Hearing transcripts

12 February 2008 - Morning session

1 Tuesday, 12th February 2008
2 (10.00 am)
3 (Jury present)
4 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I call Lord Fellowes.
5 LORD ROBERT FELLOWES (sworn)
6 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Would you prefer to sit down,
7 Lord Fellowes?
8 A. I will, if I may.
9 Questions from MR BURNETT
10 MR BURNETT: Lord Fellowes, as I think you know, my name is
11 Ian Burnett, and I shall ask you questions first on
12 behalf of the Coroner, and thereafter there will be
13 questions asked of you by other counsel representing
14 interested persons.
15 Would you give us your full name, please?
16 A. Robert Fellowes.
17 Q. Is it right that you were Private Secretary to Her
18 Majesty the Queen for a number of years?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Between which years were you Her Majesty's Private
21 Secretary?
22 A. 1990 to 1999.
23 Q. Prior to that, did you hold a different position in
24 the Queen's Household?
25 A. I joined as Assistant Private Secretary in 1977 and

1

1 I moved to Deputy Private Secretary in 1986.
2 Q. And retired in 1999?
3 A. Right.
4 Q. So you were Private Secretary during the period about
5 which the jury in particular have heard a considerable
6 amount of evidence, the early and mid-1990s, leading up
7 to the tragedy in Paris in August 1997?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. It is right also, isn't it, that the Princess of Wales
10 was your sister-in-law?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. You are married to her sister, Lady Jane Fellowes.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, Lord Fellowes, you may remember making a short
15 statement to the Metropolitan Police on 22nd June 2006.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. That dealt with a discrete allegation that had been made
18 against you, didn't it?
19 A. It dealt with my whereabouts on the night of the death
20 of the Princess and Mr Fayed.
21 Q. That was because it had been suggested, particularly in
22 a letter from Mr Al Fayed, that it was said that you had
23 been present in the British Embassy at 11 o'clock in
24 the evening on 30th August 1997 and commandeered
25 the communications centre to send messages to GCHQ. In

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1 other words, it was being suggested that you were
2 intimately concerned in the murder of your
3 sister-in-law. You understand that that was
4 the allegation?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Were you in Paris on that evening?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Both you and your family provided considerable detail to
9 the police of your precise whereabouts in Norfolk,
10 I think, and descriptions of what you were doing.
11 A. We were in Norfolk that evening. We had people to stay.
12 We went to an entertainment by Mr John Mortimer in
13 Burnham Market Church.
14 Q. Yesterday you may be aware that Lord Jay, who was at the
15 time the British Ambassador in Paris, was asked whether
16 you were there and he confirmed that you were not.
17 No one sought to question him about that or contradict
18 him. So, Lord Fellowes, I shall leave that matter
19 there, if I may.
20 Now, although that was the issue about which you
21 were interviewed by Metropolitan Police officers when
22 they investigated various of the conspiracy theories
23 that surround the death of Mr Al Fayed and the Princess,
24 there are a number of other matters which it may be that
25 you can assist the jury on. I will ask you about those

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1 if I may.
2 Now, the first topic concerns the Way Ahead Group.
3 Now, again, Lord Fellowes, we have heard some evidence
4 about this from Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davis, who told
5 us that he was an attendee at the Way Ahead Group
6 meetings. Is that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Who attended the Way Ahead Group meetings?
9 A. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, their children,
10 the Private Secretaries to the members of the Royal
11 Family concerned, the Lord Chamberlain, who chaired it
12 with the Queen, and the financial department,
13 represented by the Keeper of the Privy Purse.
14 Q. What in broad terms was the function of the Way Ahead
15 Group?
16 A. It was brought together as a coordinating group so that
17 the activities, public activities, of the core members
18 of the Royal Family, if I may call them that, were as
19 purposeful and effective as possible.
20 Q. Now the activities or discussions at the Way Ahead Group
21 came into the inquest's purview because of allegations
22 that were made in a newspaper report on 20th July 1997.
23 Is that something of which you are aware?
24 A. Can you ask me that again? Sorry.
25 Q. There were allegations made in a newspaper report on

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1 20th July 1997 concerning what was to be discussed at
2 the Way Ahead Group due to take place a few days later.
3 A. I am afraid I have no recollection.
4 Q. You don't remember the newspaper article.
5 Well, first of all, how often did the Way Ahead
6 Group meet during the mid-1990s?
7 A. Twice a year, I think.
8 Q. Are you able to help the jury with when it met in 1997?
9 A. We met in late July, having had a preparatory meeting
10 some ten days/fortnight before.
11 Q. Now, in a letter that was written by the Treasury
12 Solicitor when inquiries were made of the Palace about
13 the Way Ahead Group, it was suggested that the group met
14 twice in 1997, once on 20th January and then, again, on
15 a date which was clarified to be 23rd July. Does that
16 sound right?
17 A. It does.
18 Q. Indeed, the Coroner received the agenda and minutes for
19 the meeting on 23rd July and considered them. Now one
20 of the reports in the press concerning that July meeting
21 was that -- and I quote:
22 "Top of the agenda for the next meeting [that would
23 be the one on 23rd July] is Diana."
24 Is that true?
25 A. No, I do not think it is.

5

1 Q. It was also suggested that the group considered a file
2 on the Al Fayeds prepared by the security services. Is
3 that true?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Now, in your diary for 1997 -- I do not ask anyone to
6 turn it up necessarily, but can I just read you an entry
7 for 8th July?
8 There is a reference to "Way Ahead, 2 o'clock". It
9 looks as though there was a "5" underneath it and it was
10 changed to 2 o'clock, I infer because there was
11 a meeting later at 5 o'clock which is also identified.
12 Was that a meeting of the Way Ahead Group that
13 involved members of the Royal Family?
14 A. No.
15 Q. So what is that a reference to?
16 A. It was effectively a preparatory meeting chaired by
17 the Lord Chamberlain. It was an agenda meeting really.
18 No more than that.
19 Q. And the Lord Chamberlain of the day was?
20 A. Lord Airlie.
21 Q. Can I move on to another topic? That concerns
22 tape-recording of telephone conversations of members of
23 the Royal Family.
24 Now, Lord Fellowes, I am sure you are aware that it
25 would seem that, on New Year's Eve 1989, a telephone

6

1 call between the Princess of Wales and James Gilbey was
2 recorded. You are aware of that?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. It came into the public domain in the summer of 1992, so
5 some time later. That too you are aware of?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. It is right also that a telephone conversation between
8 the Prince of Wales and Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles was
9 also recorded in the early 1990s?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And that too came into the public domain?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Now what I would like to do, if I may, is explore with
14 you the response within Buckingham Palace to those
15 events. For that purpose, can I ask that you are given
16 a small bundle of documents which includes a number of
17 letters, either to you or from you? Copies are
18 available for everybody else. These are documents --
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Burnett, are we anywhere
20 nearer the statement of the witness who will ultimately
21 produce these documents?
22 MR BURNETT: Sir, inquiries are being made, but it is not
23 ready yet. But Lord Fellowes is able to produce these
24 documents because they are documents of which he is
25 fully aware.

