
18 Hasnat Khan jealous. You may think this is pure
19 speculation.
20 He said Diana had thoughts of moving abroad to
21 countries that included the United States of America and
22 South Africa.
23 Because he was concerned about Mrs Shand Kydd
24 shredding documents, he says he asked to see the Queen.
25 He said he did so because he felt it inappropriate for
4
1 members of Diana's family to rewrite history. He saw
2 the Queen at 2 pm on 19th December 1997 and claimed
3 it was a very long meeting. Lord Fellowes said he was
4 not aware of the meeting until recently, but was not
5 surprised that one should have taken place. Burrell was
6 (then at any rate) a trusted servant and such a meeting
7 could easily have been arranged.
8 Burrell's recollection of what the Queen said to him
9 was, "Be careful, Paul, no one has been as close to
10 a member of my family as you have. There are powers at
11 work in this country of which we have no knowledge. Do
12 you understand?"
13 He said he thought it was a "be careful" warning
14 over many issues. He had a lot of private information
15 about many members of the Royal Family; it was just
16 a kindness, a "be careful along your way". The phrase
17 "dark forces" was never used.
18 Members of the jury, assuming something like those
19 words were said, you may think it stretches one's
20 imagination to breaking point to conclude that they have
21 the remotest thing to do with a staged collision in
22 a tunnel three and a half months before. I ruled that
23 Her Majesty the Queen should not be questioned on this
24 and other matters, just as the Duke of Edinburgh should
25 not be called to give oral evidence to you in this
5
1 court.
2 Burrell said he thought the Burrell note, which was
3 undated, was given to him in 1996, but it might have
4 been 1995. He received many similar notes that
5 expressed Diana's thoughts and feelings at the time.
6 Burrell was questioned extensively about documents that
7 he had or had had in his possession. You may remember
8 he gave inconsistent answers and, in the end, despite
9 promises, has produced nothing except belatedly the last
10 letter relating to what has been call the "secret".
11 Burrell was asked about the Bashir Panorama
12 interview and said Diana felt ostracised and trapped and
13 that the public had a right to know how she was feeling.
14 She told him, as Simone Simmons said she had told her,
15 that she had given copies of Prince Philip's letters to
16 Martin Bashir. We have not had evidence from Mr Bashir,
17 who is in America for the American election, but he has
18 sent in a letter by email in which he said this:
19 "I do recall reading some correspondence between
20 the late Princess of Wales and His Royal Highness
21 the Duke of Edinburgh. However, it is a considerable
22 time ago and I have very little recollection, if any, of
23 content. If there had been any strong language, it is
24 likely that I would have made reference to such material
25 in my interview with the late Princess. But as you may
6
1 know, there is no reference to any such correspondence
2 during the interview. It has been repeatedly and
3 erroneously stated that I have been in possession of
4 such correspondence. I have not and do not possess any
5 letters between current/former members of the Royal
6 Family. I have absolutely no idea where they may be and
7 was never privy to any information regarding their
8 whereabouts. I hope this satisfies your request."
9 Burrell agrees that Diana compiled a dossier on her
10 landmine mission. She knew all her facts and figures
11 and took the subject very seriously. What happened to
12 her dossier, we don't know.
13 At 5 pm French time on the night of the crash,
14 Rita Rogers says she was phoned by Diana who said,
15 during the conversation, that she was aware a ring was
16 being obtained by Dodi. Burrell said that he was very
17 surprised in the circumstances that Diana did not ring
18 him and ask what to do with it as she already had one on
19 the fourth finger of her right hand.
20 Mr Mansfield put to Burrell that by 31st August
21 1997, the relationship between Dodi and Diana must have
22 appeared to the Establishment as an alliance made in
23 hell. Burrell would not accept that.
24 Interestingly, Burrell told Mr Keen that he
25 transcribed passages from Diana's correspondence into
7
1 his book without her knowledge or consent and that he
2 later burned those letters. He said the book was the
3 historical record that made his destruction acceptable,
4 whereas Mrs Shand Kydd's shredding was not.
5 He did not ask the Duke of Edinburgh for his
6 permission to transcribe letters from him to Diana. All
7 in all, you may think Burrell's behaviour has been
8 pretty shabby, but beyond the extent to which it
9 reflects on his honesty and on whether his evidence on
10 other matters is true, you may it has no impact on
11 the means by which these two people came by their
12 deaths.
13 On the penultimate day of the evidence, Graham Faux
14 described how he came to know and work for Burrell. He
15 spoke at length about a confidentiality agreement, which
16 was put forward as his explanation for not having come
17 forward himself sooner. When he did come forward, he
18 did not come to me or my office direct, but approached
19 Benson. He says -- and this is his explanation for
20 the necessity for the confidentiality agreement -- that
21 Burrell had removed a ring from Diana's body in Paris
22 and that, as there was still blood on it, he could prove
23 it was hers by DNA. Burrell told him this was an
24 engagement ring. Faux never saw it, but was asked by
25 Burrell to dispose of it, along with some jewellery and
8
1 papers that he had hidden away in the house next door to
2 his in Farndon where somebody called Maddy lived.
3 There were, he said, negotiations for Burrell to
4 make an after-dinner speech on the Cunard ship,
5 the Saga Rose. Faux, as his personal assistant, was to
6 go on the cruise with him and, at a convenient moment,
7 tip the ring and jewellery overboard with some boxes of
8 old books. Faux did not like the idea and cancelled
9 the cruise.
10 The other aspect of Faux's evidence related to
11 burning papers which, it is said, included letters with
12 Buckingham Palace letterheads and the typeface of an
13 old-fashioned typewriter. Faux was not able to say what
14 had been burned and his evidence about the colour of the
15 Buckingham Palace letterhead was wrong, according to
16 the further information received from Fellowes.
17 You have not, of course, heard Burrell in person in
18 response to Faux's evidence, but he says most of it is
19 lies and you heard Faux questioned. No one has ever
20 described the Bulgari ring as an engagement ring and
21 Faux agreed that Burrell never identified that to him as
22 an engagement ring.
23 Who is responsible for the disappearance of
24 the Bulgari ring, which has not been seen since it was
25 given to Burrell by Tebbutt to look after, is an open
9
1 question.
2 Landmines.
3 It is said that Diana's support for the
4 anti-landmine campaign provided a reason why she was an
5 embarrassment to the Establishment and consequently for
6 her murder. You may think, but it is a matter for you,
7 that even if her support was an embarrassment, any
8 connection between this and her death is a bridge too
9 far. But let's look at the evidence.
10 There is no doubt that Diana was vehemently against
11 landmines and the devastation they cause to the lives of
12 human beings. Her keenness to stop their manufacture
13 and supply would not have been welcomed by those who
14 benefited from their manufacture and sale. The subject
15 was discussed in January 1997 at a dinner party attended
16 by Diana that Maggie Rae gave in her home and at which
17 Tony and Cherie Blair and Alastair Campbell were
18 present. This was just after Diana had returned from
19 Angola and she expressed the view that, apart from
20 hostility to landmines, the Monarchy needed
21 a fundamental change if it was going to survive.
