3 March 2008 - Morning session
1 Monday, 3rd March 2008
2 (10.00 am)
3 (Jury present)
4 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Hilliard, I give notice of
5 intention to have read certain evidence as appearing to
6 be uncontroversial. First of all, Mr Carpenter's
7 statement regarding the absence of James Andanson from
8 the CCTV images; secondly, Mr Foley's statement
9 regarding additional information from Hasnat Khan, which
10 would I think follow the reading of Hasnat Khan's
11 statement by Inspector Scotchbrook; and then excerpts
12 from the paint analysis reports in relation to the two
13 identified Fiat Unos in respect of Mr Andanson and
14 Mr Le Van Thanh.
15 If anybody objects to any of that, no doubt
16 notification can be given to the court in the ordinary
17 way and anybody is at liberty to inspect the details of
18 what is to be read.
19 So then that takes us to Mr Cherruault.
20 MR HILLIARD: That is right.
21 MR LIONEL Cherruault (affirmed)
22 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Would you prefer to sit down
23 Mr Cherruault?
24 A. Yes.
25 Questions from MR HILLIARD
1
1 MR HILLIARD: Could you give us your full name, please?
2 A. Lionel Robert Cherruault.
3 Q. Mr Cherruault, I am going to ask you questions first of
4 all on behalf of the Coroner and then you may be asked
5 questions by others.
6 I think in 1997, and indeed before that for some
7 time, you were working as a freelance photographer; is
8 that right?
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. Had you been specialising in the Royal Family and Diana,
11 Princess of Wales, in particular?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. By August of 1997, which is when I am going to ask you
14 about, by that time how long had you been working in
15 that way approximately?
16 A. It must have been 15/16 years I had been following --
17 actually, longer than that. It was a considerable time.
18 Q. On the night of the crash in the Alma Tunnel, you were
19 offered, I think, some photographs of it; is that right?
20 A. That is correct.
21 Q. The next night your home address was burgled; is that
22 right?
23 A. That is correct.
24 Q. I am going to ask you about the detail of all of that.
25 I just want to deal with this first of all.
2
1 You made witness statements to the
2 Metropolitan Police; is that right?
3 A. Yes, I did.
4 Q. Were you also seen by Mr Macnamara on behalf of
5 Mr Al Fayed?
6 A. Yes, I was.
7 Q. I think you have appeared on at least one, maybe more,
8 but at least one television programme.
9 A. Yes, I have.
10 Q. What I am asking you now we have asked many witnesses,
11 but have you ever been paid any money for your account
12 of these events?
13 A. I have charged, I suppose, an appearance fee to appear
14 on, I think, three programmes. I have actually appeared
15 in probably double that number, I would imagine.
16 Q. Do you expect to be paid any money in the future?
17 A. For what?
18 Q. As it were, for your account of these events.
19 Presumably it depends if you go on television again.
20 A. To be quite frank, my appearance here is sort of the
21 underlining of it. Anything afterwards I am not really
22 interested in.
23 Q. All right. In August of 1997, you were living, is this
24 right, at an address in London NW6, Willesden?
25 A. Yes.
3
1 Q. With your wife and three children?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Do you still live at the same address?
4 A. No, I do not.
5 Q. Do they still live there?
6 A. No, they don't.
7 Q. That address then, as you are not there anymore, was
8 5 Mowbray Road, I think.
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. I think that by August of 1997, you had been at that
11 address for about two months; is that right?
12 A. It is around about that, yes. It was a short period.
13 Q. After you had moved into the property, were you having
14 some work done on it?
15 A. Yes, we were.
16 Q. Was that quite extensive renovation work? Builders were
17 involved, I think.
18 A. Builders were involved. Actually in terms of structural
19 change, it was really only -- it was knocking down one
20 dividing wall between a living room and another room.
21 That was it.
22 Q. Did the builders have a set of keys to the property?
23 A. Yes, they did.
24 Q. You were working closely with the Sipa press agency in
25 Paris; is that right?
4
1 A. Correct.
2 Q. Did that agency act as your agent?
3 A. They acted as my agent for, let's call it, the rest of
4 the world. I was responsible for the sales of my
5 pictures in the UK only.
6 Q. Is this right, that most of the photographs of value
7 that you took, you would scan into your computer and
8 then send by something called an "ISDN line" to Sipa?
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. Were you using one of the ground-floor rooms in your
11 house as an office?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did you have some pretty expensive computer equipment
14 and scanners in that room?
15 A. It was -- part and parcel of the job was that that sort
16 of equipment was needed. Yes, it was.
17 Q. Then I want to ask you, please, about the circumstances
18 in which you heard about the crash in the tunnel. Did
19 you get a call in the early hours -- so it is the night
20 of Sunday 31st August of 1997 into the early hours of
21 Monday 1st September -- did you get a phone call?
22 A. You have to appreciate I am somewhat hazy --
23 Q. We all are.
24 A. It was a long time ago. The order of events might not
25 fit, but I did get a telephone call -- I believe it was
5
1 from Sipa Press -- telling me about the accident. They
2 told me in that phone call that they were certain that
3 the Princess of Wales was still alive. They also told
4 me that they were certain that Dodi had died. That was
5 the limit of that phone call. They were going to call
6 me back with any further information.
7 Q. As you say, it is a long time ago. What I have in front
8 of me -- and I think you have a copy and by all means
9 refer to it -- is a statement you made to police
10 officers in October of 2004. Do you have it there?
11 A. You gave me --
12 Q. We are going to come on to the one I have given you
13 a little bit later. I think it is one that you may
14 already have in your bundle. I think it might be to
15 the back of it.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you have that? 20th October 2004.
18 A. I cannot see -- there is no date. Yes, there is,
19 I apologise.
20 Q. It is all right. Do you see, if you go to the fourth
21 paragraph of that, that you say that at about 1 o'clock,
22 in the early hours of the morning, you got the telephone
23 call?
24 A. Yes, this is from Mark Saunders.
25 Q. Just tell us: who was Mark Saunders? No, sorry, I want
6
1 to go back a bit. We will come on to that one. I think
2 you had a call from Saunders after this one; is that
3 right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. So who was it at Sipa who called you first of all just
6 to tell you about the crash?
7 A. Do you know, I am afraid I do not know. I cannot
8 recall.
9 Q. Having had that call, did you think about travelling to
10 Paris yourself for the purpose of taking photographs,
11 but decide against it?
12 A. Can I just set this in the scene that it was?
13 Q. Yes of course.
14 A. As a photographer, my job was to cover this -- let's
15 call it a "story". As far as I was concerned,
16 the Princess of Wales was still alive. In my mind this
17 was something that needed to be covered and in my mind
18 it was going to be a photograph of her leaving hospital.
19 So, yes, I was planning, in my mind, to travel to Paris,
20 possibly even that night, even drive there, to cover her
21 leaving hospital. I had no concept of how badly injured
22 she was. I did not know what the crash was and, in
23 fact, assumed that, you know, she could well walk out of
24 hospital the following day. So, yes, I was planning to
25 go to Paris.
7
1 Q. Then, is this right, a short time after you had had that
2 call, you then got the call from Mark Saunders?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Just tell us, who was Mark Saunders?
5 A. Mark Saunders was a freelance photographer who at one
6 stage worked for me -- worked for me in a very loose
7 sense in that, if there were events that I could not
8 cover, I would ask him to cover them on my behalf.
9 Q. Where was Mark Saunders, as you understood it, when he
10 called you?
11 A. As I understood it, he was in Florida.
12 Q. What did he have to say?
13 A. He asked me if I had heard what had happened and I said
14 "yes". He said that he knew of a photographer who had
15 been in the tunnel and that he would be able to get
16 pictures of the crash scene for me -- well, for me so
17 that I could then syndicate it through Sipa basically.
18 Q. Did you tell him that you were interested in that?
19 A. Yes, I did.
20 Q. Did he say that he would do that?
21 A. He said he would get back to me.
22 Q. Did he tell you where he was getting the pictures from?
23 A. No, he did not.
24 Q. Did he in fact get back to you?
25 A. No.
8
1 Q. So do we take it that you did not actually receive any
2 pictures?
3 A. None whatsoever.
4 Q. I think your wife and yourself then stayed up and
5 watched the news of the crash on the television for
6 a couple of hours or so before going back to bed.
7 A. Correct, yes.
8 Q. You say in your statement that, at about 4 o'clock in
9 the morning, you got another call from Sipa in which you
10 learned that the Princess of Wales had died.
11 A. I do not recall what time it was, but yes, I did.
12 Q. Then, later that day, I think -- again I am looking at
13 your statement -- you explain that you spoke to
14 the press office at Buckingham Palace and found out that
15 the body of the Princess of Wales was being flown into
16 RAF Northolt and, as a result, did you go there with an
17 awful lot of other photographers?
18 A. Yes, I did.
19 Q. I think you took some pictures and then went and had
20 the negatives developed; is that right?
21 A. Yes, that is correct.
22 Q. Did you then go home, scan the negatives into your
23 computer and then send the copies to Sipa in Paris by
24 the ISDN line as you have already explained?
25 A. That is correct.
9
1 Q. I want to turn then to the evening of Monday
2 1st September. After going to bed, I think you were
3 woken up during the night; is that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Was that by one of your daughters, who was having a
6 coughing or asthma attack?
7 A. That is correct.
8 Q. I think your wife settled her down, but then your
9 daughter woke again, is this right, at about 3 o'clock
10 in the morning? Again I am looking at the statement
11 that you made for the times.
12 A. Again, I will take the time as read, but yes, that is
13 correct.
14 Q. Again your wife got up to deal with that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. A short time after that, did your wife wake you because
17 she had discovered that her car was missing?
18 A. Now, the way that I recall it is that the second time
19 she went to settle my daughter, as she came down
20 the stairs, she felt a draft, a big draft, coming up
21 the stairwell. Now when you got down to the floor that
22 our bedroom was on, you could actually look over
23 the banister and see the front door. She looked over
24 and saw that the front door was ajar, at which point she
25 ran in and started screaming, and that is the point at
10
1 which I woke up.
2 Q. Now we are going to hear about the burglary that had
3 happened from you in a moment, but, as you understood
4 it, had the burglars finished or had your wife disturbed
5 them or do you just not know?
6 A. I am making assumptions. We believe that we interrupted
7 them, only in that they tried to take my car as well and
8 failed. It is only an assumption.
9 Q. Presumably, but for your daughter waking up and
10 coughing, you would not have been up?