7

1 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Have you had these, Mr Mansfield?
2 MR MANSFIELD: I am sorry to look concerned. I have not had
3 these until this minute. It is a little unfortunate
4 because it is an important topic.
5 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I appreciate that. They were
6 disclosed by email yesterday.
7 MR MANSFIELD: Well, sir, I was here until at least
8 7 o'clock last night --
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It has been a matter of some
10 concern to me that the witness statement of the witness
11 who will ultimately produce these documents has still
12 not been made available. I have been making inquiries
13 about it.
14 MR MANSFIELD: Yes. Well I may need some moments to study
15 these.
16 MR BURNETT: Sir, as you appreciate, you have asked for
17 a statement from somebody from GCHQ which is in
18 the process of being prepared.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It has been in the process of
20 being prepared, Mr Burnett, for rather too long and
21 it is time it actually arrived.
22 MR BURNETT: Sir, there are those here who can convey that
23 message, I am sure.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Could they? Thank you.
25 MR BURNETT: We heard in evidence from others that following

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1 the disclosure that the Princess of Wales had had
2 a telephone call bugged, she explained to others that
3 Her Majesty the Queen had demanded or ordered that there
4 be an investigation. That is the essence of the
5 second-hand evidence that has been heard so far.
6 I wonder, Lord Fellowes, if you could explain to
7 the jury what action was taken within Buckingham Palace
8 when it became apparent that those two telephone calls
9 had been bugged in some way.
10 A. It would be wrong, I think in the first place, to say
11 that the Queen demanded an inquiry. It was not her
12 habit to react in that way, but to consult and to be
13 informed by the best advice available. There were two
14 strands of thinking: one was obviously if there had been
15 anything nefarious done, that it should be discovered
16 and punished. But the main strand of thinking in
17 Buckingham Palace, if I can put it broadly, was that
18 this had happened and what action should be taken to
19 ensure that it did not happen again.
20 Q. Are you able to locate in time when that sort of
21 thinking was going through the minds of those of you at
22 Buckingham Palace?
23 A. Obviously it started after the first leak, which was
24 widely attributed, I think, to a chance radio ham. When
25 it happened the second time, of course, one's thinking

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1 became considerably more focused. I, I think, had
2 probably been in touch with senior civil servants after
3 the first episode and was certainly in touch with them,
4 as these papers I think show, after the second.
5 Q. If we can go to these papers, first, can I ask, were you
6 aware of a Parliamentary answer that was given by the
7 Prime Minister in connection with this issue in January
8 of 1993?
9 A. I know that the assurance was given. I wasn't -- I am
10 not aware in detail until I saw these papers yesterday.
11 Q. But you were aware that the Government of the day had
12 given assurances --
13 A. Absolutely.
14 Q. -- that the bugging, or whatever one wishes to call it,
15 was not official?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. That was, no doubt, conveyed to you privately, quite
18 apart from Parliamentary answers, by the Prime Minister
19 and other ministers?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Was that accepted by you?
22 A. Yes. My view was that it was unlikely that the security
23 services would be involved in this action because
24 I think they had much more important things to do than
25 bugging private conversations of the Royal Family.

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1 Nevertheless, I thought it should be -- we should
2 receive reassurance that it had not happened, which in
3 due course we did.
4 Q. If we can turn to the bundle and go through it, please.
5 Page 1 is the Prime Minister's answer. That, one sees,
6 was dated 19th January 1993 and referred back to an
7 earlier answer given by --
8 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Do you have a numbered bundle?
9 MR BURNETT: Yes. It is page 1 in the bundle.
10 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I am not sure that I have
11 a numbered bundle. Ah, thank you. Yes.
12 MR BURNETT: It refers back to an answer given by
13 the Heritage Secretary on 14th January, does it not?
14 A. You mean the bit "... pursuant to his oral answer of
15 14th December ..."?
16 Q. Yes, indeed.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. The Prime Minister said:
19 "... there is no substance to rumours about the
20 involvement of the security and intelligence agencies in
21 interception of the communications of the Royal Family."
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So that echoed assurances that had been given to you and
24 to Her Majesty?
25 A. Yes.

11

1 Q. If we turn the page, we see a note of a meeting that
2 took place on Thursday 21st January 1993, so very close
3 to the dates of the --
4 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: What page is this?
5 MR BURNETT: Page 2, sir.
6 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Just a moment.
7 MR BURNETT: Sir, there are two bundles that you may have.
8 One concerns this topic and the other concerns --
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Unfortunately I had not been
10 provided in advance with either numbered bundle, which
11 is not very helpful.
12 MR BURNETT: Do you have them now, sir, and do the members
13 of the jury have them?
14 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: There are two bundles?
15 MR BURNETT: Sir, one bundle concerns the --
16 MR MANSFIELD: I am sorry to interrupt. It really is, if
17 I may say so, very unsatisfactory, what has happened
18 here.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I am entirely in agreement with
20 you, Mr Mansfield, and I have been trying to take action
21 about it for some time this morning.
22 MR MANSFIELD: Firstly, as you quite rightly have pointed
23 out, we don't have a statement dealing with all of this.
24 What my learned friend is now doing is giving evidence
25 about what they all are. There is nothing on this

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1 second document to indicate so far -- I have only
2 briefly looked at it -- that this witness has much to do
3 with it. So quite why he is being asked about it is
4 another matter.
5 If in fact, before sitting today, this witness has
6 in fact been asked a series of questions to which my
7 learned friend knows the answers, then we should have
8 been informed.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: No. The difficulty is that there
10 are a number of matters on which he is to be asked on
11 which we believe that he may be able to assist
12 the court, but we have not had the opportunity of
13 obtaining a further statement from him or any details of
14 what his evidence will be on these matters.
15 MR MANSFIELD: I appreciate the difficulty that might arise
16 in getting documents late and it may not be anybody's
17 particular fault. But, on the other hand, if the
18 witness is also being asked in the witness box to look
19 at documents for the first time, I would submit it is
20 unfair on the witness.
21 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I do not think he is being asked
22 to look at them for the first time. I think he has seen
23 them already.
24 MR MANSFIELD: Then he has presumably given some answers in
25 relation to them.