22 You will recall that the Labour Party was in
23 opposition at that time and the General Election, with
24 a consequent change of Government, was in May 1997.
25 With the change of Government came a change in policy
10
1 and the introduction of the so-called ethical foreign
2 policy. The incoming Government's policy on landmines
3 was different and the Labour Party had committed itself
4 to sign up to the Ottawa Agreement. By 31st August,
5 when the collision occurred, Mr Blair was very much part
6 of the Establishment. He was of course Prime Minister.
7 You may think it is a little difficult to understand why
8 the Establishment should have a motive for getting rid
9 of Diana when her campaign was, at least to some extent,
10 in line with Government thinking. The most relevant
11 witnesses on this aspect of the case are Soames and
12 Simone Simmons.
13 Simone Simmons said that Diana was very involved in
14 landmines and particularly when she, Simone, came back
15 from visiting Bosnia. Diana did a lot of research and
16 got a lot of information together. Simone Simmons did
17 not know where she got it from. She compiled a dossier.
18 After Diana died, Simone burned her copy of the dossier
19 which she said she had previously kept under her
20 mattress. You will remember her rather bizarre
21 description, that she had a pot big enough to take four
22 chickens which she put on the stove, covered the dossier
23 and the note Diana sent her, saying that if anything
24 happened to her, it would be MI5 or MI6 that had done
25 it, with olive oil and burned the lot.
11
1 The other evidence that Simone Simmons gave on
2 landmines related to a telephone call to Diana when she
3 was at Kensington Palace, allegedly from Soames to which
4 Simone said she listened and to which I referred
5 yesterday. The caller said Diana should not interfere
6 in matters she knew nothing about. She was being
7 criticised for involvement in the landmine campaign.
8 Simone said she had no reason to doubt Diana's
9 statement that the caller was Soames. Soames denied
10 making any such call. Diana said she would sort it out
11 in her own way, but Simone was unable to tell us what
12 Diana did. Simone was asked why there was nothing in
13 her first book about the Soames call and her response
14 was that it was heavily edited.
15 Nicholas Soames was very shocked by
16 the Martin Bashir interview on 20th November 1995 and
17 said that after being asked to do so four times, he went
18 on Panorama and spoke in strong and disapproving terms
19 about what Diana had said. At the time, he was
20 a Government minister and number 2 to the Defence
21 Secretary. He told us that he had no dealings with
22 Diana about landmines and never discussed her campaign
23 with her. It would have been inappropriate for
24 a Minister of the Crown to raise political matters with
25 any member of the Royal Family.
12
1 It was, he said, a then-current policy issue whether
2 the Conservative Government should participate in
3 the convention to remove landmines from the list of
4 prohibited weapons. Diana was being guided by
5 Bill Deedes, who I think accompanied her to Bosnia on
6 her visit in August 1997. Soames did not, in
7 February 1997, have a discussion with Diana about
8 landmines or indeed anything. He and his wife had been
9 quite close friends with Prince Charles and Diana and,
10 indeed, he and Prince Charles were still close friends,
11 but it was a long time before 1997 that he had last
12 spoken to Diana.
13 He was asked about what he had said on Panorama and
14 agreed he had said that she was a totally unguided
15 missile. Also, he regretted saying that she was in an
16 advanced stage of paranoia.
17 The United Kingdom's defence industry is or was
18 the second or third biggest in the world and British
19 companies made landmines, but this was not Soames'
20 territory and he was, at the relevant time, Minister for
21 the Armed Forces. Everyone respected the Red Cross
22 campaign, of which Diana and Bill Deedes were a part.
23 He said that Earl Howe had said that she was
24 ill-advised, ill-informed and a loose cannon to go to
25 Angola.
13
1 Soames remembered that whilst she was in Angola, she
2 was angry about briefings against her, but he did not
3 know who was responsible. He did not make any call to
4 Diana. It was a grotesque suggestion that she phoned
5 Diana and threatened her with an accident. She was not
6 someone who would be pushed around and if he had phoned
7 and threatened her, she would have gone ballistic. Her
8 campaign against landmines was undoubtedly a very
9 admirable campaign and he never spoke to her about it.
10 So, members of the jury, you may think that Diana
11 was passionately committed to the anti-landmine campaign
12 and it was a more than very worthwhile cause to support.
13 She may have been annoying and caused embarrassment to
14 those who argued the case for not banning them, but
15 surely after the change of Government in May 1997, her
16 campaign was running on parallel tracks to Government
17 policy rather than against it.
18 Police treatment of the Mishcon note.
19 The Mishcon note you will remember arose out of
20 a meeting on 30th October 1995 and it remained in
21 Mishcon's office until after the crash. Mishcon is no
22 longer alive and so we have no evidence from him, but he
23 was plainly troubled about what he should do with it
24 after the crash. He got in touch with Condon and there
25 was a meeting on 18th September 1997 attended by Veness,
14
1 Condon, the then Commissioner of Metropolitan Police,
2 and Mishcon. It was agreed that if the note became
3 relevant, Mishcon or his firm must be informed before
4 it was disclosed. Veness made a note of the meeting.
5 Veness and Condon were questioned at great length
6 over the Mishcon note and so indeed was Stevens,
7 although he did not come on the scene until the
8 beginning of 2000.
9 Mr Mansfield suggested that the contents of the note
10 became highly relevant after Diana's death and that it
11 should have been acted on then and there by conveying
12 its contents to those conducting the French
13 investigation and that it should also have been drawn to
14 the attention of the Coroner.
15 There are three possibilities. Either the police
16 got it right in not disclosing the note but keeping
17 the situation under review, a course with which
18 incidentally Mishcon agreed, or they got it wrong, they
19 should have disclosed it but they were doing their best
20 to make the right decision. The third possibility is
21 that they deliberately covered it up, knowing that they
22 ought to disclose it.
23 Let's look at what the witnesses had to say. Veness
24 said they were focused on the French investigation.
25 It was reading too much into the note to conclude that
15
1 agents of the state were going to be putting Diana
2 aside. What had happened (or not happened) between
3 the date of the note and when they saw it was relevant.
4 He did not think there was any obligation to draw it to
5 the attention of the Coroner at that stage.
6 The inquests were not opened, you will remember, until
7 January 2000, and this was September 1997.
8 Condon went into the matter in rather more detail.
9 As conveyed by Mishcon and the note, Diana's fear was
10 a very specific and time-limited one and had nothing to
11 do with Dodi. The decision not to release the note was
12 made in the context that Mishcon had been thinking about
13 it for 18 days. Condon, not surprisingly, was very
14 concerned about the Princes -- then aged 15 and 12 --
15 becoming aware of the thoughts their mother had had,
16 especially against their father.