11 A. No, absolutely not.
12 Q. So the front door is open, and when that had been shut
13 earlier on, as obviously it had been, had it been locked
14 as well?
15 A. No, it had not.
16 Q. You called the police, I think, and the police came that
17 night; is that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. The document that you have got there, Mr Cherruault --
20 I do not think you have seen it before. It is one
21 I have given you this morning -- it is the police crime
22 report. It is just behind a copy of a statement that
23 you made to the police in 1999.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. It includes details and information about the crime.
11
1 I just want to ask you about some of the things that are
2 recorded here.
3 Can you see on the first page that it says that
4 the offence was committed between 11 o'clock in
5 the evening on Sunday 31st August of 1997 and 3.15 in
6 the morning of Monday 1st September? Do you see that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I do not know, does that seem about right now, for
9 the sort of time that you would have gone to bed on the
10 Sunday night, about 11 o'clock in the evening --
11 A. Yes, it does.
12 Q. -- and quarter past 3 or so in the morning for when you
13 discovered what had happened?
14 A. It seems perfectly reasonable.
15 Q. Then there is reference, do you see, to the crime being
16 reported by telephone at 3.47 in the morning. Do you
17 see?
18 A. Yes, I do.
19 Q. Again, does that sound about right?
20 A. It does seem like an awful long time before making
21 a phone call actually, but it does, yes.
22 Q. Then, if you turn on to page -- you will see they are
23 numbered at the top -- 21 of 32. If you go to that
24 page, can you see, in the second half of the page, it
25 says:
12
1 "Police were called to the venue ..."
2 Do you see in the narrative bit of the text?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. "... attended at 4.30 [in the morning] by PC Wilcox and
5 PC Mitchell. Initial details taken in pocket book.
6 Apparently victim and witness [that is you and your
7 wife] 1 and 2 had gone to bed at 11 o'clock, along with
8 their three children. At 3.15 in the morning [your
9 wife] awoke and saw her car missing from the street
10 outside. She woke [you]. They went downstairs
11 discovering the front door wide open and the property
12 listed missing."
13 Then it says:
14 "Police examined the premises and could find no
15 point of entry other than the open front door. This had
16 two good quality deadlocks on, neither of which were
17 damaged."
18 Is this right, as you recall it, although the door
19 had got two deadlocks on it, you don't think that those
20 had been actually locked when you went to bed?
21 A. There was -- the actual -- I do not know how to describe
22 it -- when you push the door to, in terms of deadlock,
23 the lock would actually fly across and lock it
24 automatically. So it wasn't -- there was a Chubb lock
25 which you could actually put a key in the lock --
13
1 Q. I think there was a Yale lock, is that right, at the
2 top? We will see about the keys in a minute.
3 A. But the actual Yale/Chubb lock we had not locked with
4 a separate key.
5 Q. If it was a Yale lock, the one at the top, that had just
6 shut when you shut the door, but the Chubb one, which
7 you could lock with a key, was not on, as it were.
8 A. Was not locked.
9 Q. All right. If you turn over the page, please,
10 the police record records this:
11 "The venue is currently under renovation by
12 builders."
13 Then there is the name of the owner of the building
14 company and it says "Has a set of keys to the house", as
15 you have told us.
16 "There is scaffolding at the rear of the house, but
17 no windows appear to have been disturbed."
18 Then, if you go down to the bottom of that page,
19 there is another entry:
20 "Point of entry not clearly identified, but may have
21 been through insecure side window from scaffolding next
22 to venue. Exit appears to have been through the front
23 door, which was opened by keys found either in the front
24 office or from [that is your wife's] handbag which had
25 been rifled through. The suspects had been in at least
14
1 three rooms ...", it goes on.
2 Is this right, as I understand what you are saying
3 to us, if -- just assume this for a moment -- entry had
4 been through an insecure side window and exit was by
5 the open front door, have I understood it right, you
6 don't actually think that anybody would need to have
7 found your wife's keys to undo the front door because
8 you think it would just be a question of turning it, no
9 keys required?
10 A. As I recall it -- and we had only just moved into this
11 place so we were very comfortable and very trusting and
12 we were not locking the door. We did not need to.
13 We had a deadlock that locked the door. So, no,
14 I assumed from this, no they would not have needed
15 the keys.
16 Q. All right. Just on this topic, your wife told the
17 police in 2004 that there was scaffolding on one side of
18 the house which reached from the ground to the roof at
19 the time of the burglary. Does that accord with your
20 recollection?
21 A. No, because we were not -- I am trying to remember. We
22 were not doing any -- making any external structural
23 changes. There was nothing wrong with the roof, as far
24 as I recall.
25 Q. We looked at the crime report entry nearer the time. Do
15
1 you remember scaffolding certainly being at one side of
2 the property?
3 A. To be perfectly honest, no, I don't. I don't recall it.
4 Q. Your wife apparently told the police that the au pair
5 had gone to France on 31st August. It says:
6 "Mrs Cherruault believes that the au pair had left
7 the window of her bedroom open, which was at the side of
8 the scaffolding."
9 A. Very possible. I am afraid I am finding it really
10 difficult to remember the scaffolding at the moment.
11 Q. That is all right. There is reference, if you still --
12 don't worry about 2004, but if you go to 22 of 32, can
13 you see that there is reference to scaffolding next to
14 your property --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. -- in an entry for 1st September 1997 at 12.57? So that
17 really is just within hours of -- the scaffolding had
18 not gone up that morning, presumably.
19 A. No.
20 Q. All right. Now, just going back to your 2004 statement,
21 your own one, in which -- fourth paragraph down -- you
22 say that rooms on the first and the ground floor had
23 been entered and searched -- is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. -- but in the room that you were temporarily using as
16
1 a living room on the first floor, you found the contents
2 of your wife's purse and handbag had been neatly laid
3 out on the floor and that that included her credit
4 cards. Do you remember that?
5 A. Yes, I do.
6 Q. You say that computers had been neatly unplugged -- do
7 you remember that?
8 A. Yes, yes.
9 Q. -- and that your BMW car had been accessed and searched
10 using keys taken from the house.
11 A. Correct, yes.
12 Q. Is this right, the keys to your BMW had gone and they
13 had been in the house?
14 A. Yes, they had.
15 Q. You say this:
16 "It was apparent that whoever had searched the car
17 was not aware of the security system that cut out the
18 engine if the key was not inserted into the ignition
19 within a set time."
20 A. That is correct.
21 Q. You said:
22 "I believe that the burglar initially intended to
23 take my BMW car but was foiled by its security system.
24 Instead, they loaded our property into my wife's
25 Mitsubishi Cruiser Space Wagon and took that instead."
17
1 A. That is correct.
2 Q. Was the volume of material such that really a vehicle
3 would have been essential to take the property away --
4 A. Yes, I think so.
5 Q. -- short of walking around in the early hours of the
6 morning with a large amount of computer equipment? You
7 felt, as it were, that your wife's vehicle had been used
8 just to achieve that, to get the property away from your
9 house?
10 A. It is an assumption, but yes, I guess so.
11 Q. As to what the property was that was stolen, I think you
12 told the police about that and then set it out. Do you
13 have this in a statement that in fact you did not make
14 until October of 1999? Do you have that statement
15 there?
16 By that time -- we will hear about this, but just to
17 explain why you were making a statement in October of
18 1999 -- some scientific evidence had come to light,
19 I think -- do you remember -- some DNA on a cigarette
20 end that we will hear about, and somebody's DNA on that
21 had been identified, somebody had been circulated as
22 wanted, and so the case might have been coming back to
23 life again. Hence, you were asked to make a statement
24 in 1999, setting out the property that had been stolen
25 in the burglary and the brief facts of what had
18
1 happened.
2 We had better go through the list, if you have it
3 there. You start by explaining about having gone to
4 bed, being woken up at quarter past 3 in the morning.
5 Then you say:
6 "The following items had been stolen: an
7 Apple Macintosh computer laptop, value £3,500; Kodak
8 film scanner, value £6,500; one flat-bed scanner for
9 hard print photos, £600; one Micronet ..."
10 What is a Micronet?
11 A. It was a hard disc drive. It is the make, that is all.
12 Q. "... a 1 gigabyte hard disc drive containing four years
13 of photographs of the Royal Family, value £1,700; one
14 hard disc drive, value £1,700; two modems, value £600;
15 one BMW car key and remote control; one Metropolitan
16 Police press pass ... "
17 Then a number of credit cards, is that right,
18 a Midland Bank, Barclaycard, Visa and so on?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. "... two 200-franc notes; a chequebook; some more bank
21 cards; £50 cash in English money; car keys for your
22 wife's vehicle; a quantity of bank counter cheques ..."
23 Then you go on to explain that the Mitsubishi itself
24 had been taken and that was valued at £16,000. You go
25 on to explain that:
19
1 "At the time of the burglary we were having quite
2 a lot of building work carried out on the house and
3 a number of builders had been in our premises."
4 Then, if you just turn please to page 8 of 32 in
5 the crime report, you explained to the police in 1999
6 how your BMW car key and remote control had gone. But
7 if we actually go to the document that was made actually
8 at the time, in 1997, page 8 of 32, do you see it is
9 described, "One BMW car key, remote control Yale key,
10 Chubb key on BMW fob keyring"?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. So does it look as if your car keys were on a ring that
13 also had your house keys on them?
14 A. House keys, yes.
15 Q. So police officers come in the middle of the night, 4.30
16 or so in the morning, and then I think later that
17 morning, is this right, two detectives came to your
18 address?
19 A. Yes, that is correct.
20 Q. Do you remember now the names of either of them?
21 A. Well, I did not, but I now do because I have met
22 DS Freeman again.
23 Q. And Detective Sergeant Freeman was one of them, was he?
24 A. Yes, he was.
25 Q. They obviously had a look round your premises, saw what
20
1 had happened. Do you remember one of them making
2 a comment to you about the nature of the burglary?
3 A. Yes, I do, very much so. I am afraid I do not recall
4 whether it was DS Freeman or not, but we were wandering
5 around the garden and really just mulling over what had
6 happened. It was at that point that the detective made
7 the comment that it was somewhat strange, with the
8 Princess of Wales having just been in a car crash and
9 died, that a library -- a photographic library such as
10 mine should be stolen.
11 Q. We can see indeed what was recorded in the crime report.
12 If you turn please to 23 of 32 -- I think this is
13 Mr Freeman's entry, but can you see it says this? There
14 is reference to yourself "... for the last 16 years been
15 almost exclusively photographing the Royal Family and
16 has, in recent years, concentrated his efforts on the
17 Princess of Wales. The computer equipment stolen
18 contained a huge library of Royal photographs and
19 appears to have been the main target for the
20 perpetrators".