13

1 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: What I wonder is I have seen
2 a draft of a statement which will deal with these
3 documents and what I would like to know is when
4 the signed statement will be available. Mr Tam?
5 MR BURNETT: Sir, before Mr Tam answers that, can I just
6 deal with two matters?
7 The first is, as everyone appreciates, these
8 documents have come to you as a result of inquiries that
9 you have been making and they have been disclosed as
10 soon as they could be. If my learned friend can just
11 hold on for a second, he will see very shortly how it is
12 that Lord Fellowes can talk to these documents. But
13 I can say that beyond two or three minutes in court
14 before we started, which was in the presence of
15 everybody here, I have not talked to Lord Fellowes about
16 these documents, neither has your solicitor --
17 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: That is the point I was seeking
18 to make to Mr Mansfield. We are living rather hand to
19 mouth on this.
20 MR BURNETT: Inevitably, sir. They are documents which
21 include letters written by Lord Fellowes and to
22 Lord Fellowes, which I shall take him to and ask him to
23 explain.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It is unfortunate, for some
25 reason, that Mr Mansfield does not seem to have been

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1 united with the documents which were sent to his
2 instructing solicitors.
3 MR BURNETT: Well, sir, I cannot help with that.
4 Well, sir, as far as the draft statement that you
5 are talking to about is concerned, again, as you know,
6 you asked that a draft statement or a statement be
7 provided by somebody from GCHQ. A draft we know is in
8 existence, but as far as I am aware, it has not yet been
9 signed or approved, and thus I am not sure what
10 the position is on that.
11 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Tam may be able to help us.
12 MR TAM: Sir, I do not think I can take matters very much
13 further definitively. The draft that you have is in
14 a fairly final form. With a bit of luck, there may be
15 no further changes, but it has not yet been signed. We
16 are trying to find out this morning exactly when that is
17 likely to take place.
18 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I am very surprised that you
19 don't actually know because we were provided with
20 the draft last week and it must have been fairly obvious
21 that it was required rather quickly.
22 MR TAM: Sir, yes, well, we were well aware --
23 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It does not really take ages to
24 get a document signed.
25 MR TAM: It is a document, sir, that we have to make sure is

15

1 correct and helpful --
2 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: But you cannot tell me when that
3 will happen?
4 MR TAM: I hope it will be very soon, but we will get
5 information during the course of the morning and relay
6 that to you as soon as we have that.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: If you can get information that
8 the document is approved in its present form, then it
9 can be circulated.
10 MR TAM: Sir, that is right, and that is one of the things
11 that we are asking about, even if the physical signature
12 cannot be obtained immediately.
13 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes.
14 Well, the next thing, Mr Burnett, is I want to make
15 sure that I have copies of the numbered bundles that you
16 are asking the witness questions about.
17 I have one which is called "Documents concerning
18 bugging of Prince Charles and Princess Diana". I have
19 actually two copies of that.
20 MR BURNETT: That is the bundle we are looking about. If
21 you go to the second numbered page, you will see
22 the note that I mentioned to Lord Fellowes a few minutes
23 ago.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It is called "Note for
25 the record"?

16

1 MR BURNETT: That is right.
2 Now, Lord Fellowes, can I start simply by asking you
3 who the people are mentioned at the beginning of
4 the note?
5 So, first of all, Sir Robin Butler?
6 A. He was the Cabinet Secretary.
7 Q. Sir Clive Whitmore?
8 A. The Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.
9 Q. Sir Kenneth Scott?
10 A. Deputy Private Secretary to the Queen.
11 Q. So he was your deputy?
12 A. Correct.
13 Q. Why were you not at the meeting?
14 A. Because I was on duty at Sandringham at the time.
15 Q. Sir John Adye?
16 A. Head of GCHQ.
17 Q. Mrs Rimington?
18 A. Head of MI5.
19 Q. Mr Phillips?
20 A. I think he was Permanent Secretary, but I cannot quite
21 remember which department now.
22 Q. He has become Sir Hayden Phillips, now. It perhaps does
23 not matter, although we can easily confirm it.
24 A. I think he was Home Office at the time, but he has been
25 in a variety of very senior posts and I cannot quite

17

1 date them.
2 Q. Then there is a name that has been blanked out, which we
3 see is an SIS officer.
4 Why was Sir Kenneth Scott at this meeting?
5 A. I had asked him to represent Buckingham Palace at it.
6 Q. So this was a meeting of which you were aware?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Had you not been at Sandringham, would you have attended
9 it yourself?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. The record of it was thus copied to Buckingham Palace?
12 A. I cannot remember that, but I would be amazed if it had
13 not been since Kenneth Scott was there.
14 Q. The subject matter of the discussion that had taken
15 place between Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary,
16 and the others there mentioned was the possibility of
17 initiating an investigation into the interception of
18 the communications of the Royal Family.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. One sees that in the first sentence of paragraph 2. Now
21 perhaps I shall not, with you, go through the whole of
22 the detail, but one sees your deputy explaining the view
23 of the Prince of Wales on the matter, namely that he
24 would prefer an interview conducted by the security
25 service rather than the police. Then there was

18

1 a discussion about the pros and cons of an
2 investigation, and that was something you were aware was
3 going on at the time, that this discussion was taking
4 place?
5 A. I would not be able to time it by my watch, but I knew
6 that Kenneth Scott was representing at that meeting.
7 Q. Now, again, perhaps one does not need to go through
8 the detail with you of the pros and cons, but if one
9 goes to paragraph 4, which is on page 4 of the bundle,
10 one sees a summary of the discussion in these terms:
11 "Summing up the discussion, Sir Robin asked
12 Sir Clive to speak to the Home Secretary, to report
13 the discussion to him. Once the Home Secretary had
14 expressed his view [or a view] Sir Kenneth Scott would
15 report the Government's view to the Prince of Wales. It
16 may then be necessary to convene a further meeting to
17 take forward any action."
18 So one sees that following official consideration of
19 the matter, that is to say at the level of officials,
20 this was a matter which was to be considered by
21 the Home Secretary. Was that something very unusual or
22 would you have expected that to be the case in this
23 instance?
24 A. I think I would have expected it.
25 Q. There is then a discussion about the press allegations

19

1 that were being made against the security and
2 intelligence agencies that one sees starting at
3 paragraph 5 and following on through a number of
4 detailed points. Then, at paragraph 7:
5 "Summing up the discussion, Sir Robin said that it
6 was agreed that further comments should rest on the
7 ministerial statements already given."
8 And then there is a reference to press officers
9 being appropriately briefed.
10 Now, in due course, we will see -- perhaps turn now
11 to page 8, which is a letter you wrote on
12 26th January 1993. That is right, isn't it?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, before we look at that, I simply wish to pick up,
15 at this stage, the first paragraph:
16 "I have seen a copy of your letter to Robin Butler
17 of 22nd January about the interception of telephone
18 conversations and the Royal Family."
19 So, again, you are writing to Clive, so that is
20 Sir Clive Whitmore, who was Permanent Secretary at
21 the Home Office, I think.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. You are referring to a letter that he wrote to
24 Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary, which you had seen.
25 Can we just have a look at that letter, please,

20

1 which was at page 627?
2 This is the letter to which you referred, is it not?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Lord Fellowes, I wondered if you would be kind enough
5 simply to read the letter on to the transcript, please?
6 A. To read the letter?
7 Q. Yes please.
8 A. "Dear Robin,
9 "Royal Family: interception of telephone
10 conversations.
11 "As I mentioned to you yesterday evening, I saw
12 the Home Secretary after your meeting earlier in
13 the afternoon and reported to him the view that we had
14 come to in our discussion that, in the face of the
15 possibility that a criminal offence had been committed,
16 there was a good case for the security service to be
17 asked to undertake a discreet inquiry into the
18 interception of telephone conversations involving
19 members of the Royal Family. I explained that we
20 envisaged that such an inquiry would be confined
21 initially to the Prince and Princess of Wales and
22 Mrs Parker Bowles and that we should take stock at that
23 stage and decide whether the inquiry should move on,
24 recognising that thereafter it would be very likely to
25 come to public notice.