17 Further, any publicity would play into the hands of
18 those who suggested Diana was unbalanced. He said that
19 Diana's sisters and brother were aware of the content of
20 the note and he was happy to discuss it with them.
21 Lady Sarah McCorquodale said that they were not aware of
22 it. So there is a conflict in the evidence, but whether
23 it takes you any further is a matter for you.
24 Condon discussed the situation with Veness after
25 Mishcon had left. Neither was aware of anything to
16
1 suggest the collision was anything other than a tragic
2 accident. They were working closely with the French,
3 and if anything required them to revisit the note, they
4 would do so. He and Veness were in regular contact.
5 The Coroner's letter to Burrell of
6 28th October 2003 -- and we might have that up on the
7 screen if Mr Foley can find it -- was put to Condon and
8 it was suggested there was a plain duty on him to
9 disclose the note to the Coroner in September 1997. He
10 did not agree, saying he felt he had various options
11 falling short of an obligation.
12 It was suggested that the Coroner could have kept
13 the note completely confidential, with which Condon
14 agreed, but he said he did not feel under any legal
15 obligation to disclose the note at that stage. Nor,
16 obviously, did Mishcon, Maggie Rae or Sandra Davis.
17 It was then put to Condon that he was part of a criminal
18 conspiracy by covering up the note, an allegation with
19 which, not surprisingly, he vehemently disagreed. His
20 obligation, he said, was to the French, to liaise with
21 them and support them. He said he thought very
22 seriously about whether the note should be disclosed to
23 the French. It would have been the easy way out.
24 Condon was asked, having decided not to disclose
25 the note, what happened about subsequent review
17
1 meetings. He said that was not the way it worked.
2 It was a question of becoming aware of any other
3 information that might trigger action. No other
4 information emerged until the publication of the Burrell
5 note in October 2003. Whether the decision not to
6 disclose the note in September 1997 was the right one or
7 the wrong one may not matter a row of beans to your
8 verdict if the decision was an honest one. Only if
9 it was a dishonest one, done deliberately to cover up
10 a staged accident, would it be relevant.
11 I think we are probably not going to get a copy of
12 the note.
13 On 19th January 2000, Condon briefed his successor,
14 Stevens, and he read the note. There were various
15 things in the commissioner's safe at the time of the
16 handover to Stevens that Stevens had to be briefed about
17 and this was one of them. Incidentally, when the
18 Burrell note was published in October 2003, Condon
19 telephoned Stevens to make sure the note was still there
20 and that action would be taken on it.
21 Stevens was Commissioner from January 2000 until
22 the end of 2005. Initially, the Metropolitan Police
23 were acting simply as coroner's officers, but on
24 21st August 2003, he had a letter from Michael Burgess,
25 my predecessor, inviting him to investigate
18
1 Mohamed Al Fayed's allegations. He replied saying that,
2 in his view, the matter should continue to be pursued by
3 the French authorities at that stage. It was only at
4 the end of that year that the French inquiry finally
5 concluded. Operation Paget began in 2004, the inquests
6 having been formally opened on 6th January 2004.
7 Stevens knew nothing about the Mishcon note until
8 the handover, which he said took place exactly as Condon
9 had described. Mishcon contacted Stevens when
10 the Burrell note became public. There was a meeting and
11 the Metropolitan Police took advice from their lawyers.
12 Stevens felt it should be disclosed to the Coroner.
13 Mishcon still had some reservations about
14 confidentiality and was also concerned about the hurt
15 that disclosure might cause.
16 The note was disclosed to the Coroner, reaching him
17 on 22nd December 2003, just before the inquests were
18 opened. Stevens explained that it did not go to the
19 then coroner earlier (1) because of the confidentiality
20 issue and (2) because several things predicted in
21 the note had not occurred. Stevens further said that
22 the French inquiry was still ongoing and Veness had not
23 alerted him to any new issue having arisen that might
24 indicate disclosure.
25 In short, Lord Stevens said he accepted
19
1 Lord Condon's advice when he took over as Commissioner
2 as to why he had not disclosed the note and that was it.
3 The fact is the Mishcon note did eventually see
4 the light of day and it is a matter for you to decide
5 whether the sentiments expressed by Diana as recorded in
6 it throw any light on the cause of the collision.
7 Whether the note would ever have entered the public
8 domain but for the Burrell note is perhaps a matter of
9 conjecture.
10 Andanson.
11 If Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were murdered in
12 furtherance of a conspiracy, there must have been
13 someone who deliberately caused the Mercedes to lose
14 control and crash. That person, said Mohamed Al Fayed
15 in his evidence, was James Andanson, who executed the
16 murder in his own Fiat and was later himself murdered.
17 No one else has been identified as the assassin.
18 If someone else did stage the collision, we have no
19 idea who he or they were. As the evidence has unfolded,
20 the allegation has moved away from a white Fiat Uno to
21 a blocking vehicle, but the inescapable fact remains
22 that the Fiat, whoever was driving it, was in collision
23 with the Mercedes.
24 It is a statement of the obvious that if Andanson
25 was not in Paris, he could not have done the deed.
20
1 Let's first look therefore at the evidence whether he
2 was in Paris on the night of the crash. Francoise
3 Dard's late husband was a well-known writer. He died on
4 6th June 2000. Andanson used to visit the Dards twice
5 a year. He visited them in Bonnefontaine during the
6 Christmas holidays in 1997 -- I think that is in
7 Switzerland -- and took some photographs in the morning.
8 He stayed and chatted thereafter and, as always, was
9 enthusiastic and voluble.
10 Francoise said that he told them that he was present
11 at Le Bourget when Dodi and Diana got off the plane. He
12 said he followed them to the apartment and the Ritz,
13 having chased them on his motorbike. Then he cleverly
14 waited for the convoy to leave the Ritz, having placed
15 himself in another location. He had seen the car in
16 which they were proposing to leave, which was not
17 the one the other photographers were following. He
18 followed the car with Dodi and Diana in it on
19 a motorbike, witnessed the crash and took photographs of
20 the crash scene. The photographs were kept in a safe.
21 He did not say where the safe was or how he had got to
22 Paris.
23 At the time of the conversation, she believed it was
24 true. The photographs would cause "un boum" (they were
25 explosive) when they were published. In fact, no one
21
1 has ever seen his photographs. They have certainly
2 never been published.
3 He also claimed he was smarter than the other
4 photographers following the Princess of Wales as he got
5 away without being apprehended by the police. Another
6 photograph that he claimed to have taken was
7 the well-known toe-sucking photograph of the
8 Duchess of York and her boyfriend. He claimed to have
9 taken the photograph hidden in a tree in a neighbour's
10 property, but that photograph is known to have been
11 taken by another photographer, one from the Angeli
12 agency.