21 Then this:
22 "It appears too much of a coincidence that
23 the burglary took place when it did to not be connected
24 with her death. The property stolen indicates that
25 the thief would have prior knowledge of the house or
21
1 the victim's business, in that an older Apple computer
2 was left at the scene, whereas the standard computer
3 burglar tends to take all computers which are present."
4 So that is what is recorded.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. The last point, of course, I suppose rather depends upon
7 whether the burglars had finished or whether they had
8 been disturbed.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Apart from an older Apple computer that had not gone,
11 was there any other computer equipment that was left
12 behind?
13 A. I do not recall, I am afraid.
14 Q. You asked, is this right then, for a crime prevention
15 officer to come?
16 A. Well, it was recommended. Because we had just moved
17 into this place -- you have to remember that this house
18 was very big. It was a double-fronted Victorian house
19 in Kilburn/Willesden. We were having works done on it
20 and we had now been burgled, quite severely burgled, and
21 it was very difficult for my wife -- well, and myself
22 and my family -- to now feel comfortable in that house.
23 So we asked for advice and were told that somebody would
24 come round and advise us.
25 Q. If you look at page 3 of 32 in the crime report, three
22
1 entries up from the bottom of that page, can you see
2 there is reference to -- there is a code "GA", and then
3 do you see "Crime prevention visit, 4th September 1997,
4 PC Kemp"?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Do you remember him now or not?
7 A. I remember him. I do not remember his name.
8 Q. All right. If we take it that that is 4th September.
9 He came and looked round your property, did he?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did he give you some advice? I am not asking what it
12 was. I dare say you cannot remember --
13 A. Yes, he did.
14 Q. -- but that was the point of him being there. Again,
15 did he say anything about the nature of the burglary
16 that you remember?
17 A. Very much so.
18 Q. Can you help us with that conversation about that?
19 A. We had an appointment with this gentleman who arrived --
20 knocked on the door. I was with my wife. We opened
21 the door, he came in, and the way I recall this
22 happening was that he walked in with some paper rolled
23 like this (indicating) -- he walked in and he said,
24 "First, are you recording our conversation?", which
25 seemed a little odd for a crime prevention officer to be
23
1 asking such a thing. We said, "No, of course not". He
2 said, "I have to tell you that I have reviewed the
3 report of your burglary and I have to tell you that this
4 is not a burglary" -- I am not saying this word for
5 word, but basically, "This was not a burglary, but you
6 were targeted", at which point I said to him, "What do
7 you mean, 'targeted'? Do you mean the grey men, MI5,
8 MI6, whatever?" He said, "Well, you can call them what
9 you wish; local henchmen ..." -- he said, "You would be
10 surprised what kind of people they use, but I have to
11 reassure you that at no point were your lives in
12 danger", at which point -- you remember, under the
13 circumstances, we were very emotionally hit by all of
14 this, not just the burglary -- at which point my wife
15 burst into floods of tears, "What do you mean our lives
16 were not in danger?"
17 He, as I recall, went on to elaborate that the
18 person who came into our house had a key to gain entry,
19 he told us that they probably had a plan of our house
20 and knew exactly where to go.
21 Q. Right. Was anything said about the possibly of entry
22 through the au pair's open window and then out through
23 the front door, where a key was not required, or --
24 A. To be frank, I do not really remember. At the time we
25 were in -- it was so shocking to hear something like
24
1 that coming from, you know, a representative of
2 the police.
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. You don't really expect to hear that.
5 Q. No.
6 A. From the beginning my belief has always been that it was
7 a burglary, purely and simply; it just happened to be at
8 a strange time.
9 Q. Any other conversation with him on this topic or is that
10 really it, what you have told us?
11 A. Relating to that?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. We then went around the house and he told us to put
14 security lights up here and certain kinds of lock there
15 and then that was it, he left.
16 Q. Right.
17 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: This was Mr Kemp, was it?
18 A. I believe so, yes. If that is the name of the crime
19 prevention officer, yes, it is.
20 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Did you ask him where his
21 information had come from?
22 A. No.
23 MR HILLIARD: Now, whoever had done it had taken your wife's
24 vehicle.
25 A. Yes.
25
1 Q. And -- who knows -- on one view had not brought their
2 own vehicle to take property away in, but had taken it
3 in that vehicle and that is why it was taken. That is
4 one view of the matter, isn't it?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. That vehicle, your wife's vehicle, was recovered. If
7 you look please at page 18 of 32, on 2nd September 1997,
8 in somewhere called "Gloucester Close" in NW10 -- you
9 may not have been aware of precisely where it was
10 recovered from --
11 A. We were told it was recovered on the Stonebridge Park
12 Estate, which is a renowned rough estate.
13 Q. All right. If you turn on to page 20 of 32, can you see
14 that a partly smoked cigarette had been recovered from
15 the vehicle because there was the possibility that
16 the person who had been smoking it, that their
17 saliva had gone on the cigarette, you understand, and
18 that there might be DNA from that. That was sent off to
19 the laboratory for analysis. Do you see that from
20 the record?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You knew that the car had been recovered. Were you told
23 that attempts were being made to see if there was any
24 scientific evidence from the vehicle?
25 A. We -- as I recall it, we did not know the car had been
26
1 recovered. The first time that we found out the car had
2 been recovered was when -- I think it was my wife got
3 a phone call from the car pound telling her that maybe
4 we should consider coming to pick the car up, otherwise
5 they would charge us £20 storage. That was the first
6 time that we found out the car had been recovered.
7 Q. All right. We will hear what the man whose DNA was on
8 the cigarette said when we hear from Mr Freeman later.
9 We will deal with that in due course.
10 So that is the recovery of the car with the partly
11 smoked cigarette in it. Then, if you turn to page 24 of
12 32, there is reference to the use of your wife's
13 MasterCard to make telephone calls.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. There was a call to a number in Ireland that was, I can
16 tell you, at 7 minutes past 10 in the morning of
17 1st September, so six or seven hours after the burglar
18 or burglars had left. So that was to a number in
19 Ireland. Then there was an attempt to use your wife's
20 card to make a call to a number in Leicester, but that
21 was declined. All right? Were you aware of any use or
22 attempted use on the credit cards?
23 A. Not as I remember it at all.
24 Q. All right. Then we will hear that a cheque -- do you
25 remember you told us that some counter cheques had been
27
1 stolen from your house.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. A cheque that was dated in December 1997 that someone
4 had made out to somebody called "K Fitzgerald" in
5 the sum of £920 had been debited from your wife's
6 account. That was obviously then investigated, but do
7 you remember that, that money being taken from her
8 account.
9 A. I do not, no.
10 Q. Then do you remember getting a notebook of yours back,
11 if you turn to page 25, that had been stolen in
12 the burglary?
13 A. I do not remember that I am afraid.
14 Q. What the entry says is -- do you see:
15 "Attended John Kelly Boys' Technology College in
16 Neasden following phone call from victim. His personal
17 notebook, stolen during the burglary, was found at
18 the entrance to the college some weeks ago by [a man]
19 who then handed it to [a lady]."
20 It looks as if, in due course, you got that back.
21 Does any of that --
22 A. It does ring a bell actually. I am sorry, I just don't
23 remember detail.
24 Q. Would your notebook, do you think, have had your
25 personal details in it, hence people --
28
1 A. I think it might have been a Filofax or something;
2 a small Filofax of some description.
3 Q. All right. Then, in due course, is this right, in 1999
4 and 2000, did you have three meetings with Mr Macnamara?
5 A. In ...?
6 Q. 1999 and 2000.
7 A. The dates I do not recall, but yes, I did.
8 Q. I think you met Mr Al Fayed at one of those; is that
9 right?
10 A. I did.
11 Q. Did you tell them about the burglary at your house and
12 what it was that the police had said to you that you
13 have told us this morning?
14 A. Yes, I did.
15 Q. Did you also tell them that you believed that your
16 telephone calls had been monitored?
17 A. I have always believed that to be the case and --
18 Q. I am going to go into that belief in just a minute, but
19 did you tell them about that belief?
20 A. More than likely.
21 Q. I interrupted you, Mr Cherruault. You were saying that
22 you have always believed that was the case.
23 A. Yes, I have, and I have strangely never had a problem
24 with it. Because of the sort of job that I did and
25 the information that I was privy to in terms of the
29
1 Royal Family's movements, I had nothing to hide. I was
2 working during a period of time when there was a lot of
3 IRA activity and, you know, I guess that is part of
4 Government's responsibilities, so I did not have
5 a problem with that at all.
6 Q. But you thought that someone in Government was
7 monitoring your calls?
8 A. Again, I am assuming, but I am assuming that if you are
9 responsible for the security of members of the
10 Royal Family or any other person in a high-profile
11 position, that you would want to know the movements or
12 the beliefs or whatever of somebody who is going to be
13 in close proximity to them.
14 Q. Right --
15 A. So, yes -- the answer to your question is yes, I would
16 expect a Government or Security Service or whatever to
17 investigate that.
18 Q. I just want to understand -- I just want to get
19 the motivation as you understood it -- with a view to
20 keeping an eye on you because you were somebody who
21 might be in close proximity with members of the
22 Royal Family because you were taking photographs?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Apart from that belief, did you have any evidence for
25 that?
30
1 A. No, no evidence other than on one occasion, many, many
2 years ago, having a conversation, with whom I do not
3 recall, and picking the phone up to make another phone
4 call and hearing my conversation played back to me. Now
5 that could be a problem at British Telecom or it could
6 be whoever, I don't know.
7 Q. Do I have this right? As I understand it, what you were
8 saying that night, if anybody had been listening to your
9 telephone calls -- at that time you had not actually got
10 the photographs; is that right? Somebody was going to
11 get back to you about them, but never did?
12 A. No, I never received any photographs and Mark Saunders
13 never got in contact with me again until many, many
14 months later.
15 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Was there any reason why your
16 telephone conversations should be monitored rather than
17 any other photographer who was taking photographs of the
18 Royal Family --
19 A. I am only expressing an opinion.
20 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes -- or is your opinion that
21 everybody would have been monitored?
22 A. I would have thought -- yes, there were not that many of
23 us who specialised in photographing the Royal Family.
24 I feel almost foolish saying this now, but, yes, I would
25 say that, yes, if they had an interest they would listen
31
1 to all of us.