21

1 "The Home Secretary is not at this stage persuaded
2 that an investigation is necessary. He accepts that if
3 an inquiry was carried out, its initial phase involving
4 those whose conversations had been intercepted would be
5 better carried out by the security service than the
6 police. But he thinks it so unlikely that any
7 investigation would ultimately be successful that he
8 sees little point in starting one.
9 "Moreover, he thinks that there is a real danger
10 that even a security service inquiry of the kind we have
11 in mind would quickly come to the attention of the
12 media. His strong fear is that when that happened, the
13 press would portray the existence of the inquiry as
14 clear proof that, notwithstanding what he and other
15 ministers had been saying about their conviction, that
16 members of the security service or of GCHQ had had
17 absolutely no part in the interception of Royal
18 telephone conversations, they believed in fact that such
19 involvement was a real possibility and that they were
20 therefore having it investigated. He believes that
21 the press would not accept the line that the very fact
22 that the inquiry was being undertaken by the security
23 service was a clear indication that the Government was
24 confident that the security and intelligence agencies
25 had not been involved in some way in the interception of

22

1 the conversations.
2 "I think that the Home Secretary's clear view means
3 that we cannot pursue the idea of an inquiry any further
4 at the moment. But I am sure that he would be ready to
5 look again at the proposal if there were any
6 developments which strengthen the arguments in favour of
7 it.
8 "I am sending copies of this letter to Ken Scott,
9 Hayden Phillips, Stella Rimington, John Adye and an SIS
10 officer [name redacted].
11 "Yours ever, Clive."
12 Q. So one can see that that letter conveyed, from
13 the Permanent Under Secretary of State of the Home
14 Office, the Home Secretary's view of the matter.
15 Amongst those copied in was Sir Kenneth Scott, your
16 deputy. That is, no doubt, how you came to have sight
17 of the letter.
18 If we turn the page then to page 8, we see what
19 I think is the first letter written by you. This is
20 written to Clive, who we know is the Permanent Secretary
21 at the Home Office. You indicate in the second
22 paragraph that you understand the Home Secretary's
23 decision. Then I wonder if you could read to us
24 the third paragraph, which sets out a further step that
25 you thought might usefully be taken.

23

1 A. "It seems to me that there is such a widespread of
2 opinion about the technical ability of the professional
3 or amateur user of a 'scanner', in whatever form, to
4 have intercepted the relevant conversations that it
5 would be worth, for the purposes of clearing our minds,
6 asking for an expert opinion on this technical aspect.
7 The press, naturally, like to play up the theory that
8 tapes of this quality could only be obtained by
9 'professionals'. Others have told me that any amateur
10 user of a 'scanner' could have obtained them, given
11 ordinary luck. Do you think you might ask an expert at
12 GCHQ his or her opinion? Apart from all else, we would
13 thereafter be much wiser as to the real risks of using
14 mobile phones and on whether it may or may not be
15 necessary to have all Royal residences comprehensively
16 swept for bugging devices.
17 "I am sending copies of this note to Robin Butler,
18 Ken Scott, Hayden Phillips, Stella Rimington, John Adye
19 and also to the Private Secretary of the Prince of Wales
20 and the SIS officer [name redacted].
21 "Yours ever, Robert."
22 Q. So that was 26th January 1993. Did you speak to
23 Sir John Adye, who was head of GCHQ, and did he record
24 that in a short letter to you on 29th January which
25 we see on page 9?

24

1 A. Correct.
2 Q. He said in his letter to you that he would be happy to
3 arrange the expert opinion from GCHQ and then he asked
4 you for some further information. That is in
5 paragraph 2 of his letter. Could you read that to us,
6 Lord Fellowes, please?
7 A. "To enable us to give an informed opinion, it would be
8 most helpful to know the locations involved (both ends
9 of any relevant conversation) and what form of telephone
10 has been in use at either end (ie normal instrument,
11 cordless telephone or cellular telephone). It is of
12 particular significance whether one end of any call was
13 located in a rural area and, if it was, what type of
14 telephone was used."
15 Then "I am copying", ... et cetera.
16 Q. You reply to that letter I think on 2nd March, is that
17 right, on page 10?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You gave some information which was set out in the
20 letter. Again, would you be kind enough to read that to
21 us, please, from the second paragraph?
22 A. "I now have the information you require, even if it is
23 not as precise as might be desired.
24 "If one supposes that the tapes of which we are
25 talking are genuine, the information is as follows:

25

1 "(a) In the conversation between the
2 Princess of Wales and James Gilbey, the former was using
3 a fixed line at Sandringham house and the latter
4 a portable car telephone in a rural area.
5 "(b) In the conversation between the Prince of Wales
6 and Mrs Parker Bowles, the former was on a Motorola
7 mobile telephone in a rural area of Cheshire, and
8 the latter on a fixed line in a rural area of
9 Wiltshire."
10 Q. Again, you send copies to others.
11 If one looks at page 11, passing over this, it is
12 a short letter which enclosed a transcript of
13 a television programme in Australia that included all
14 sorts of claims of the sort that you were concerned
15 with. Then, if one goes to page 12, did you get
16 a letter from the director of GCHQ, Sir John Adye, dated
17 23rd March 1993?
18 A. Yes, I did.
19 Q. Did that set out in short order the advice and
20 conclusions of GCHQ?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Again, I wonder if you could read that to us.
23 A. "Dear Robert, thank you for your letter of 2nd March
24 with information about the alleged conversations.
25 "2. I have consulted my technical experts, who have