13 No one saw Andanson in Paris on the day of
14 the crash. He had a reputation for telling tall stories
15 and making out that he was smarter than other
16 photographers. The information that he gave the Dards
17 was all in the public domain and could readily have been
18 obtained from the newspapers.
19 The conversation described by Francoise Dard was at
20 least in part corroborated by Josephine Dard, her
21 daughter, so you may think Andanson clearly said these
22 things. However, you may think that his account to
23 the Dards was not true because there is compelling
24 evidence that he went to Corsica in the small hours of
25 the Sunday morning. The account that he gave the Dards
22
1 was that he was quite openly in Paris during the day and
2 that he was openly in the tunnel at night taking
3 photographs. These, you may think, are hardly
4 the actions of a hired killer. No one saw Andanson in
5 Paris at all, and yet he was a well-known figure,
6 particularly to the other paparazzi.
7 Inspector Carpenter has reviewed the CCTV footage
8 and the paparazzi photographs and has found no image of
9 Andanson. There is also the fact that Andanson told
10 the Dards that he was on his motorbike and not driving
11 his Fiat Uno.
12 You heard from Christophe Lafaille, who was
13 a journalist with Paris Match for many years, until
14 1998. He knew Andanson, who worked for the Sygma agency
15 until the end of August 1997, and then for the Sipa
16 Agency. He confirmed Andanson did not take
17 the Duchess of York photograph which was taken for
18 the Angeli agency.
19 Andanson died in May 2000. There have been rumours
20 in the press that he was killed. The French
21 investigation into his death decided he had committed
22 suicide in his car, setting fire to it. This is not an
23 inquest into his death so we have only explored that
24 aspect of the case relatively superficially, but you may
25 think there was evidence for the French to reach
23
1 the conclusion that they did.
2 Shortly before Andanson died, Lafaille made an
3 appointment to meet him for lunch on the day that he
4 died. Andanson phoned to cancel on the morning of his
5 death. Lafaille told us that he had problems with those
6 whom he described as "close to Harrods" trying to
7 misrepresent this lunch appointment as being not on the
8 day Andanson died but on 30th August 1997, thus putting
9 Andanson in Paris that day when he was not.
10 As to the suicide, Lafaille said that Andanson
11 expressed thoughts of suicide to four people:
12 Sophie Deniau, Frank Doveri, Jean-Gabriel Barthelemy and
13 Christian Maillard. Lafaille had discussed this with
14 two of them. Andanson had mentioned to three of the
15 four the possibility of setting fire to himself in
16 a car, but Andanson never told Lafaille that he would
17 commit suicide if his wife was having an affair. He
18 only discovered that Andanson had said this after his
19 death.
20 If Andanson had taken photographs in the underpass,
21 Lafaille said he would have been an obvious person to
22 whom to mention this because he was the editor of
23 Paris Match at the time, but he never did. To
24 Lafaille's knowledge, the only photographs brought out
25 of the tunnel were those of Chassery and Odekerken.
24
1 Those pictures were first brought to Paris Match, he
2 said, and then distributed to newspapers. Paris Match
3 decided not to publish them.
4 Paris Match had wanted photographs and had assigned
5 Sola's agency to get them. Lafaille told Mr Croxford he
6 would not have been surprised if Andanson had turned up
7 in Paris on 30th August 1997, but he knew next day that
8 his agency was covered by two other photographers. On
9 the other hand, Lafaille told Mr Hough in re-examination
10 that he would not have been surprised if Andanson would
11 have chosen not to be in Paris that day because the big
12 scoop, "The Kiss", had already been obtained by
13 Mario Brenna.
14 Lafaille knows a lot of people in the photographic
15 world and he said no one had ever said to him that
16 Andanson was in Paris on the night of the crash.
17 Let's look next, therefore, at the evidence of what
18 Andanson was doing. Elisabeth Andanson told us that in
19 the summer of 1997, as in other years, Andanson was in
20 the South of France. Indeed, with other photographers,
21 he had chartered a boat. His diary was produced and you
22 will remember he paid off all the invoices that were due
23 on 27th August and returned home.
24 According to the diary, on the evening of
25 30th August, he was at home. On 31st August, very
25
1 early, he set off for Corsica to see and photograph
2 Gilbert Becaud. You may think -- but it is a matter for
3 you -- that there is no doubt at all that he went there.
4 You have seen the autoroute toll tickets and the return
5 air ticket and the car rental document for the vehicle
6 he hired when he arrived in Corsica. You have also seen
7 credit card statements referring to a hotel and
8 restaurant in Corsica. You have the documents in your
9 jury bundle.
10 Elisabeth Andanson says he spent part of Saturday
11 30th August writing a long letter saying why he was
12 dissatisfied with Sygma. The letter is referred to in
13 his diary and we have it. You will remember he moved to
14 Sipa and there was an issue about which agency he was
15 taking the Becaud photographs for. Elisabeth Andanson
16 says that she went to Paris by car on the afternoon of
17 30th August to see Hubert Henrotte about borrowing
18 money. She got home about 8 pm and told you that her
19 husband set off about 4 am the next morning.
20 You may remember her telling us that her husband
21 used to telephone up to ten times a day to tell her
22 things and that indeed he did phone her in
23 the early hours of Sunday 31st August on his way to
24 the airport to tell her that he had had a call from
25 a photographer to say that Lady Di had died.
26
1 Another small, but you think may think relevant,
2 piece of evidence was a photograph of the Becaud
3 sitting-room taken by Andanson, with the television
4 visible, and reference on the screen to going over live
5 to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital for the latest
6 information.
7 One unexplained, but you may think irrelevant,
8 mystery is the toll ticket that shows an apparent
9 journey to Vierzon in the early hours of Saturday
10 30th August. It shows a quick turnaround and was paid
11 for by Andanson's credit card.
12 James Andanson Junior says he was at home on
13 the night of 30th August and went to see a friend,
14 returning between 12.30 and 1 am. He told you he had
15 borrowed his father's BMW car for the journey. When
16 originally interviewed by the police, he said his father
17 had been away in Bordeaux on that weekend, but he now
18 says that was a mistake. He was only 18 years old at
19 the time and felt that the police pressured him. He
20 thought his mother's evidence was correct, that his
21 father was at home on the night of 30th August, but he
22 could not remember him going to Corsica. He said his
23 father seemed worried before his death, but not
24 suicidal. He did not know what about.
25 You may think it was likely that James Junior was
27
1 mistaken about Bordeaux since Andanson's diary referred
2 to a visit to that part of the country on 5th September,
3 the following weekend. Andanson himself, when first
4 approached by the police in February 1998, told them he
5 did not have time to waste and that he had been in
6 St Tropez on the night of the crash.
7 The police wanted to speak to him because they had
8 had a tip-off by an anonymous informant that he was
9 the owner of a white Fiat Uno that showed traces of
10 impact on the left rear. What Andanson initially told
11 the police was not true, but he rectified the position
12 almost immediately afterwards, when seen by the police
13 in Paris, telling them that he had been at home on the
14 night in question and that he had gone in the early
15 hours of Sunday 31st August to Bonifacio in Corsica to
16 see M Becaud.