2 MR HILLIARD: Mr Macnamara asked in one of the meetings
3 whether you could get photographs of the crash.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Did you take any steps about that?
6 A. I made one phone call.
7 Q. Who was that too?
8 A. As far as I remember, it was to Laurent Sola in Paris.
9 Q. Did you ask him if he had any or if he could get any?
10 A. All of those, and in essence the conversation was very
11 short. It was "no" and "no" and "I do not want to talk
12 to you Lionel, goodbye".
13 Q. So that was the end of that?
14 A. Yes.
15 MR HILLIARD: Thank you very much.
16 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield?
17 MR MANSFIELD: Yes.
18 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
19 MR MANSFIELD: Good morning, Mr Cherruault. I represent
20 Mohamed Al Fayed. Just a few questions. I am sorry
21 about the time lapse. It is difficult.
22 Can I just take up Mark Saunders with you a moment?
23 He did not get back to you, no photographs were actually
24 obtained at that time from him by you, but you did say
25 a moment ago that many months later you spoke to him.
32
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Now when you spoke to him many months later, did this
3 topic come up then? In other words, did you say, for
4 example, "What were the photographs that you had in
5 mind?" or was there no conversation?
6 A. In all honesty, sir, I do not really remember it,
7 the conversation that I had with him. It was so long
8 after the event and I was not really very much in touch
9 with this man.
10 Q. The reason for asking these questions, as you may be
11 aware, is that there are photographs that have gone
12 missing. Perhaps you did not know that.
13 A. No, I did not.
14 Q. Although I think you were -- in view of some of the
15 interviews, I think you became aware of the fact that
16 there are apparently no photographs available, if taken,
17 between the rear of the Ritz where the convoy left from
18 and the crash scene itself. I think you were aware of
19 that.
20 A. No, I was not. No, not at all --
21 Q. All right.
22 A. No.
23 Q. It is a long time ago. I am not going to press you on
24 that. Mr Saunders himself, did he work for another
25 agency as well?
33
1 A. He was not working for me at the time. I could not tell
2 you whether he was working for any -- as freelancers,
3 we tended to flit between agencies at the drop of a hat,
4 so I think he was very much that kind of person.
5 Q. Again it is a long time ago, but can you help as to
6 which photographers he might have known or been in
7 contact with in Paris in order to make the offer to you?
8 A. I am afraid I do not know. I cannot remember.
9 Q. Now, dealing with the burglary itself, I think there was
10 quite a lot of other -- I am not going to go through it
11 all other than categorise it because it is that long
12 ago -- there was quite a lot of other valuable property
13 in the same vicinity as the computers and the car that
14 was not taken. You agree?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. It is cameras, lenses, mobile phones and that kind of
17 thing?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. As far as the computer equipment plus its contents, your
20 library of Royal photographs, first of all has any of
21 the computer equipment ever been returned or retrieved
22 as far as you are aware?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Now taking the photographs that were in the library --
25 and I am just calling it that for the moment --
34
1 obviously, only to your knowledge, have any of them ever
2 surfaced anywhere?
3 A. Not to my knowledge, no.
4 Q. As far as responsibility, I just want to ask you this
5 from a practical point of view: I think your view is
6 that it is very unlikely that the burglars were acting
7 on behalf of other photographers, possibly stealing
8 photographs they thought you might have, because they
9 would be easily identifiable; that is the photographs.
10 Is that your view?
11 A. That is correct. Could I add something --
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. -- in the sense that the type of photographs that I took
14 were chocolate-box pictures. They were pretty pictures
15 of the Princess of Wales. These were not exclusive
16 high-value imagery. So there was no, you know, real
17 concrete value other than them having been used on
18 a regular basis over and over again.
19 Q. Would other photographers know that, in your case?
20 A. Yes, very much so.
21 Q. But people who were not other photographers would not
22 necessarily know that?
23 A. No, they would not.
24 Q. Now, as far as the premises were concerned -- sorry to
25 ask you about this -- there was some talk about a window
35
1 possibly being insecure. Did the police at any time
2 conduct any kind of fingerprint or forensic test within
3 the premises?
4 A. Yes, as I remember, they did, yes.
5 Q. Were you there when they did it?
6 A. Um -- yes, I do remember that happening. I know there
7 was an "um", but, yes. It was a long time ago.
8 Q. The question really is: do you remember which parts of
9 the premises they paid attention to or not? If you
10 cannot remember, I will leave it.
11 A. As I remember, it was mainly downstairs. It was around
12 the front door and the windows downstairs.
13 Q. And the car, the BMW, was that examined in the same way?
14 Perhaps you don't know.
15 A. I do not remember, I am afraid. I do not remember.
16 MR MANSFIELD: Thank you very much.
17 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Weekes?
18 MR WEEKES: No, thank you, sir.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Croxford?
20 MR CROXFORD: No, thank you, sir.
21 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Horwell?
22 Questions from MR HORWELL
23 MR HORWELL: My name is Richard Horwell. I appear on behalf
24 of the Metropolitan Police. I have very few questions
25 to ask you.
36
1 You had only been living at these premises a very
2 short time, weeks or a couple of months, I think you
3 have said.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. In fact, during the period in which you had lived at
6 this house, but before the burglary, a neighbour's
7 premises were burgled; that is right, isn't it?
8 A. I do not actually recall that, I am afraid.
9 Q. It is part of the information that emerges from the
10 contemporaneous documents, but you don't now recollect
11 that?
12 A. I am afraid I do not, no. I am not saying "no".
13 Q. We all understand. It is a very long time ago.
14 I will ask you this. We have some police officers
15 following you and their recollection may be better, but
16 there were, in fact, a large number of burglaries in
17 that area at this time; residential burglaries. Do you
18 know of that yourself? I am not asking you to guess.
19 A. No, I do not, no.
20 MR HORWELL: Thank you.
21 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Hilliard?
22 MR HILLIARD: No thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
23 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you very much,
24 Mr Cherruault. That is all we require of you. We are
25 very grateful to you for coming and casting your mind
37
1 back all these years.
2 Is it Mr Kemp next?
3 MR HILLIARD: Mr Freeman would probably make more sense.
4 I know the order is Mr Kemp, but I think, on reflection,
5 Mr Freeman would be better.
6 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Is it Sergeant Freeman?
7
8 MR HILLIARD: It is.
9 DETECTIVE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT RICHARD FREEMAN (sworn)
10 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Do you prefer to sit? You can if
11 you wish.
12 A. I will stand for the moment, thank you.
13 Questions from MR HILLIARD
14 MR HILLIARD: Can you give us your full name please?
15 A. It is Richard Anthony Freeman. I am a detective chief
16 superintendent in the Metropolitan Police.
17 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Sorry, I underestimated your
18 rank. It is ten years after --
19 MR HILLIARD: You have come on a lot in the ten years.
20 Mr Freeman, you were one of the officers who was
21 involved in with the burglary at Mr Cherruault's home on
22 31st August 1997, but not just one of the officers, you
23 were really in charge of the investigation; is that
24 right?
25 A. That is correct. At the time I was a detective sergeant
38
1 running the burglary squad on Kilburn Division.
2 Q. Were you responsible for making a number of entries in
3 a document that is called a "crime report"?
4 A. Yes, I was.
5 Q. Have you got a copy of that with you?
6 A. I do.
7 Q. When a crime is reported to the police, is a record made
8 of that fact?
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. Just taking it shortly, it just details, does it, the
11 circumstances of the particular crime and then it is
12 a record of the steps that are taken in the course of
13 the investigation?
14 A. That is right.
15 Q. Does this particular crime report start by setting out
16 some details about the burglary and the property that
17 was taken in it?
18 A. That is right.
19 Q. Then does it also deal with either the usage or the
20 attempted usage of one of Mrs Cherruault's cards
21 thereafter?
22 A. Yes, it does.
23 Q. If you turn to page 24 of the record, there is
24 reference, I think -- is this right -- to one of her
25 cards being used actually to make a call -- it was at
39
1 7 minutes past 10 on the morning of the 1st -- to make
2 a call to a number in Ireland and then an attempt to use
3 that card, but it was declined, to make a call to
4 a number in Leicester; is that right?
5 A. That is right.
6 Q. Then, if you turn to page 26, one of the number of
7 cheques that was stolen was used, is this right, to take
8 £920 from her bank account? That was in December,
9 I think, of 1997; is that right?
10 A. That is correct.
11 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Do we know where that was done?
12 MR HILLIARD: It looks as if -- well, we certainly know
13 this, that the bank currently investigating
14 the matter -- it is difficult to think why any bank
15 other than the one perhaps that had some involvement --
16 is said to be the Midland Bank in Stowmarket in Suffolk,
17 isn't it?
18 A. Yes, that is correct.
19 Q. Then, coming on to the circumstances of the recovery of
20 the vehicle in a moment, but if you turn please to
21 page 23 of 32, I just want to ask you about the entry in
22 the crime report that Mr Cherruault was asked about. Is
23 this your entry, the one that sets out what he had been
24 doing for a living in recent years, concentrating his
25 photographic efforts on the Princess of Wales?
40
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Then this entry:
3 "It appears too much of a coincidence that
4 the burglary took place when it did to not be connected
5 with her death. The property stolen indicates that
6 the thief would have prior knowledge of the house or
7 the victim's business in that an older Apple computer
8 was left at the scene, whereas the standard computer
9 burglar tends to take all computers which are present."
10 So that is what you recorded at the time.
11 A. That is what I recorded at the time, yes.
12 Q. Is it fair to say that something may turn on the
13 question of whether or not the burglars had taken
14 everything they wanted or whether in fact they had been
15 disturbed because Mrs Cherruault had got up in
16 the middle of the night when the child was coughing?
17 A. That is a possibility, but there is no evidence to say
18 they were disturbed.
19 Q. Right, save the fact that she had got up in the middle
20 of the night unexpectedly?
21 A. Absolutely.
22 Q. Then, in due course, pretty shortly afterwards, her
23 Mitsubishi car was recovered; is that right?
24 A. Yes, it was.
25 Q. In the course of the examination of that vehicle, what
41
1 is described as a "partly smoked cigarette" was
2 recovered from the ashtray at the front of the car; is
3 that right?
4 A. That is correct.
5 Q. That was sent off to see if any DNA could be recovered
6 from it and we will look at that. In addition, was
7 a fingerprint examination carried out, do you remember,
8 of the vehicle?
9 A. Yes, it would have been, although I cannot see any
10 record of it on the crime report.