26

1 considered how conversations might have been intercepted
2 in the circumstances you describe. Their advice is
3 based on your information and their own technical
4 knowledge, not on any direct access to recordings of the
5 conversations (which are not available to GCHQ). In
6 the last few days, we have however seen a copy of the
7 report written by Mr John Nelson, following his analysis
8 of tapes alleged to be of the first conversation you
9 mention. This report was referred to in a Sunday Times
10 article of 24th January which I expect you have seen.
11 "3. My experts' advice is that people intent on
12 recording private telephone conversations between
13 members of the Royal Family and their friends would be
14 able to do so on a regular basis in a rural area by
15 equipping a vehicle with a scanning receiver and
16 tape-recorder and by positioning themselves within
17 a few kilometres of the portable hand or car phone in
18 use. Both of the alleged conversations would have been
19 vulnerable to such a technique.
20 "4. An alternative possibility would be illegal
21 interference with fixed telephone lines. Unprotected
22 premises in rural locations would be more accessible to
23 this form of tampering, but both the alleged incidents
24 could have occurred in this way.
25 "5. I am sorry that it has not been possible to

27

1 reach an unequivocal conclusion, but my experts assure
2 me that the circumstances of the conversations described
3 in your letter are consistent with either scenario.
4 It is at least clear that neither method of interception
5 would need inside knowledge or physical access to the
6 inside of buildings. This conclusion does not, of
7 course, rule out the possibility of a hostile person
8 tampering with the telephones within the building
9 concerned.
10 "6. It would also be quite possible for someone to
11 disguise the form of the original interception by
12 'doctoring' the tapes. Mr Nelson's report on the first
13 alleged conversation mentioned in your letter concludes
14 that this was attempted in that case. My experts
15 (without direct access to the recordings) have no reason
16 to dissent from his conclusions.
17 "7. Please let me know if any further advice is
18 required. I am sending copies ..."
19 Q. Then finally in this sequence, page 14, a short letter
20 from you to Sir John Adye, dated 24th March 1993.
21 Once again, Lord Fellowes, I would be grateful if
22 you could read that to us.
23 A. "Thank you very much for your letter of 23rd March.
24 I am most grateful to you and your team for undertaking
25 this enquiry. The result is, in its way, reassuring,

28

1 though I never believed there was any possibility of
2 a definitive answer emerging from it. I have passed the
3 information on to the Private Secretaries, to the Prince
4 and Princess of Wales and reminded them that the
5 security services will undertake 'sweeping' of telephone
6 equipment speedily and efficiently, as they do in this
7 office at regular intervals."
8 Q. Was that the end of the matter, as far as the
9 correspondence was concerned?
10 A. As far as I can remember, yes.
11 Q. Now you mention at the end of that letter that your
12 office, or should I say Buckingham Palace, was swept at
13 regular intervals. That was the position, was it?
14 A. The rooms in which business was conducted by the Queen
15 and by her Private Secretaries was swept regularly.
16 Q. That, as we see from the letter, was undertaken by
17 the security services?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Officially done?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. So, presumably, a constant concern of yours and others
22 was that people hostile, for whatever reason, might seek
23 to eavesdrop on conversations going on in the Palace?
24 A. I would not say it was a constant preoccupation, but
25 yes, we needed reassurance at regular intervals that

29

1 there was no bugging going on.
2 Q. And that you got, presumably?
3 A. That we got.
4 Q. I will leave that topic there, no doubt to be pursued by
5 others.
6 Can I turn next to the question of police protection
7 of the Princess of Wales? Again, Lord Fellowes, this is
8 a topic on which we have heard a considerable amount of
9 evidence already and I hope that we can take this
10 relatively shortly.
11 Again, there is a small clip of documents which have
12 simply been pulled together from documents that
13 the inquests have. I think all of them or most of them
14 have already been referred to. It is right, isn't it,
15 that you were involved in discussions concerning police
16 protection for the Princess of Wales in 1993 and 1994?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Let me just try to elicit from you, with the help of
19 these documents, the main architecture of your
20 involvement.
21 We see, at the beginning of the bundle a note
22 written by the Commissioner, Paul Condon, on
23 14th December 1993, which records that he lunched with
24 you and others and discussed the Princess's security
25 arrangements. There was obviously a discussion, as he

30

1 has already told us, about her desire to give up her
2 protection, about which he was unhappy, and he describes
3 your sharing his concerns. Is that right, that you did
4 share those concerns?
5 A. I shared those concerns. I cannot honestly remember
6 the precise conversation, but no reason to suppose it
7 did not take place.
8 Q. Then, if you could turn the page, you can see a briefing
9 note which was written by Mr Meynell, who was a senior
10 police officer. Do you remember him?
11 A. Yes, I do.
12 Q. He was one of the senior officers involved in personal
13 protection of members of the Royal Family?
14 A. I think he was head of the Royalty Protection Group.
15 Q. He is describing a meeting with the Princess of Wales.
16 You were not present at it, but if you read the first
17 paragraph, Lord Fellowes, quickly to yourself, you will
18 then see a reference to you in the second paragraph.
19 The Princess is recorded as suggesting that she had
20 discussed the issue of giving up her protection with
21 Her Majesty and also with you and that they had been of
22 the view that if she felt that she could cope without
23 protection, then so be it.
24 We see then that Mr Meynell records that he
25 telephoned you and your position was slightly more

31

1 sophisticated than that. You wanted the matter to be
2 dealt with on a gradual basis.
3 A. So that everyone could be satisfied that it was going to
4 work satisfactorily. I see it is recorded here.
5 Q. So again, it is unlikely, I would imagine, after 14 and
6 more years, that you can remember that conversation, but
7 you have no reason to doubt that that represented your
8 view?
9 A. I do not remember the conversation. I think I should
10 say that my view was always that it was unfair on police
11 officers to be asked to protect someone who did not want
12 protection because it was a burden that they had to
13 carry without any cooperation from the principal, and if
14 that is what the principal wanted, it was eventually
15 right to remove the protection. I also knew, of course,
16 that Prince William and Prince Harry had full-time
17 protection and was satisfied that while they were with
18 her, there would be protection present.
19 Q. The jury have heard from others various discussions that
20 took place. Can I simply bring your involvement in?
21 Can you turn to page 10 of this small bundle please?
22 This is a letter, if I understand it correctly, but
23 I would be grateful if you could confirm it, written by
24 you to Sir Clive Whitmore, who, as we have heard, was
25 the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office; is that

32

1 right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. It concerns the Princess of Wales' protection
4 arrangements. It is dated 8th February 1994. Again,
5 Lord Fellowes, I wonder if you would read that to us.
6 A. The whole letter?
7 Q. Yes please.
8 A. Could I just say, sir, that this is the first time that
9 I have seen these documents myself.
10 "I had a meeting with Patrick Jephson (Private
11 Secretary to the Princess of Wales) and DAC David
12 Meynell last Wednesday on the subject of the personal
13 protection of the Princess of Wales, in order to review
14 the arrangements in place over the last few weeks and to
15 make plans for the future.
16 "Patrick Jephson made clear that Her Royal Highness
17 recognises that the police consider that it would be in
18 her interest to retain personal protection, despite the
19 reduction in her public life, and that she understands
20 and respects the reasons why they hold this view. The
21 Princess, nevertheless, wishes to continue to dispense
22 with police protection in this country, except when her
23 children are with her, or when there is a (at present
24 unforeseen) level of risk of which she is advised, and
25 which she accepts renders protection necessary.