17 Commandant Mules said that Andanson justified
18 everything the police asked him to justify and
19 apologised for having lied to Lieutenant Gigou the
20 previous day. Mules told you that Andanson said that he
21 believed Gigou's call was a prank. Andanson also told
22 the police about the history of his white Fiat Uno,
23 about which you heard other evidence as well. In short,
24 he bought it in 1988 and used it for a number of years
25 before his mother-in-law had it for a year. It saw out
28
1 its last days on Andanson's smallholding, where its job
2 was to convey the dustbins to the entrance gates.
3 It was not taxed or insured.
4 You heard from Jean-Francois Langlois, who managed
5 car dealerships near Andanson's home town. Andanson
6 sold the vehicle to him on 4th November 1997 in
7 part-exchange for another vehicle. It was driven to
8 Langlois by Elisabeth Andanson, who was worried that it
9 was unsafe to drive even a short distance.
10 Langlois was in the process of disposing of it for
11 scrap when the police came and seized it in
12 February 1998. He said he would not have wanted to
13 drive it on a road. An inquiry agent instructed by
14 Mohamed Al Fayed had tried to buy it the week before,
15 but Langlois would not sell it to someone other than
16 a professional for reasons of safety. The history of
17 the Fiat Uno was corroborated by Elisabeth Andanson.
18 She also said that the photographs of the
19 Duchess of York with John Bryan were not Andanson's
20 photographs and were exclusive to the Angeli agency.
21 However, Andanson knew about them as soon as they had
22 been taken.
23 Elisabeth Andanson had doubts about her husband's
24 suicide to start with, but eventually concluded that he
25 had indeed taken his own life. On the day he died, he
29
1 left his wallet and his mobile phone in his office and
2 he also wrote to the Sipa Agency, assigning his
3 royalties to Mrs Andanson. She also confirmed that she
4 was, at the time of his death, having an affair. She
5 said it was absurd to suggest that Andanson was in Paris
6 on the night of the crash.
7 Members of the jury, you may think there is good
8 evidence that Andanson did not drive his Fiat Uno in
9 the Paris underpass and deliberately cause the crash.
10 You may think it was not his Fiat Uno that was involved
11 in the collision. Scientific evidence was ultimately
12 unable to rule it in or rule it out. If you accept his
13 vehicle was untaxed, uninsured and unfit to go on the
14 public road, you may think it would have been
15 astonishing for him to have driven it the 180-odd miles
16 to Paris and back on a murder mission.
17 There was, of course, Andanson's motorbike. It is
18 theoretically possible he caused the collision in some
19 way with that. You may think, however, that there are
20 insuperable problems on this too. First of all, no one
21 saw Andanson in Paris that night and he is so well known
22 that it would surely have been inevitable that someone
23 would have seen him. Secondly, he would know that he
24 was likely to be recognised. Third, there was evidence
25 that he was at home that night and set off for Corsica
30
1 in the early hours of the Sunday morning.
2 No one disputes that a white Fiat Uno collided with
3 the Mercedes and, if it was not Andanson, it must have
4 been someone else's. Did that person deliberately
5 collide with the Mercedes? There is, I suggest, no
6 evidence from which you could draw such an inference.
7 It would be a very difficult thing to do without the
8 risk of coming off worse because the Fiat is the much
9 lighter vehicle. Or is the more likely picture that the
10 Fiat had been in the path or moved into the path of
11 the fast-moving Mercedes which had accidentally clipped
12 it?
13 One of the curious features of the evidence of the
14 collision is that it is only the Dauzonnes and possibly
15 Souad Moufakkir who saw the Fiat Uno and yet it is
16 beyond doubt that a Fiat Uno was in contact with
17 the Mercedes. The Dauzonnes had had dinner with friends
18 and were returning home. George Dauzonne was driving
19 and his wife was a passenger. They took the sliproad to
20 join the expressway at the Avenue de New York. As he
21 was coming down the sliproad, he saw a car leaving
22 the tunnel. It seemed to be crossing the zebra lines
23 which marked the expressway from the sliproad.
24 The driver was adjusting his mirror and pulled to his
25 left. Mr Dauzonne's reaction at the time was that
31
1 the driver was, as he put it, "totally drunk".
2 The following day, after he had learned of
3 the collision, he thought it was more likely that he was
4 in shock. The driver of the Fiat stopped and
5 Mr Dauzonne passed him to get out of the way. He was
6 able to identify the car as a white Fiat Uno, as his
7 mother-in-law owned one. It was not in good condition
8 and was dirty and had a 78 or 92 registration. It was
9 certainly not a 75 registration, which was his
10 mother-in-law's. He especially looked at the vehicle to
11 ensure that it was not his mother-in-law's. There was
12 a big dog in the back, wearing a red bandana around its
13 neck.
14 The driver appeared to be nearer 40 than 50, with
15 short black hair. He was tanned and wearing
16 a bomber jacket. He was not white caucasian.
17 After he had passed the Fiat, Mr Dauzonne looked in
18 his mirror and the Fiat appeared to stop and then start
19 again. Mr Dauzonne heard no horn and was not aware of
20 a collision until next morning, when he put two and two
21 together and got in touch with the police.
22 Mr Dauzonne agreed the car was zigzagging as it came
23 out of the tunnel and that this would have prevented
24 cars travelling behind from safely overtaking it. In
25 answer to Mr Croxford, he said that the Fiat driver
32
1 seemed to be bothered by something in his rear-vision
2 mirror and you may think that he was aware that he had
3 been in a collision and was weighing up whether to stop.
4 Madame Dauzonne gave a similar account. The car was
5 like her mother's, so she paid it a lot of attention.
6 The car was dirty and there was only the driver and
7 the dog in it. She said "We thought the driver was
8 drunk. He seemed to be looking for something in the
9 tunnel". She too described the driver as white-skinned,
10 but tanned, most likely from the European region. She
11 too saw the big dog in the back and thought it was
12 a German Shepherd with an orange muzzle or a bandana.
13 She said that when they were alongside the Fiat, she had
14 an unobstructed view of the man.
15 After the evidence of debris at the scene showed
16 that the Mercedes had collided with a white Fiat Uno,
17 the French commenced a major investigation into Unos in
18 the areas which matched the registration details given
19 by the Dauzonnes. Two white Fiat Unos have featured in
20 the evidence and the scientific evidence has ultimately
21 ruled neither vehicle in or out of having been in
22 a collision with the Mercedes. One of the Fiats you
23 have heard about belonged to Andanson and the other to
24 a man called Le Van Thanh.