11 Q. Sometimes, is this right, no fingermarks may be
12 recovered from an item that you are looking at or
13 fingermarks may be recovered but they may not be of good
14 enough quality to compare? Do you know whether either
15 of those was the case here or can you simply not say?
16 A. I have no record to say what marks were found at all.
17 Q. And of what quality they were or were not?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Anyway, off went the partly smoked cigarette to
20 the forensic science service laboratory and there was,
21 is this right, a DNA match with somebody?
22 A. That is correct, yes. It was identified about a year
23 later.
24 Q. In due course, did you submit a file of the papers to
25 the Crown Prosecution Service for them to make
42
1 a decision as to whether anybody should be charged with
2 the burglary?
3 A. I should say that I had left Kilburn Police Station at
4 that time and was working elsewhere within the
5 Metropolitan Police. However, that file was submitted
6 by colleagues of mine.
7 Q. Somebody did it. All right. Have you got a copy of the
8 document that is headed "Case summary" that would have
9 gone with that file at the time? If you haven't, I can
10 hand you a copy.
11 A. I have a copy.
12 Q. Does the document say, "This is a case of a residential
13 burglary committed on 31st August 1997"?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. "On this day the victim was woken by his wife at about
16 3.15 in the morning, having found the front door, that
17 had been locked, to be open and ajar ... subsequently
18 found that property was missing. Total value of goods
19 taken was £30,000 or so. One of the items was the
20 family car valued at £16,000. The car was found by
21 police a few days later, abandoned in the Harlesden
22 area, and preserved for forensic examination. No
23 forensic evidence was recovered [at the house]."
24 It goes on:
25 "As a result of the forensic examination,
43
1 a cigarette butt not belonging to the victim was found
2 in the vehicle's front ashtray. The butt was submitted
3 to the lab for DNA profiling which yielded a profile.
4 The profile was searched against the police database and
5 a match was found with that of ..." and the suspect is
6 somebody we will just refer to as "H".
7 "As a result [that man] was circulated as wanted as
8 it was believed he had committed the burglary. He was
9 arrested on 14th December 1999 in the Camden area of
10 London and taken to Kilburn Police Station. He was
11 interviewed about the offence. He denied having
12 committed it or having taken any part in it, but he said
13 he knew the area and the road that the house was in as
14 he lived in the area most of his life."
15 He then gave, is this right, another sample of blood
16 just to confirm the DNA analysis; is that right?
17 A. Yes, that is right.
18 Q. He then left the police station whilst that analysis was
19 confirmed. It was confirmed -- is this right?
20 A. Yes, it was.
21 Q. -- so back he came to the police station. He continued
22 to deny the allegation, is that right?
23 A. That is correct.
24 Q. When asked, did he say that he recalled having been
25 given a lift in a car by somebody known to him at about
44
1 the time of the offence?
2 A. That is right, he did.
3 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It sounds as if he had some
4 experience of the criminal justice system, did he?
5 A. Some, sir, yes.
6 MR HILLIARD: Is this right, does it follow, that although
7 somebody in the early hours of the morning, if they had
8 been doing a burglary, had stopped to give him a lift,
9 it was not somebody who he was able to give you enough
10 information about so that could you go and see that
11 person?
12 A. That is correct. I think he mentioned that he had
13 shared a squat with the individual before, but he did
14 not know his name.
15 Q. So you could not go anywhere with that. Was he asked
16 about the cigarette butt containing his DNA profile that
17 was found in the vehicle's front ashtray?
18 A. Yes, he was.
19 Q. As you say, he said that he had had the lift from
20 someone known briefly to him, with whom he had once
21 shared a squat. Also in the car, is this right, was
22 a man who was completely unknown to him?
23 A. That is right.
24 Q. Is this right, that he was asked where he had sat in
25 the vehicle, and did he say that he had sat in the back
45
1 seat because there were two people in the front when he
2 had been offered the lift?
3 A. That is what he said.
4 Q. Not surprisingly, he was asked why was the cigarette
5 butt in the front ashtray; yes?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. All he could say was he did not know?
8 A. That is correct.
9 Q. So then what you did, is this right, the file went --
10 not you -- off to the Crown Prosecution Service so that
11 they could see what they made of all this; is that
12 right?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. In due course, did the decision come back from them that
15 he was not to be charged with anything?
16 A. That is correct.
17 Q. I just want to ask you, please, if you can help with
18 a little more detail about Mr H. I do not know whether
19 you have this. I am looking at information about him
20 that appears in the Paget Report. Do you have that? If
21 you haven't --
22 A. I do not believe I have.
23 Q. -- let me hand that to you.
24 This just gives us a little bit more about H,
25 the man who had had the lift -- doesn't it?
46
1 A. Yes, it does.
2 Q. -- to the effect that he had lived with his mother for
3 some time, which was a very short distance, 300 yards or
4 so, from the house that was burgled.
5 A. That is right.
6 Q. He had, unfortunately, a drug problem and was known to
7 be a drug addict; is that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And indeed suspected of dealing in drugs?
10 A. That is right.
11 Q. He had a large number of convictions for offences of
12 theft --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- and was living, is this right, in 1997, in NW10, with
15 someone who is described as a "known burglar", who had
16 convictions for burglary, and the address where he and
17 the burglar lived was 400 yards from the location where
18 the Mitsubishi vehicle had been abandoned?
19 A. That is right.
20 Q. Do you remember that a few hours after the burglary, one
21 of the cards was used to make the call to a number in
22 Ireland?
23 A. That is right.
24 Q. Does it record that Mr H had what are described as
25 "strong links with the Irish community"?
47
1 A. Yes, it does record that.
2 MR HILLIARD: Thank you very much.
3 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield?
4 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
5 MR MANSFIELD: Good morning, Officer. I am
6 Michael Mansfield. I represent Mohamed Al Fayed. I am
7 sorry to be asking you questions that go back a while.
8 I think it is right to say that you stand by your
9 original assessment made at the time to the effect that
10 effectively it appeared to you that it was no
11 coincidence that a large quantity of photographic
12 material, that is photographs scanned in and so on, had
13 been stolen so shortly after the crash in Paris; is that
14 right?
15 A. Yes, I thought it was quite a coincidence at the time,
16 yes.
17 Q. I understand that. Also, when one examined -- and I am
18 sorry if you cannot remember, but I will go slowly on
19 it -- there were some unusual features about this one in
20 the sense that the property in the office or room that
21 was used as an office in the house had been very neatly
22 laid out and certain items unplugged, according to
23 the owner of the property.
24 A. Yes, that is the recollection of the owner. I cannot
25 say that I can clearly recollect that myself.
48
1 Q. Probably by the time you got there things may have been
2 moved. In addition -- the owner has already indicated
3 other property that was not taken -- it did appear to
4 you that the person or persons committing it had
5 targeted particular computer equipment that was in use,
6 plus their hard drives?
7 A. Yes, it appeared to me from the scene, as I recollect,
8 that some computer equipment had been left behind, but
9 that that had been left behind was older equipment and
10 was not in use.
11 Q. Right. If you don't know the answer, I am sure you will
12 say, but at the time -- there is a reference to the fact
13 that the premises were forensically examined, by which
14 I mean examined for any kind of scientific trace that
15 could be linked. Now do you recall that or --
16 A. Well, the crime report certainly states that
17 I accompanied two forensic officers to the house for an
18 examination. Whether or not I stayed with them during
19 the examination, I cannot recall.
20 Q. So is it too long ago, really, for me to say "What did
21 it comprise?"
22 A. Unfortunately, I cannot say for certain. Clearly they
23 would have been looking for points of entry. They would
24 have been examining any window or door that could have
25 been a point of entry --
49
1 Q. Or exit, for that matter.
2 A. Or exit.
3 Q. I think at least this: it seems clear that, as far as
4 the premises were concerned, certainly no fingerprints
5 or fingerprints capable of being compared were
6 discovered?
7 A. That is correct.
8 Q. The car was also looked at. I want to ask you this
9 question in view of something that is said in
10 a document.
11 First of all that was also examined, the one that
12 was left, the BMW.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Can you recall this, that it appeared that fingerprints
15 had been wiped from the car so that none could be found?
16 Do you recall that?
17 A. No, I do not recall that.
18 Q. All right. Just the follow-up: a card being used the
19 following morning to phone a number in Ireland, does it
20 appear that at the time you did know the number?
21 A. Yes, that is right.
22 Q. It is redacted here and I do not want to know it, but on
23 page 24 -- you will see that is where it comes and there
24 is a reference. Was that number followed up?
25 A. Yes, it was.
50
1 Q. I do not want to reveal anything that again is
2 sensitive, but did you discover who the person was at
3 the other end, as it were?
4 A. Yes. My recollection is, from the inquiries, local
5 officers in Ireland visited the address, but nothing
6 fruitful came from their questioning of people who lived
7 there.
8 Q. I cannot possibly take that much further forward.
9 The other one was an attempt.
10 As far as the cheque is concerned -- this is
11 later -- is there any follow-up from that that you can
12 help us with as to who may have been trying at that
13 stage, months later albeit, to pass off that cheque?
14 A. No. The cheque was sent away for forensic examination
15 and I do not believe that any forensic evidence was
16 recovered.
17 Q. All right. As far as the property generally is
18 concerned, we have heard from the last witness -- and
19 you were sitting in court, I think, at the time -- that
20 none of the property itself has been recovered at any
21 stage. Is that right?
22 A. That is what I believe, yes.
23 MR MANSFIELD: Thank you very much.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Keen?
25 MR WEEKES: Mr Weekes, but no, thank you, sir.
51
1 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Sorry, Mr Weekes. Mr Croxford?
2 MR CROXFORD: I will if you don't mind, please, sir.
3 Questions from MR CROXFORD
4 MR CROXFORD: Superintendent, you were running the burglary
5 squad for the Kilburn Division at the time, I think; is
6 that right?
7 A. That is right.
8 Q. Accordingly, you would have been well aware of what
9 burglaries there would have been in this area at that
10 time?
11 A. I would have had an awareness of them, yes.
12 Q. In particular burglaries of dwelling houses?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. So far as you completed the crime report, is it right to
15 say that you did not include any cross-reference to any
16 other burglaries which had been carried out in this area
17 at that time?
18 A. I have no record of that.
19 Q. So in the first place, you did not associate this
20 burglary with any other burglaries in the area at the
21 time?
22 A. I did not make a record of it.
23 Q. Yes, I see. There is nothing in this crime report, is
24 there, to show any collation with any other burglaries?