33

1 "Her Royal Highness has assured Patrick Jephson that
2 she will give him adequate notice of any intention to
3 travel abroad, privately or officially, so that he can
4 then enable a proper assessment of risk in the country
5 concerned to be swiftly and discreetly made.
6 The Princess has said that she is quite content that
7 the host country may impose whatever reasonable security
8 it chooses on her visit, or travel with police
9 protection from this country if the risk assessment
10 recommends it.
11 "The Princess of Wales has undertaken that, in
12 the event of any incident which occurs when she is
13 without personal protection, it may be stated that
14 the absence of protection was her specific wish, and
15 that she knew of the contrary advice offered by
16 the police.
17 "I enclose a copy of a letter written from the
18 Cabinet Office to John Sawers in the Foreign and
19 Commonwealth Office, which you may like to have for
20 the record.
21 "The Queen is aware of the contents of this letter."
22 Q. Then finally, at page 12 in this bundle, we see
23 a memorandum addressed to you from Deputy Assistant
24 Commissioner Meynell. It is dated 27th June 1995.
25 Perhaps I can just read the relevant paragraph. It is

34

1 one the jury I think have seen.
2 "You asked to be updated respecting the current
3 arrangements for the protection of the two
4 above-mentioned principals."
5 We see one of them is the Princess of Wales:
6 "You will recall that when HRH Princess of Wales
7 asked for changes to be made in her security
8 arrangements, the agreement reached was that she would
9 receive no protection whilst about her private business
10 and that she would publicly accept responsibility for
11 any incident resulting from such lack of protection, but
12 that for official/working visits, she would continue to
13 receive protection as before. This means her being
14 accompanied by a PPO together with CPOs when appropriate
15 and have use of the SEG upon request."
16 Then there is a reference to that.
17 "This position of course is dependent upon there
18 being no increase in the threat level and that when
19 either or both of the two young Princes are with her,
20 then their protection arrangements are honoured in
21 full."
22 That, broadly speaking, was the position that
23 obtained until the crash in 1997?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You can put that small bundle aside now, Lord Fellowes,

35

1 if you would be so kind, and I can move on to some other
2 topics.
3 Can I ask you about the Royal Family's relationship
4 with Mr Al Fayed, as far as you are in a position to
5 give evidence of it? Have you ever met Mr Al Fayed?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Are you aware that Mr Al Fayed, through the Harrods
8 organisation, provided funding for the Windsor horse
9 trials, for example?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And that that was something that Harrods had done for
12 quite some time and he continued when he bought Harrods;
13 is that right?
14 A. I do not know when it started, but I certainly knew that
15 while he was running Harrods, that they were sponsoring
16 the Windsor Horse Show.
17 Q. Was he providing funds for any other activities with
18 which the Royal Family were connected, as far as you can
19 remember?
20 A. Not that I know of. It does not mean to say that he was
21 not, but not that I know of.
22 Q. I wondered whether he was providing funds for
23 the Duke of Edinburgh's awards at any time. Perhaps you
24 just do not know.
25 A. He may have been. I have a feeling that his brother

36

1 certainly has, but I am afraid I cannot give any
2 details.
3 Q. Mr Al Fayed will forgive me for suggesting that for much
4 of his time in the public eye he has been quite
5 a controversial figure, but what I wish to ask you is
6 whether you were aware of any animosity directed towards
7 him by the Royal Family in and before 1997.
8 A. None whatever.
9 Q. You were in a very unique position, if I may suggest it
10 to you, in being Private Secretary to Her Majesty and
11 thus the most senior official in the Household and also
12 being the brother-in-law of the Princess of Wales. Does
13 that mean that you were very closely concerned in both
14 capacities with the sad events of the early 1990s, as
15 the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the
16 Princess of Wales fell apart?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Did that put you in a difficult position holding those
19 two quite different interests?
20 A. At times, yes.
21 Q. Now it has been suggested that, at that period and
22 later, the Duke of Edinburgh displayed particular
23 animosity towards the Princess of Wales, both in writing
24 and more generally. That is a suggestion that has been
25 made. You are aware of that, at least. From your point

37

1 of view, occupying either of the positions that I have
2 identified, did you ever see that?
3 A. I never saw that.
4 Q. It has also been suggested, Lord Fellowes, that you
5 personally displayed animosity towards the Princess. Is
6 that true?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Were you involved in the circumstances in which the
9 decision was taken for the Princess to lose her title
10 "Her Royal Highness"?
11 A. Yes, I was. This had been a matter of discussion, not
12 only within the Royal Household but in the pages of the
13 press. I was involved as Private Secretary, yes.
14 Q. It has been suggested that the Princess of Wales was
15 particularly upset about that. Are you able to comment?
16 A. I purposely did not attend a meeting at which it was
17 discussed between the Queen and the Princess. My deputy
18 by then, now Lord Janvrin, was there. His account of
19 the meeting is that in the Queen's view, the question
20 was left undecided as to what her title should be. It
21 was clear that in the Princess's view it had been
22 decided to remove the title, and she made that public
23 immediately after the meeting.
24 Q. Was your absence from the meeting for any particular
25 reason?

38

1 A. Because I thought it was tactful for all concerned if
2 I was not present because I had what could be seen to be
3 conflicting loyalties.
4 Q. If we are putting it in the terms that we are used to,
5 there would be an obvious conflict of interest in giving
6 advice to the Queen on the one hand and --
7 A. Well, there would be seen to be. Whether there was ...
8 Q. The Princess was reported by a friend of hers,
9 a Mr Devorik, to suggest that you were particularly
10 hostile to her. Were you aware that she felt that?
11 A. I am sad if she felt that. Clearly the events of
12 the 1990s made our relationship more complicated, but in
13 my case -- and I would like to think in hers, and
14 indeed, nothing she said about me or to me led me to
15 believe that it was hostile. Indeed, we used to go on
16 seeing each other at family gatherings and so on and so
17 forth. I was very fond of her then, as I always had
18 been, and sad that she had not had a happier and more
19 stable time in those troubled years.
20 Q. Can I move last, I think, to what is a very discrete
21 topic on which your help might assist the jury.
22 We have heard evidence from a retired Chief
23 Superintendent, David Davies, who was one of
24 Mr Meynell's subordinates. Do you have any recollection
25 of Mr Davies at all?