25 Both the Dauzonnes were shown some photographs
33
1 during the course of their evidence because some of the
2 interested persons wanted that to be done. This was
3 with a view to seeing if they could identify the driver
4 of the Fiat. You may remember that the videolink broke
5 down during the course of this exercise and it was some
6 time before the link could be properly re-established.
7 But showing photographs to witnesses in this way is not
8 a very satisfactory way of making a positive
9 identification. What Mrs Dauzonne said was this:
10 "Well, it is very difficult, but I would say that
11 the man on the first two photographs clearly rings
12 a bell."
13 The man in those photographs was Le Van Thanh and in
14 one he was accompanied by his dog. Mr Dauzonne said
15 the man with the red car, Le Van Thanh, refreshed his
16 memory a little, but he could not really say. You will
17 recall the evidence that Le Van Thanh had painted his
18 car red but it was previously white.
19 Now, this identification does not prove that
20 Le Van Thanh was the driver of the Fiat Uno, but you may
21 think it goes some way to confirming that Andanson was
22 not.
23 You heard evidence from Sergeant Easton about the
24 investigations into Le Van Thanh. He provided an alibi
25 for the night of the crash which has been investigated.
34
1 There is some support for his alibi. Where does this
2 all leave us?
3 You may think there is very strong evidence that
4 Andanson was not driving his white Fiat Uno in
5 the Alma Tunnel that night or any other vehicle and that
6 he was not involved in the collision. You may think it
7 has not been proved who the Fiat driver was.
8 Missing Photographs.
9 As you have heard many times now, no photographs
10 have ever come to light which show the Mercedes after it
11 had left the rear of the Ritz but before the crash, even
12 though some witnesses such as Bonnin and Partouche
13 described seeing camera flashes.
14 You have heard that the photographers who certainly
15 were in a position to have been following the Mercedes
16 closely were Rat, Benhamou, Arnal, Martinez and
17 Odekerken. It is unclear whether Chassery and Langevin
18 could have been. The others could not have been
19 following closely on the journey from the Ritz.
20 After the crash, the French police seized films from
21 Arnal, Langevin, Martinez, Rat and Veres, but it is not
22 clear whether they seized all the films or whether
23 photographers got film out of the tunnel.
24 Chassery and Odekerken got out of the tunnel with
25 their photographs and took them to Laurent Sola,
35
1 the head of the LSD agency. Sola set about trying to
2 sell those photographs in the United Kingdom through the
3 Big Pictures agency, which was managed by the colourful
4 Darryn Lyons, who you may remember gave evidence by
5 videolink from Australia.
6 Mr Lyons, in turn, sent the photographs to the News
7 of the World. Last year you heard evidence from
8 Mr Lennox, the picture editor of The Sun, who received,
9 on the night of the crash, some photographs which have
10 been identified as taken by Chassery and Odekerken.
11 They bore the Big Pictures logo.
12 Mr Lennox gave evidence that he was first alerted
13 about the crash and about the photographs by a person
14 who he thought was Rat, but he accepted that he could
15 have been wrong about that. In any event, after
16 the crash, everyone stopped trying to market or publish
17 the photographs. Sola claims to have handed over to
18 the police all of Chassery and Odekerken's photographs
19 and we have what he handed over.
20 There were some features of the evidence which
21 suggested that some of the paparazzi might have got
22 their photographs out, perhaps through colleagues.
23 The strips of negatives which Benhamou provided to
24 the police seemed to leave gaps. The first photographs
25 which we have, which Martinez took, were some time after
36
1 the crash, but he was one of the first out of the
2 tunnel. On the other hand, none of the witnesses admits
3 to having seen photographs of the Mercedes on its final
4 journey. That includes agency directors and media
5 figures such as Lafaille. M Sipa had heard vague
6 rumours about such photographs.
7 Did the paparazzi try to take flash photographs on
8 the journey or are some of the eye witnesses mistaken?
9 If they did try this, did their photographs come out?
10 If they did, what has happened to them? This is an
11 intriguing subplot, but it may well take you nowhere.
12 There could be many motives for suppressing or
13 destroying photographs, the most obvious being that
14 the photographer would want to distance himself from
15 the Mercedes.
16 We will now break off for quarter of an hour and
17 restart at 20 past 11.
18 (11.06 am)
19 (A short break)
20 (11.22 am)
21 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Cherruault, Big Pictures and
22 the Sipa burglary.
23 Next, I come to the topic of incidents involving
24 photographers and photographic agencies. The burglary
25 of Mr Cherruault's home, the incident at Big Pictures
37
1 and the Sipa burglary. I can deal with these very
2 briefly.
3 Mr Cherruault was a photographer specialising in
4 the Royal Family. His home was burgled on the night
5 after the night of the crash in Paris. The burglars
6 took various valuable items, including computers, and
7 drove off in his wife's car. He always believed and
8 continues to believe that the burglary was a simple
9 crime, despite the coincidence of timing. However, he
10 recalled a conversation with a crime prevention officer
11 from which he understood that the officer was suggesting
12 that he had been targeted by some form of security
13 agency.
14 You heard from the crime prevention officer, who
15 denied having said that. It could be that this was just
16 a misunderstanding between the two of them. In any
17 event, Mr Cherruault had no connection to the events in
18 Paris.
19 The Big Pictures agency in London received a number
20 of threats in the days after the crash. Then, on Friday
21 5th September 1997, the staff came back from dinner to
22 find the agency offices in darkness. Mr Lyons
23 remembered hearing a ticking sound and seeing a light
24 inside the office and was worried in the light of the
25 threats. He was later told by the police that
38
1 the ticking sound came from clocks in the newsroom and
2 that the light came from a computer screen. The police
3 found no sign of forced entry or any foul play. You may
4 well conclude that the events at Big Pictures are of no
5 relevance to your task.
6 Sipa is the agency which employed James Andanson
7 from September 1997 to his death in May 2000. Its
8 offices in Paris were burgled in June 2000, and
9 the suggestion has been made that the burglary was
10 undertaken to recover photographs of his. You heard
11 evidence from the police that they investigated
12 professional criminals who were in the area at the time
13 of the burglary, but those people were never prosecuted
14 because they could not be picked out in a line-up.
15 The burglars stole computer equipment, and although
16 one item stolen seems to have belonged to Andanson,
17 the owner of the agency denied that Andanson's own
18 office had been entered by the burglars. In any event,
19 in view of the evidence to the effect that Andanson was
20 not in Paris on the night of the crash, you may think
21 that the Sipa burglary is another red herring.
22 Henri Paul and drink.
23 There is an issue about what part, if any, alcoholic
24 drink played in the collision. It is important to reach
25 your conclusion on this issue on the whole of the
39
1 evidence and to have in mind the complete picture.
2 Science should be the servant and not the master in
3 situations like this.