25 A. No.
52
1 MR CROXFORD: Thank you very much.
2 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Horwell?
3 Questions from MR HORWELL
4 MR HORWELL: Richard Horwell on behalf of the
5 Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.
6 Ten years ago, Mr Freeman -- if I can follow the
7 questions that you have just been asked -- there were
8 a number of burglaries of residential properties in
9 Willesden at this time.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. The fact that there was no cross-referencing on the
12 crime report to that extent is irrelevant. This was
13 a period of residential burglaries in Willesden and its
14 surrounding area?
15 A. It was a busy area for burglaries.
16 Q. It is perhaps easy to forget that ten years ago computer
17 equipment was much more valuable and much less
18 frequently obtained than it is today, and computer
19 equipment was something that burglars were very
20 interested in. I am not suggesting they are not today,
21 but ten years ago equipment was much more expensive in
22 real terms than it is today.
23 A. I would say it was one of the many things that were
24 stolen during burglaries, but I would not say -- whilst
25 there were specialist computer burglars, they used to
53
1 target non-residential premises, rather than
2 residential --
3 Q. More businesses than residential?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. In terms of the care that the burglars took -- questions
6 that Mr Mansfield asked you a few minutes ago -- it is
7 obvious that this was the burglary of residential
8 premises, premises that were occupied, and a burglary
9 that was being committed in the early hours of the
10 morning with the occupiers asleep upstairs. No doubt
11 the burglars had to take care during the course of the
12 burglary of those premises?
13 A. They would certainly have to be quite.
14 Q. The last thing they wanted to do would be to wake up
15 the occupants. In terms of the property that was used
16 as a result of this burglary, we know that a notebook
17 was recovered at a school; we know that the credit card
18 was used to telephone a number in Ireland. Mr Mansfield
19 has referred to the fact that the number has been
20 redacted in the report that we have. There is nothing
21 sensitive about the number. All telephone numbers are
22 redacted in police reports. That is right, isn't it?
23 A. That is right.
24 Q. So a notebook found at a school, a credit card used to
25 telephone a number in Ireland and attempted use of that
54
1 card to telephone a number in England. It appears that
2 a cheque that was stolen in the burglary was also used
3 for a transaction to the value of some thousands of
4 pounds.
5 A. Well, just under £1,000, I believe.
6 Q. Sorry, that is my mistake.
7 MR HORWELL: Mr Freeman, thank you.
8 MR HILLIARD: Thank you.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you very much, Mr Freeman.
10 That is all we require and we are grateful to you for
11 coming. We will have our break now for quarter of an
12 hour and then we have one more officer.
13 MR HILLIARD: I am hoping that we will have managed to
14 retrieve Detective Inspector Scotchbrook and she will be
15 here earlier than expected.
16 (11.25 am)
17 (A short break)
18 (11.40 am)
19 (Jury present)
20 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Kemp then.
21 MR WILLIAM JAMES JOHN KEMP (affirmed)
22 Questions from MR HILLIARD
23 MR HILLIARD: Are you William James John Kemp?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. I have no doubt that you are probably chief constable
55
1 somewhere now --
2 A. Retired.
3 Q. You are retired. You joined the Metropolitan Police in
4 1970, is that right?
5 A. That is right.
6 Q. In June of 1996 I think you became a crime prevention
7 officer. Is that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. I think you had to go on a course first of all, is that
10 right, to do that and then were you posted to Kilburn
11 Police Station?
12 A. Yes. In fact I qualified as a Home Office accredited
13 security risk adviser and then returned to Kilburn
14 Police Station.
15 Q. Did most of your work consist of unfortunately visiting
16 residential and business premises that had been burgled?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. When you went there, would you provide recommendations
19 to the owners or occupiers of the premises concerned as
20 to anything they might perhaps do to reduce chances of
21 it happening again?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. One such premises that you went to, is this right, was
24 5 Mowbray Road in Willesden, where we have heard about
25 the burglary that happened to the Cherruault family?
56
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Again, we have heard about the crime report that was
3 compiled in respect of that. Have you got a copy it?
4 A. Yes, sir.
5 Q. Does that show -- again we have heard about this --
6 page 3 of 32, on 4th September 1997, that you made
7 a crime prevention visit to that address?
8 A. That is right.
9 Q. Before you went there, had you read as much of the crime
10 report as was in existence at the time you went?
11 A. That is right, yes.
12 Q. Did that include the comment that we have heard about
13 that Mr Freeman had put in the report about it appeared
14 to be too much of a coincidence that the burglary had
15 happened close to the time of the death of the
16 Princess of Wales?
17 A. Strangely enough, sir, I do not actually remember
18 remembering that comment, but I would have looked at
19 the crime report.
20 Q. Because otherwise, is this right, what you would have
21 known when you went there was that there had been
22 a burglary, that there was a possibility that the
23 burglars had been disturbed, that, amongst other things,
24 computer equipment had gone. That is all you would have
25 known?
57
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you help us, please, then with your recollection of
3 the visit? Have you been in court this morning and did
4 you hear Mr Cherruault's evidence?
5 A. I did.
6 Q. So help us. What is your recollection of the visit?
7 A. Can I say, sir, that actually I understand that
8 Mr Cherruault was attributing statements to me that
9 I did not make and I fear that he has the chronological
10 order of events out of sync.
11 Q. All right. Well you give us your best recollection --
12 it is a long time ago -- as you remember it.
13 A. I have a fairly standard practice. I would go there and
14 I would stand outside and look at the physical
15 construction of the building. I would then go inside,
16 introduce myself and speak to the victim or whoever was
17 there. I would then carry out a security survey.
18 The practice then with -- if you were carrying out
19 a survey on a house, I would simply ask the owner of
20 the house to get a pencil and paper and tell them what
21 security measures they would have to implement.
22 Q. Right. Do you have a recollection now of going to these
23 particular premises and this particular burglary?
24 A. I remember going to this one, yes.
25 Q. Right. As you recall it, did you follow your usual
58
1 practice when you went to this address?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Do you have any recollection of, as it were, really
4 noticing as you got there than saying to Mr Cherruault
5 that there was -- and I am paraphrasing -- more to this
6 than met the eye and so on and so forth? Do you
7 remember having any conversation like that with him at
8 the outset?
9 A. I cannot remember, sir, what I said when I first spoke
10 to Mr Cherruault. What I can say is in fact -- I do not
11 know if this will come later, but in fact it was
12 Mr Cherruault who actually said something like that he
13 had not been burgled and he had been targeted. I cannot
14 understand that statement because he had quite obviously
15 been burgled and it was he that was saying that he had
16 been targeted by -- I do not know if he said security
17 services or secret services. As for his statement, that
18 I said that it was either the MI5 or the flying squad or
19 local hoodlums, is ridiculous.
20 Q. All right. Let's unpick that if we can.
21 First of all, the conversation that you have just
22 told us about on the topic, can you help us with
23 whenabouts you think that happened? Was it right at the
24 beginning or at some different time? If you cannot
25 remember, then say so.
59
1 A. As I say, my standard practice would be to walk around
2 with Mr Cherruault and carry out the survey first of
3 all. We were walking around, and all the time he was
4 making statements about who he thought -- what he
5 thought had happened and who he thought had done it.
6 I kept quiet and I carried out my survey, gave him
7 the advice, and it was at that stage that the statement
8 about "Are you recording this conversation?" came into
9 play.
10 Q. Now you probably heard Mr Cherruault say himself that,
11 as far as he was concerned, he thought this was simply
12 a burglary, but, as it were, just with an accident of
13 timing, not long after her death. That is what he told
14 us this morning. But the sort of topics that you are
15 mentioning at the moment, can you help us, were those
16 raised as possibilities at that time, as things he was
17 thinking about or things he was certain about? Can you
18 help us?
19 A. I cannot be specific, but he was saying -- the bottom
20 line of what he was saying, and he repeated it several
21 times, was that he had been targeted by -- and I think
22 he said something like the Secret Service or the
23 Security Service.
24 Q. Did you make any response to that?
25 A. No, I did not.
60
1 Q. Did you say anything to him about anything that you
2 thought might have been behind the burglary?
3 A. Yes, I did concede -- and like my colleague, like
4 Freeman -- I did also think that it was a little
5 coincidental, given the circumstances, it was a little
6 coincidental that he had been burgled.
7 Q. Did you say that to him, do you remember?
8 A. I was thinking it. I cannot remember whether or not
9 I said it. Possibly. It is likely.
10 Q. So apart from him raising the question, as you say, and
11 you possibly having mentioned what you have just told us
12 about the coincidence or not, have you got any other
13 recollection of the conversation that you had with him
14 about anything that might have been behind this
15 burglary, other than somebody simply wanting to take his
16 property and make money out of it?
17 A. Nothing other than -- I was having difficulty, as
18 a security officer, finding out how they had got in.
19 There was no obvious point of entry.
20 I can tell you that the construction of the building
21 is that there were two big double doors, and I can
22 perhaps assist you, if you wish, on the type of locking
23 system that he may have had at the house. I cannot be
24 sure because I have not made notes, but it is fairly
25 standard in that area.
61
1 Q. What he told us -- and we looked at the keys -- is that
2 on the front door there was a Yale lock and a Chubb lock
3 below that that he did not think was on at night-time.
4 A. The standard construction of houses around that area is
5 that you have a -- forgive the technicality -- you
6 either have an automatic deadlocking rim lock, which is
7 the round key operated one, at shoulder height where
8 the key goes in or, where the boot goes in, you would
9 have what they call a "deadlock". You would have a
10 mortice deadlock.
11 As I believe it, that is the construction of the
12 door that he had. He had double-leaf doors, a master
13 door and a slave door and they were secured, I think, by
14 rack bolts or flush bolts.
15 Q. Now we heard about an observation that his wife had
16 made, that she thought they had got in through a window
17 that the au pair had left open.
18 A. Yes, I recall that. I remember standing outside and
19 looking at the building, and there was a big heavy-duty
20 soil pipe which went up the left-hand side of
21 the building up to a window. I recollect thinking that
22 it was a possible point of entry, but I cannot remember
23 actually what I did about it.
24 Q. Do you know whether that was the au pair's window that
25 she had left open or not?
62
1 A. I cannot be sure, sir. It is too long ago.
2 MR HILLIARD: Thank you very much.
3 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield?