39

1 A. I am afraid I do not.
2 Q. He has told the jury that on probably 10th July 1997,
3 which was the day before the Princess of Wales went on
4 holiday with the boys to Mr Al Fayed's home in
5 St Tropez, that he telephoned you to convey two
6 sentiments, if I can summarise it. The first, that
7 there were concerns about the security arrangements for
8 the boys and the Princess, and the second, that there
9 were concerns -- that is to say, concerns within
10 the Metropolitan Police -- about the suitability of
11 Mr Al Fayed Senior as a holiday host because of a police
12 investigation that was going on at that stage into
13 allegations that a safety deposit box at Harrods had
14 been broken into. So those were the two topics he says
15 he mentioned. Now do you have any recollection of such
16 a telephone call?
17 A. I have no recollection whatever of that telephone call,
18 and I think I would have remembered it if I had had
19 the call, even at this distance.
20 Q. If somebody had introduced himself as Superintendent
21 David Davies -- you say you don't remember him at all --
22 would you then have known who he was?
23 A. Not unless he had introduced himself to me as to what
24 his job was.
25 Q. What he suggests is that, in a fairly clipped way, you

40

1 said "Her Majesty is aware" and that is that. Any
2 recollection of that?
3 A. No.
4 Q. You have produced to assist us your diary for
5 the relevant week. Mr Davies recollected that he had
6 phoned Balmoral. Now was the Queen at Balmoral in
7 the week of the 7th and following of July 1997?
8 A. I very much doubt it. It would not be the time of year
9 she went there and I certainly was not there.
10 Q. Do you have a copy of your diary?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. If you could turn to the week beginning 7th July.
13 I have already touched on 8th July, where there is
14 a reference to "Way Ahead" that we spoke of a few
15 minutes ago.
16 On Wednesday 9th July, [INQ0060775] the word "Holyrood" appears,
17 if I have read your writing correctly; is that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And then an arrow running down to Sunday 13th, which has
20 an entry, "Golf, Muirfield".
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. Can we infer from that that from Wednesday through to
23 sometime on the Sunday you were at Holyrood in
24 Edinburgh?
25 A. I was there throughout that time.

41

1 Q. And Her Majesty was there too?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. It may be that Mr Davies has mixed up different parts of
4 Scotland.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. He is a Welshman.
7 So Her Majesty was in Scotland at that time, but
8 beyond that, you have no memory of such a discussion?
9 A. No. I think if I had taken this call and Mr Davies said
10 what he says he did, of course one would have paid
11 attention, but rather than get into conversation,
12 I would probably work on the initial assumption that
13 it was either a journalist trying it on or possibly
14 someone of unsound mind because it seems to me so
15 extraordinary that someone should ring me out of the
16 blue and start talking about the character of
17 Mr Al Fayed. I think he would be in the wrong area.
18 Q. Why would that be extraordinary?
19 A. It is a very unusual thing to happen.
20 Q. It would presumably be the province of the police
21 generally to give advice about the physical security of
22 the Princes and their mother whilst away, would it not?
23 A. Yes, yes.
24 Q. We have seen documents -- I do not take you to them --
25 which suggest that the protection plans were in place by

42

1 8th July, so earlier in the week, before the
2 conversation that Mr Davies speaks of.
3 Presumably, you and Her Majesty, other members of
4 the Royal Family, your family, knew well that the boys
5 were going on holiday. Would that be right?
6 A. It is hard to remember. I am sure I was aware, but
7 I cannot remember when I was made aware.
8 Q. What would the normal protocol, if that is the right
9 word, have been for members of the Royal Family, and in
10 particular the Princes, going abroad?
11 A. Patrick Jephson, the Princess's Private Secretary, would
12 have written a note to me.
13 Q. Why was that?
14 A. Because it was a rule that the Queen always knew where
15 members of her family were at any given time. Not
16 within this country, but overseas.
17 Q. So that is a rule that affected the Queen as Monarch, as
18 it were, but are you aware of the sort of arrangements
19 that were being made between mother and father, as have
20 to be made in all sorts of circumstances?
21 A. No.
22 Q. You simply don't know about that?
23 A. I am not aware of that.
24 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Presumably there would have been
25 some form of communication, would there, between

43

1 Patrick Jephson and the Prince of Wales' office?
2 A. Certainly, sir.
3 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: And that would have been
4 the initial stage of it?
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: So the information that came to
7 you for the Queen could have come from either source,
8 could it?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 MR BURNETT: Was the visit, as far as you can recollect,
11 the subject of anxious discussion in Buckingham Palace,
12 centring on Mr Al Fayed's suitability as a host?
13 A. I do not remember any discussion of it.
14 Q. Is that the sort of thing that would even be likely to
15 be discussed?
16 A. No.
17 Q. What would your reaction in general terms have been to
18 the police conveying their view about the suitability of
19 the companions of the Royal Family rather than
20 security-related matters?
21 A. I think if there was concern felt by the police, I would
22 expect to have that concern expressed, either by
23 Sir Paul Condon or by the head of royalty protection and
24 not in a chance telephone call from one of the head of
25 royalty protection's subordinates.

44

1 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: If there was serious concern,
2 would you expect it to be in writing, rather than over
3 the telephone?
4 A. Or at a meeting.
5 MR BURNETT: Yes, Lord Fellowes. Thank you very much.
6 Those are my questions.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield, is it more
8 convenient to have our mid-morning break for the
9 shorthand writers and everybody now?
10 MR MANSFIELD: Yes. Can I just ask, I have been rapidly
11 trying to go through this bundle in a little more
12 detail. It really, for obvious reasons, would help if
13 we knew where all these documents had come from in
14 the first place. I suspect that the long-awaited
15 statement may shed some light on it, but --
16 MR BURNETT: Sir, I thought I had said that you had asked
17 for these documents from GCHQ and that is where they had
18 come from.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes.
20 What is the position about the statement, Mr Tam?
21 MR TAM: Sir, we will know today, at about the time of the
22 short adjournment, whether the draft that you have is
23 one that can be signed off or whether there may be some
24 amendments to it. But, as I say, it is a fairly
25 advanced draft so it is not going to require much

45

1 changing.
2 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you.
3 Well, shall we break off now then for quarter of an
4 hour?
5 (11.12 am)
6 (A short break)
7 (11.28 am)
8 (Jury present)
9 MR BURNETT: Sir, before Mr Mansfield starts, could I simply
10 confirm that the documents were sent round yesterday
11 afternoon by your office?
12 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes.
13 MR BURNETT: We have checked with the emails.
14 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you.
15 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
16 MR MANSFIELD: Good morning, Lord Fellowes. My name is
17 Michael Mansfield. I represent Mohamed Al Fayed and
18 I have a number of topics, much of which have been
19 touched on, but there are some others.
20 May I say as a preface, we appreciate it is a long
21 time ago, you are not in the job anymore and you may not
22 have documents available. So please say if you are
23 finding it too difficult and I will either rephrase
24 the question or ask somebody else. Do you appreciate?
25 A. Thank you.