4 We have spent a great deal of time examining
5 the pathological and toxicological evidence of what
6 happened in France. Unfortunately, most of those who
7 dealt with the relevant matters in France, most
8 particularly Professor Lecomte and Dr Pepin, have chosen
9 not to give evidence.
10 Four experts from this country have examined the
11 scientific evidence in detail and given their opinion
12 about it. In some instances, opinions differed. It
13 would have been much better had you heard from
14 the horse's mouth, then you could have had first-hand
15 explanations for apparent deficiencies in what was done
16 or not done and you would have been better able to form
17 your own view about the weight to be placed on
18 the French results.
19 Let me start with the background. Dr Dominique Melo
20 was not only a friend, but Henri Paul's doctor. Her
21 evidence was read to you relatively recently.
22 Henri Paul had been on a few days' holiday with
23 the Melos in Spain at the end of July 1997. He was, she
24 said, a secretive man who did not discuss his feelings
25 and dealt with his personal problems on his own.
40
1 She prescribed an anti-depressant in the year before
2 his death. She said he had feelings of extreme solitude
3 and isolation which led him, on occasion, to drink
4 outside a social context, namely alone at home. She
5 also prescribed Aotal, which causes a dislike of
6 alcohol, the efficacy of which is relative, and
7 Tiapride.
8 When he was not working or on holiday, he did not
9 take this medication so that he could drink alcohol in
10 reasonable quantities in a social context. She
11 authorised him to do this because he did not have
12 the classical signs of a chronic alcoholic. He had
13 a medical for his pilot's licence just before he died,
14 and passed. Those medicals are thorough. On holiday,
15 he drank like everyone else, but not to excess. She
16 says she was convinced that he would not have drunk
17 alcohol knowing he might have to drive a car, which led
18 her to believe that circumstances led him to do so.
19 We heard evidence that Henri Paul obtained regular
20 prescriptions of Aotal in the months before he died. No
21 trace of Aotal was, however, found at post mortem, and,
22 of course, he had been given the all-clear by Dr Melo
23 not to take Aotal if he wanted to drink. An empty Aotal
24 packet was found in the waste-paper basket in his
25 office.
41
1 His close friend, Claude Garrec, gave evidence.
2 They met, he said, about three times a week and Garrec
3 had been on the holiday with the Melos and Henri Paul in
4 July. He said Henri Paul was someone who could well
5 manage his consumption of alcohol. He had a very high
6 tolerance. He could drink four Ricards and a few beers
7 without any apparent ill effects. That is what Garrec
8 had told the police. Sometimes he drove after having
9 a drink, but he always got home after the party and he
10 had no points on his licence.
11 On the Saturday, he played tennis with Henri Paul in
12 the morning. They had a non-alcoholic drink and
13 a sandwich for lunch and he drove Henri Paul home.
14 Henri Paul said he was going to pick Dodi and Diana at
15 the airport.
16 In cross-examination by Mr Keen, he said Henri Paul
17 was not tee-total; he was just normal, a "bon vivant".
18 If asked to drive by Dodi Al Fayed after having had
19 something to drink, Garrec said Henri Paul would have
20 done so.
21 You are not directly concerned with Henri Paul's
22 background and habits, although any acquired tolerance
23 for drink could be important, but what he actually drank
24 on the night in question. There is direct evidence that
25 he consumed two 5cl measures of Ricard, which is said to
42
1 be roughly the equivalent of four single measures of
2 whisky. This was in the two-hour period before leaving
3 the hotel.
4 There is no direct evidence that Henri Paul drank
5 alcohol between 7 and 10 pm, since we do not know how he
6 spent those three hours. He certainly had the
7 opportunity to drink at that time and the evidence is
8 that he was not expecting to return to work that night.
9 There is abundant CCTV footage to show that
10 Henri Paul did not display any obvious signs as having
11 been drinking. Indeed, at one point he can be seen
12 bending down and tying his shoelaces without any
13 apparent difficulty. The visible evidence on the CCTV
14 is supported by members of the Ritz staff. Witnesses
15 who expressly said they noticed nothing to suggest he
16 had been drinking include Jean-Pierre Allidiere,
17 Philippe Doucin, Philippe Dourneau, Jean-Francois Musa,
18 Trevor Rees, Thierry Rocher, Francois Tendil,
19 Sebastien Trote, Kes Wingfield and no doubt others.
20 The one exception was Alain Willaumez. Willaumez
21 served Henri Paul with one of his two Ricards. He
22 described Henri Paul as appearing to be drunk. It was
23 noticeable in his eyes and the way he spoke, but most
24 specifically in his eyes. When he left the bar, he
25 clumsily bumped into Vincent L'Ottelier, but that is not
43
1 borne out by Mr L'Ottelier, or the CCTV, which shows him
2 leaving the Bar Vendome in a normal manner.
3 When Roulet returned to give evidence, having read
4 some of the other evidence on the website, he said that
5 the working relationship between Willaumez and
6 Henri Paul was very bad and Willaumez actually disliked
7 Paul. So Willaumez may have had a motive for giving
8 evidence about Paul that was untrue. The other thing
9 Roulet said, when he returned, was that he had
10 remembered meeting Dourneau and Musa in the tunnel after
11 the crash and that they had come up to him and said Paul
12 was not in a normal state and Dourneau had said he
13 seemed a bit drunk. Musa said they could not say that
14 publicly because everyone knew Henri Paul was protected
15 by Klein. Dourneau and Musa denied this conversation,
16 although it appears that they were in the tunnel after
17 the crash.
18 Mr Keen, on behalf of the Paul family, perfectly
19 reasonably you may think, attacked Roulet's credibility,
20 pointing out it was difficult to see how Roulet should
21 suddenly have a clear recollection of such
22 a conversation ten and a half years after the collision
23 if he had never mentioned it before.
24 Members of the jury, it is for you to decide what,
25 if any, reliance you place on Roulet's recent evidence.
44
1 It is to be observed, however, that what he said about
2 the relationship between Willaumez and Paul was helpful
3 to Henri Paul, intending to show that Willaumez's
4 evidence about Henri Paul's condition could indeed be
5 unreliable.
6 On the Monday after the collision, that is
7 1st September, Willaumez says Klein saw him and told him
8 the bodyguards had said Henri Paul had drunk some
9 fruit juice and showed no sign of being drunk. He said
10 they should stick to that line for the good of the Royal
11 Family.
12 He said he had a conversation with Tendil, who
13 reminded him of Klein's instructions, saying "We should
14 not remember anything". However, he accepted in
15 cross-examination that Klein told him not to talk to
16 guests or the media about the events. Later, between
17 9th and 12th September, Klein told him to tell
18 the police the whole truth, but not to talk to
19 the press.
20 Tendil was not asked about this and you will
21 remember Klein's evidence, when he was recalled
22 recently, vehemently denying requiring Willaumez to toe
23 a party line. He said, and this was denied by
24 Willaumez, that he had a disciplinary problem some time
25 before which could account for him saying these things.