4 MR MANSFIELD: Yes.
5 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
6 MR MANSFIELD: Good morning, officer. I represent
7 Mohamed Al Fayed. My name is Michael Mansfield.
8 Plainly before you go to premises, you need to be as
9 aware as you can be of the circumstances if you are
10 going to proffer advice?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. So you would have known, before you went, that he was
13 a photographer specialising in photographs of the Royal
14 Family or royalty? You would have known that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And you would have also known that it did appear, from
17 the nature of the property taken, that particular
18 computer equipment had been targeted?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Now, as you indicated, you were having a problem as you
21 remember it. May I preface all of this? You don't
22 have, do you, any notes, because you don't normally make
23 them; is that the position?
24 A. That is right, sir. With domestic dwellings, the
25 practice was to ask them to get a piece of paper, to
63
1 follow you around and they made the notes in their
2 handwriting.
3 Q. But clearly, again, in order to give advice, you would
4 need to know, if at all possible, how people had gained
5 access in order to at least prevent that form of access
6 happening again?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You don't have any clear recollection that it was
9 possible to identify any point of entry; is that right?
10 A. That is right.
11 Q. Can I just shoot forward for a moment? As a crime
12 prevention officer, presumably you are not tied into
13 further inquiries about the burglary; that is for
14 the others --
15 A. No, I just deal with security.
16 Q. You have heard this particular householder indicate --
17 have you been sitting in court this morning?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. So you heard what he said. He said very clearly to this
20 jury that until you came or at least for the first few
21 days, he believed that this was just an ordinary
22 burglary. Do you remember him saying that today?
23 A. I cannot.
24 Q. Well, that is what he said today; in other words -- the
25 reason I am putting that to you as a preface to any
64
1 conversation, he was not saying today or then that he
2 thought he had been targeted. Do you follow? That is
3 not what he is saying.
4 So I would like you to think back as to whether, in
5 fact, in those circumstances, he would be the one
6 repeatedly saying to you, as you seem to say, that he
7 had been targeted, possibly by --
8 A. He was the one that was saying that he thought he had
9 been targeted.
10 Q. Yes?
11 A. And he was trying to extract from me who he thought had
12 carried it out. I read from his statement that he talks
13 about me saying "the grey men" and the "flying squad"
14 and "local hoodlums". Those are statements that I did
15 not say. He was insinuating it entirely, by a special
16 group.
17 Q. Where do you get the "flying squad" from?
18 A. Somewhere in his statement, sir.
19 Q. I see, all right, his written statement.
20 Now, before you got there, you must have given some
21 thought as to who might be responsible for this.
22 A. Not so much who. That would be for the investigating
23 officer. I would be more concerned about how they
24 carried out the burglary.
25 Q. All right. Again, you see, there is some issue. I am
65
1 not suggesting that this is a live issue, but you would
2 have been aware of other burglaries in the area if there
3 were a spate of them.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Therefore, if it was connected with other burglaries in
6 any way, you would obviously have regard to that,
7 wouldn't you?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You are not suggesting that when you went there, you had
10 connected it to any other burglaries, are you?
11 A. That is right.
12 Q. But you had given some thought as to the nature of this
13 one. Did you say anything like this, "Well, under
14 the circumstances, this is not a usual burglary"?
15 A. Can I just read my statement?
16 Q. Yes, by all means. (Pause)
17 A. It did not appear to be a usual burglary.
18 Q. Well, that is one thing. It is one thing for it not to
19 appear to be a usual one. I will come back to that in
20 a moment.
21 Can I ask you, the statement that we have, my copy
22 is not dated. Can I ask you when you were asked to
23 recollect all this, when you made this statement?
24 A. Yes, I made this statement at Scotland Yard on
25 23rd December 2004.
66
1 Q. Thank you. So, without the benefit of any notes, you
2 were having to recollect a visit some years before, in
3 2004, is that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now having looked at your statement in 2004, whilst it
6 may have appeared not to be usual, did you say something
7 to the effect that, "Under the circumstances, this is
8 not a usual burglary"?
9 A. I may have done. I cannot recall, but I may have done.
10 Q. I want to suggest to you -- you see how easy it is to
11 forget what you have said, even in your own statement,
12 a few years ago, because we are now obviously 2008. If
13 you look at page 2 and if you look at the fifth
14 paragraph down:
15 "On completion of the survey ... another
16 conversation ... I said something like 'Under
17 the circumstances, this is not a usual burglary'."
18 Do you see that?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. So, then, in 2004, you were thinking that you had said
21 something like that to him.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. I suggest to you that you almost certainly would have
24 said something like that to him because it did not
25 appear to be usual.
67
1 A. That is right.
2 Q. Now, can I deal with the appearance? The appearance did
3 not seem usual, one, because it was targeting particular
4 computer equipment, but not all the computer equipment.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Secondly, hard drives which contained a large library of
7 photographs connected to the Royal Family?
8 A. Unusual, yes.
9 Q. Again, you may have heard this morning -- it is in his
10 statement -- that he said that when they went down to
11 the office, property had been laid out on the floor very
12 carefully that had been removed from handbags and
13 wallets, some of it taken and some of it not. Do you
14 remember?
15 A. I cannot remember, sorry.
16 Q. The computer equipment itself had been unplugged
17 carefully and neatly?
18 A. As I recall, yes.
19 Q. What I want to suggest to you is that bearing in mind
20 what you knew before you went, what you were trying to
21 say to this particular householder, which I suggest
22 would be a perfectly proper and ordinary thing to say
23 is, "You have been targeted, as a burglary", words to
24 that effect; that would be reasonable, wouldn't it?
25 A. I do not know if I said it or I confirmed his statement
68
1 that he had been targeted, but he had obviously been
2 targeted.
3 Q. He obviously had been targeted, right. There is only
4 one stage left in relation to that. He has made it very
5 clear, he is not going to be targeted by other
6 photographers, so you must have been thinking, I suggest
7 creatively and imaginatively, "Well, who could possibly
8 have targeted this person?" You would have been
9 thinking that, wouldn't you?
10 A. Possibly.
11 Q. The next question: were you possibly thinking that
12 the people who were targeting could have been, for
13 example, security services, who were concerned that he
14 might have material that had been scanned from one
15 source or another and particularly from Paris? Did that
16 occur to you?
17 A. Not -- no, sir. It is not my job to think about who may
18 have targeted him. It is my job to try to work out how
19 he has been broken into and give him advice on how to
20 try to stop it next time.
21 Q. I am sorry to persist a stage further, but if you cannot
22 work out how they got in and if you agree that it was
23 a targeted exercise, if you are going to prevent that
24 happening again, you have to be thinking laterally in
25 order to work out what measures he is going to have to
69
1 take to prevent this, are you not?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. One of the things would be, again in discussion,
4 I suggest to you, perfectly naturally, you say -- and
5 I was not there, I am only suggesting a permutation --
6 that it could have been security services concerned
7 about the security of photographs.
8 A. No.
9 Q. You did not --
10 A. I did not say it.
11 Q. Did you think it?
12 A. I do not recall.
13 MR MANSFIELD: All right. Yes, thank you very much.
14 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Horwell?
15 Questions from MR HORWELL
16 MR HORWELL: Mr Kemp, only this: whatever was said, you have
17 no specialist experience or knowledge of MI5 or MI6, can
18 we take it?
19 A. No, I do not.
20 MR HORWELL: Thank you very much.
21 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Do we have a list of the property
22 that was taken anywhere?
23 MR HILLIARD: We have a list in the statement.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It has been suggested that it was
25 computer equipment that was targeted, but we know that
70
1 there were other things, including credit cards and
2 cheque books and so forth. It might be helpful to have
3 a list of what there was.
4 MR HILLIARD: Yes. Mr Cherruault's statement, his
5 8th October statement 1999, that is the one I went
6 through this morning. We can certainly provide that,
7 but, as you say, sir, that includes obviously the
8 computer equipment, but in addition, as we established
9 this morning, a large number of bank cards, some cash,
10 you remember, the 200-franc notes, the English money,
11 the counter cheques and so on.
12 Further questions by MR HILLIARD
13 MR HILLIARD: Just so that we are clear, Mr Kemp, as you
14 say, someone had obviously targeted his house because
15 not every house in the street had been burgled, had it?
16 A. No.
17 Q. He certainly had valuable property in his house, no
18 doubt about that. So the only question is who was
19 behind the burglary, isn't it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. You have no idea?
22 A. No.
23 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: You now know, of course, what
24 happened with regard to a report being made to the Crown
25 Prosecution Service, don't you?
71
1 A. Yes.
2 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Would it be right that, in
3 relation to the suspect who was picked up and said
4 he was a passenger in the car, there were certain
5 features about this which might put it into a category
6 of a simply standard burglary?
7 A. Yes.
8 MR HILLIARD: Thank you very much.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you very much, Mr Kemp.
10 That is all we require.
11 MR HILLIARD: Sir, we have managed to bring forward
12 Detective Inspector Scotchbrook, who is going to be
13 called, and then, after that, so that we know where we
14 are going, there is a statement that you have given
15 notice about. It is a statement from Thomas Foley
16 producing some answers to specific questions from
17 Mr Hasnat Khan. I will deal with that after we have
18 called Inspector Scotchbrook.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: This is, I think, a slightly new
20 situation, isn't it, in that this is the evidence of
21 a witness that is not undisputed evidence. It is
22 the evidence of Mr Hasnat Khan, who we have endeavoured
23 to get to come to give evidence, but who has declined to
24 do so and has declined to give evidence via videolink
25 from where he is, abroad; regrettably, because he
72
1 appears to have been prepared to give interviews to
2 the media.
3 So the best we can do, having ascertained that there
4 is no realistic prospect of getting him to give evidence
5 either in person or by videolink, is to read the
6 statements that he has made, which includes -- which
7 will be produced separately -- the answers to certain
8 further questions that were put to him by email as
9 having arisen during the course of the inquests that
10 we would like to know the answers to.
11 So, members of the jury, bear in mind, when this
12 evidence is being read to you, that it does not have
13 the same weight as it would have if it was given on oath
14 in the witness box or under affirmation as to its truth
15 in the witness box, when it would be subject to the
16 possibility of it being cross-examined by any party who
17 disagreed with anything that was in it.
18 So you are getting the best we can get you, but
19 it is not as good as if the witness had come in person.
20 MR HILLIARD: Inspector, please.
21 DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR JANE SCOTCHBROOK (recalled)
22 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: You are still on oath, Inspector.
23 You gave evidence earlier in the inquest and I would
24 imagine that you treat yourself as still being bound by
25 the oath that you took earlier.
73
1 A. Yes, sir.
2 Questions from MR HILLIARD
3 MR HILLIARD: Inspector Scotchbrook, as you know and as the
4 jury have just had explained, you are here to prove
5 a statement that was taken -- and I am using the full
6 name that appears at the top of the statement -- from
7 Hasnat Ahmad Khan. The statement taken on
8 24th September 2004. Was it taken by you?
9 A. Yes, sir.
10 Q. Can you just help us, please, with how the statement was
11 taken? Had you given him some idea in advance of
12 matters that you wanted to deal with? Was it dealt with
13 by question and answer? How did it come about?
14 A. First of all, once we tracked him down, we arranged an
15 appointment to see Mr Khan and then we met him at
16 the territorial headquarters on the Embankment, at an
17 interview room there, where we then asked him a list of
18 questions, giving him the opportunity obviously to
19 answer or elaborate on them.
20 My colleague, Detective Constable Clare Southcott,
21 then took them down in shorthand form. We went away,
22 prepared a draft statement and then arranged another
23 appointment to see Mr Khan, when he had the opportunity
24 to look at the statement, change what he wanted to and
25 sign it as correct.
74
1 Q. So we understand, what you are going to help us with,
2 dated 24th September 2004 -- that is after the meeting,
3 after the draft statement has been produced and after he
4 has had a chance to amend or alter anything, we then
5 have the version that you are going to tell us about.
6 A. Yes, this is the date that he agreed it and signed it.
7 Q. Does the statement have this declaration? Does it say,
8 "This statement is true to the best of my knowledge and
9 belief, and I make it knowing that if it is tendered in
10 evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have
11 wilfully stated anything in it which I know to be false
12 or do not believe to be true"?
13 A. That is correct, yes.
14 Q. All right. Inspector, I am just going to read a part of
15 it and then I am going to ask you to take over, so that
16 it is not just one voice the whole time.
17 Statement of MR HASNAT AHMAD KHAN (read)
18 MR HILLIARD: "I have a Bachelor in medicine, a Bachelor in
19 surgery and I am a fellow of the Royal College of
20 Surgeons. I specialise in heart and lung surgery and
21 I am currently based at Harefield Hospital. Prior to
22 this, I worked at the London Chest Hospital and before
23 that, in 2000, I was at St Bart's. Prior to that I was
24 studying for my PhD at Imperial College. Between 1995
25 and 1996 I was working at the Royal Brompton Hospital in
75
1 London. It was in August or September of 1995 that
2 I met Diana, Princess of Wales.
3 "Diana and I met through Oonagh Toffolo, whose
4 husband was recovering from heart surgery at the Royal
5 Brompton. At the time, I was working for
6 Professor Yacoub, the heart surgeon, and Mr Toffolo was
7 one of his patients, so I was involved in his medical
8 treatment and care. I first met Diana when I had
9 occasion to speak to Mrs Toffolo, whose husband was
10 required to stay in hospital for some time.
11 "Diana would visit him on a regular basis. From
12 what she had seen during her visits, Diana became very
13 interested in the workings of the hospital. Out of
14 general interest, she wanted to visit the patients on
15 the ward. As Diana's interest increased, she decided
16 she wanted to watch a heart operation. In fact, she
17 watched two such operations, although you only ever hear
18 of one in the press.
19 "I was always extremely busy at work during
20 the week, but at the weekends I had more time to spend
21 doing my rounds on the wards. Diana and her girlfriends
22 would often pop in and, when I had finished my rounds,
23 they would join me for a chat. They were all very
24 friendly people. I found Diana very down to earth and
25 she made everyone feel at ease. I did notice that she
76
1 was also very flirtatious with everyone. Over a period
2 of time, we became good friends.
3 "We were chatting one day and I mentioned that
4 I needed to go to my uncle's house in
5 Stratford-upon-Avon to pick up some books. I did not
6 think for one minute that she would say yes, but I asked
7 her if she would like to come with me. I was very
8 surprised when she said she would. We drove there
9 together and Diana met my aunt and uncle. We had dinner
10 in a restaurant and then drove back to London.
11 "I think this took place around mid-September 1995.
12 After this, our friendship turned into a relationship.
13 Diana and I had a very good relationship with no
14 personal problems. The only problem we did have was
15 with the media and the only place we could have any real
16 privacy was at Kensington Palace as they could not get
17 to us there. I was living in Neville Street in
18 Kensington at the time and the media followed me
19 everywhere, even to my place of work at
20 Harefield Hospital.
21 "Diana was very protective towards me and wanted to
22 shield me from the attention. The media found out about
23 us around November 1995, very soon after our
24 relationship started. I think they had already guessed
25 we were seeing each other, but then someone working at
77
1 the hospital leaked it out. This happened when, as
2 a joke, the Princess arranged for a big pot of flowers
3 to be sent to me at the Royal Brompton. There was
4 a card with the flowers, but no name on it, although
5 I knew who had sent them. A lot of people obviously saw
6 me carrying these flowers through the hospital. Someone
7 found out which florist they had been sent from and rang
8 them up to find out who had ordered the flowers.
9 Initially the florist would not tell them, however the
10 person ringing told the florist they were inquiring on
11 my behalf, and if I did not find out who had sent them,
12 I would be returning the flowers. Eventually
13 the florist said that they had been ordered from
14 Kensington Palace. After this, the press went
15 everywhere trying to get information on me. They
16 visited old girlfriends, my medical school and retired
17 professors who I had known.
18 "During our relationship, I stayed with Diana many
19 times at Kensington Palace and she also stayed with me
20 at my place. We had a normal sexual relationship and
21 I have no reason to think that Diana was ever unfaithful
22 to me. Diana introduced me to Princes William and
23 Harry. Diana just wanted her sons to know what was
24 happening in her life. Diana and I were very good
25 friends and we never took what the other said that
78
1 seriously. Although we did talk about marriage, we did
2 not make a point of sitting down and discussing the
3 specifics. It was something we would chat about
4 generally if it came up in conversation. Neither of us
5 ever proposed.
6 "My main concern about us getting married was that
7 my life would be hell because of who she was. I knew
8 I would not be able to live a normal life and if we ever
9 had children together, I would not be able to take them
10 anywhere or do normal things with them. Anyone could
11 approach me, in the pub, on the train, anywhere.
12 "Diana was not in the same position as me. She did
13 not have a job like mine where she had to consider
14 patients and staff. The hospital I was working in at
15 the time had started getting a bit upset by the
16 disruption caused by Diana's visits. It was becoming
17 a security issue.
18 "Diana was also not used to doing everyday things
19 that the rest of us take for granted. For example,
20 we once went to the pub together and Diana asked if she
21 could order the drinks because she had never done so
22 before. She really enjoyed the experience and chatted
23 away happily to the barman. On another occasion we had
24 to queue to get into Ronnie Scott's jazz club. She
25 later said she loved queuing as you get to meet so many
79
1 people.
2 "On one occasion Diana wanted to fly to Spain to
3 meet me when I was over there. I told her that she
4 would not be able to just walk into the airport as
5 everybody would be looking at her. She said she would
6 wear a wig to disguise herself. I told her that was a
7 ridiculous suggestion as she wouldn't look anything like
8 her passport photo with a wig on.
9 "A lot of people have said to me that even a married
10 man would leave his wife if he had the chance of being
11 with Diana, but I did not want that sort of lifestyle.
12 I told her that the only way I could see us having
13 a vaguely normal life together would be if we went to
14 Pakistan, as the press don't bother you there. I know
15 Diana considered this an option for a while and she even
16 went to Pakistan to speak to Jemima Khan about life
17 there. However, after a while, she no longer talked
18 about Pakistan, and although she did not actually say
19 so, I got the impression that she no longer considered
20 living there a possibility.
21 "Diana considered other countries that may have been
22 suitable. She would think of somewhere and just get up
23 and go there without saying anything to me. She would
24 return from these trips and say something or other was
25 not right, like security would be a problem. I know she
80
1 thought about South Africa and Australia. Her brother
2 was living in South Africa at the time. Diana visited,
3 and although she loved Cape Town, she said the fences
4 were going up and security would be a problem. I did
5 not want to have to look over my shoulder all the time.
6 "I had had experiences of working in Australia, but
7 after thinking about it, Diana said it would be too far
8 away from her sons. I know that around the end of 1996
9 or the beginning of 1997, Diana asked Paul Burrell to
10 talk to a priest about the feasibility of us getting
11 married in secret. I knew nothing about this until
12 afterwards, when both Paul and Diana told me. I do not
13 know the name of the priest that Paul approached. When
14 I found out, I said to Diana, 'Do you honestly think you
15 can just bring a priest here and get married?'
16 I thought it was a ridiculous idea.
17 "I think in her head she wanted to get married, but
18 practically she had not thought about the implications.
19 We had an argument about it once and I told her she
20 could not just jump into something like that. She just
21 said that everything would be all right. That was her
22 answer to everything, 'It will turn out all right'.
23 "If we had married, as far as I am concerned, Diana
24 would not have had to convert to the Muslim faith.
25 Being a Muslim, you have to believe in Christ and Moses.
81
1 As far as her religion was concerned, she could go to
2 a church or a mosque. I would never tell someone what
3 religion they should be. My only concern would have
4 been if we then had a child. I could imagine it being
5 very difficult deciding what religion to bring the child
6 up in. Diana used to read about Islam and she would
7 tell me what she had learned. However, she never said
8 that she would convert to the Muslim faith and I never
9 asked her to.
10 "I do not know the Royal Family so I do not know if
11 it would have been a problem for them had Diana
12 remarried.
13 "We never discussed having children, either married
14 or unmarried, but Diana did mention that she would love
15 to have a girl. During our relationship Diana was
16 taking the contraceptive pill that was prescribed by
17 a male gynaecologist who used to visit her at
18 Kensington Palace. I never met this gynaecologist, but,
19 as far as I am aware, the pill was prescribed to Diana
20 because of our relationship and for no other reason.
21 "I would describe Diana as an excellent time and
22 appointment keeper, excellent with her boys and a kind
23 person. I know she had personal problems, but I think
24 that is understandable as she had been through so much.
25 "Emotionally she felt she was still young. She
82
1 wanted a husband to be there for her, to have a normal
2 relationship with him. I would say that Diana was
3 concerned about her safety, but was not paranoid about
4 it. One day, in 1995, I had finished work and bumped
5 into Diana outside the hospital. She had been visiting
6 Mr Toffolo and was in her black Audi. She offered me
7 a lift, but I declined because I only lived a stone's
8 throw away. I next saw her in a car just a couple of
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