45
1 It may be that this ties in to some extent with Roulet's
2 evidence. You will have to decide whether Willaumez's
3 evidence is credible and accurate.
4 What of Henri Paul's condition earlier in the day?
5 Quite a lot of people had contact with him and would
6 have been in a position to say if he appeared to be
7 the worse for wear. For example, he was in the party
8 that met Dodi and Diana at Le Bourget and drove
9 the Range Rover. Murrell was the security guard
10 employed by Mohamed Al Fayed based at Villa Windsor.
11 Dodi and Diana went to Villa Windsor from the airport
12 and were there, according to the CCTV, for 28 minutes.
13 The evidence was that Henri Paul went from
14 the airport direct to the apartment and then on to
15 the Villa Windsor. Murrell says he saw Henri Paul at
16 Villa Windsor and that he was acting out of character.
17 There were some inconsistences between his evidence in
18 court and what he was reported as having said in
19 a newspaper, but his evidence does not support
20 a contention that Henri Paul had been drinking earlier
21 in the day.
22 Several of the paparazzi claimed to have noticed
23 signs that Henri Paul had been drinking. Darmon, who
24 was the motorcyclist carrying Rat, described the
25 situation outside the Ritz, where there were a lot of
46
1 people and a good deal of excitement. He said
2 "Henri Paul seemed joyful and looked by his eyes and
3 actions like an alcoholic", as his father had been.
4 Mr Keen suggested to him that his evidence contained
5 a series of self-serving lies because of the allegations
6 against the paparazzi. It may be that you will have
7 difficulty accepting some of Darmon's evidence about
8 the journey, but if you do, does it follow that he has
9 made this up?
10 Benhamou, Rat and Veres also made observations about
11 Henri Paul's condition. Mr Keen suggests that what they
12 said is explicable because of the unfortunate press
13 release from the prosecutor's office attributing
14 the cause of the collision to the drunk driver of the
15 Mercedes. It is notable that the paparazzi only began
16 to make these remarks about Henri Paul after that press
17 release. One might have expected at least some of them
18 to mention it in their very early interviews if they had
19 really noticed anything about Henri Paul's condition.
20 Finally on this aspect, while Lucard did not notice
21 anything untoward on the three brief occasions on which
22 he saw Henri Paul on the night of the collision, he said
23 that some time after the collision, Tendil mentioned
24 Henri Paul, saying that it was "terrible to drink".
25 Now, Tendil was not asked about this and the context is
47
1 not entirely clear, so it may be unwise to read anything
2 into Lucard's evidence on this.
3 What is clear, however, is that staff at the Ritz
4 knew Henri Paul had been drinking before he drove that
5 night. Trote, Doucin and Willaumez all knew that he had
6 drunk two Ricards and he told Rocher he was going to
7 finish his Ricard with the Englishmen. Willaumez's
8 evidence that Klein tried to suppress the fact that
9 Henri Paul had consumed alcohol before driving is
10 consistent with the manner in which the issue of drink
11 was, you may think, handled by Mohamed Al Fayed's
12 publicity machine.
13 Following the regrettable publication of the
14 suggestion that Henri Paul had been drunk as a pig,
15 Macnamara was dispatched to Paris to find out the true
16 facts. He told us he discovered on the following day,
17 Tuesday 2nd September, that Henri Paul had drunk two
18 Ricards. There was no doubt in his mind about that.
19 A press release from Harrods the same day spoke of
20 Mohamed Al Fayed having immediately dispatched his
21 director of security, a former detective chief
22 superintendent of New Scotland Yard, and lawyers to make
23 further inquiries. The release referred to the first
24 fruits of those inquiries. I quote:
25 "In the hotel he spoke to a number of members of
48
1 staff, none of whom detected any smell of drink or any
2 other signs to suggest that he had been drinking."
3 That, unfortunately, was less than the whole truth
4 because Macnamara's inquiries had revealed Henri Paul
5 had had two Ricards. Indeed Klein had obtained the bar
6 receipt.
7 There was a press conference on Friday
8 5th September. There were comments by Cole and
9 Professor Vanezis, who had gone to Paris, but who had
10 been thwarted by the French system from making any
11 meaningful inquiries of his own. No mention was made
12 then about discovery of the driver having had two
13 Ricards in the Bar Vendome. It was said at the press
14 conference that:
15 "With Mr Macnamara, director of security, we are
16 satisfied and happy that their accounts of Henri Paul's
17 demeanour are accurate and those accounts are that he
18 was sober, he did not smell of alcohol, his gait was
19 steady, they had no suggestion or indications that he
20 was anything other than completely sober."
21 Lack of complete honesty is compounded, members of
22 the jury, on the following Wednesday, 10th September,
23 when Macnamara took part in BBC Primetime Live on
24 television. He told viewers that Henri Paul had had
25 a pineapple juice and nothing else. When asked:
49
1 "And nothing else?"
2 He replied:
3 "And nothing else".
4 And when asked in evidence, he said, "Yes, that is
5 what he said". He then reluctantly admitted that it was
6 a lie.
7 You will have to ask yourself how reliable you find
8 the evidence of the Ritz employees to be on the issue of
9 drink and whether there may have been an element of
10 closing ranks. You will also have to decide what weight
11 to attach to the evidence that Henri Paul was a person
12 who could consume alcohol without necessarily showing
13 adverse signs and the expert evidence that some
14 individuals have such a degree of tolerance to alcohol
15 that they may give the appearance of being sober to
16 a casual observer, even when their blood/alcohol
17 concentration is quite high.
18 Now, members of the jury, something has arisen that
19 I need to raise, I hope briefly, with counsel, so I am
20 going to ask you just to retire, I hope for a short
21 time, while I do so, before I continue.
22 (Jury out)
23 (11.45 am)
24 (Discussion in the absence of the jury)
25 (11.50 am)
50
4 (12.21 pm)
5 (Jury present)
6 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Members of the jury, the cause of
7 asking you to retire is this: this morning we received
8 an email from the French giving information in relation,
9 in very broad terms -- although it is in French and we
10 have not been able to get a proper translation of it
11 yet -- to do with samples and Henri Paul.
12 Whether this contains anything that is new seems
13 very doubtful. Whether, if it is does not, it contains
14 anything that is relevant is also pretty doubtful. But
15 having gone six months down the road, it seems desirable
16 that we should bottom out this problem before we go any
17 further. In those circumstances, it seems to me that
18 the sensible way ahead is to have an early lunch, break
19 off now until half past 1, when I hope to be able to
20 continue, having dealt with this issue.
21 It is unfortunate it has happened at this particular
22 stage, but it is not of our doing and it is the best
23 I can do. So, half past 1.
24 (12.24 pm)
25 (The short adjournment)
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