46

1 Q. I want to start now -- I am afraid I may not finish
2 before lunch, so there will be time if there are
3 inquiries -- with a topic that has only arisen today.
4 That is the question of communications by members of the
5 Royal Family being eavesdropped on by others; that
6 topic.
7 Now do you agree that if somebody's private
8 conversations are eavesdropped, unlawfully, whoever they
9 are, that is a serious matter?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. If they are eavesdropped unlawfully, it is a matter that
12 should be investigated because there is the possibility
13 or potential of a crime being committed by somebody; do
14 you agree?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. It is of particular concern if the eavesdropping of
17 course relates to members of the Royal Family; in other
18 words, those who may be connected directly or indirectly
19 with a head of state?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And that in order to, as it were, acquire the truth of
22 the matter, one should never be deflected by the risk of
23 publicity, should one?
24 A. I think one should only be deflected by the risk that
25 the inquiry would reach no conclusion.

47

1 Q. Well, you don't know that before you begin.
2 A. Matter of opinion.
3 Q. Yes. It stands to reason -- I think you will follow
4 this -- that if you have a report from somebody that
5 they believe, because, for example, they have picked up
6 from another source that their exact words are being
7 reproduced, perhaps in a newspaper, perhaps on a radio
8 programme, whatever it happens to be, that when you
9 start to -- you are not saying the police or
10 the security services should not investigate because it
11 might come to nothing, are you?
12 A. No. I think that if a lot of time and no doubt
13 difficulty in terms of publicity were to render the
14 chances of a successful conclusion being reached, that
15 must weigh in the balance, and that was presumably
16 the view that the Home Secretary was taking.
17 Q. We will have to come to that because, of course, many of
18 the documents that have been produced this morning are
19 not yours, are they?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. We await a statement from the person who appears to have
22 produced at least this bundle.
23 Just working on the premise that it merits
24 investigation, of course the question of lawful
25 eavesdropping that reaches the public ear also is

48

1 a matter of some concern, is it not? Do you follow
2 the question?
3 A. Yes. Yes, it is.
4 Q. That also may require investigation, may it not?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. What happened here, at least -- I am going to stand back
7 for a moment before we look at some of these documents
8 and if you need more time to have another look at
9 them -- I think you have had about as much time as
10 I have this morning -- but if you need some time -- is
11 it right that, if you look at the documents as a whole,
12 in this case there was no investigation in the end? Is
13 that right? Is that your understanding?
14 A. That is correct.
15 Q. For there to be absolutely no investigation must be
16 a matter of some grave and public concern, must it not?
17 A. I am not capable of regarding myself as an arbiter of
18 what is of grave public concern or not, but certainly
19 it is of concern, yes.
20 Q. All right. I appreciate your answer, and I am asking
21 you because obviously you have been asked about
22 the bundle and you held a particularly prestigious and
23 important and significant position, didn't you?
24 A. I was Private Secretary.
25 Q. Yes.

49

1 A. Perhaps I could add, if I may, just a rider to that?
2 Q. Certainly.
3 A. It is established that the Queen acts on the advice of
4 ministers, and if a minister gives Her Majesty advice,
5 she is bound constitutionally to take it.
6 Q. Yes, all right. That was part of the next or one of the
7 next questions.
8 A. Sorry.
9 Q. It is all right. I perfectly understand that
10 constitutional situation. To deal with that, since you
11 raise it in that form, the position here is, however
12 framed, that the Queen did ask that this matter be
13 investigated.
14 A. Well, may I just look at the document again to see what
15 she precisely --
16 Q. Which document helps you in that regard?
17 A. I suppose it was probably my letter, was it?
18 Q. Well, you write one on 26th January.
19 A. Well, I am not absolutely certain that there was
20 a formal request from the Queen for an investigation.
21 I think it much more likely -- and you yourself said
22 that this is a long time ago -- that I would have
23 discussed the matter with Her Majesty and told her that
24 I would make inquiries as to whether or not there should
25 be an investigation. I think I said earlier this

50

1 morning that the Queen was not in the habit of making
2 demands.
3 Q. No. One follows that. She might be far more diplomatic
4 than that. But, of course, however diplomatic, there
5 are ways in which the Queen, no doubt, can make her
6 views very explicit, even if very polite; correct?
7 A. Sure.
8 Q. I am sorry to press you on this because it is an issue
9 that is of some concern.
10 The actual conversation, as was pointed out to you
11 today, took place in 1989. I am concentrating on the
12 Diana conversation for the moment. It was apparently
13 known to Diana very quickly thereafter because
14 a newspaper -- I am just filling it in so you follow --
15 a newspaper had been alerted; we don't know exactly
16 when, but some time in the following year, that is 1990.
17 A representative of the newspaper had confronted
18 a Mr Gilbey, who was the other participant in the call,
19 and Gilbey, I suggest as an inference from all of this
20 and material that we have, informed Diana that the press
21 were onto this conversation.
22 Now, when was it that you learned, with that sort of
23 timeframe in mind, that in fact there was a recording --
24 in fact, there is more than one -- available at least to
25 the press?

51

1 A. When I saw it in the newspaper.
2 Q. So it does not come into your purview until 1992,
3 August, around the 20th?
4 A. I would have to check the date, but that sounds about
5 right; whenever it was published.
6 Q. So it was not a feedback from the Diana family, as it
7 were.
8 When it was first published, in fact one of the
9 newspapers -- I do not know whether you remember --
10 actually had a telephone line allowing members of the
11 public to ring up and listen to it. Do you remember
12 that?
13 A. I think I do, yes.
14 Q. Certainly its publication in whatever form, written or
15 oral -- you can listen to it -- must have quite
16 naturally created considerable concern within
17 Buckingham Palace.
18 A. Yes. It was yet another story which was certainly
19 significant and not particularly enjoyable.
20 Q. We have to remember that 1992 was the "annus horribilis"
21 year, wasn't it?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Sorry to test you. This is not -- you know, like
24 Trivial Pursuits, just putting questions to you.
25 1992, that is the year in which, months before

52

1 the publication of this conversation, Andrew Morton had
2 brought out his book, which I am sure you remember, on
3 Diana.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. So it is that year that all of this is happening.
6 A. Can I say, sir, that I am not absolutely certain that
7 the "annus horribilis", the speech that the Queen made
8 using that phrase, was in 1992 or one of the subsequent
9 years, but I don't think it is particularly significant.
10 Q. I am not suggesting every year was.
11 A. 1994 was the other runner.
12 Q. One appreciates there is probably competition for this
13 label.
14 Once you discovered it or rather it was seen in
15 the press, you would have had a conversation with
16 the Queen about it?
17 A. Certainly.
18 Q. The question I want to ask before lunch is this in case
19 you can help -- and I appreciate you are no longer in
20 position -- in relation to these documents and this
21 issue, namely raising it with the Queen and so on, would
22 you keep any kind of record at the time of attendances
23 on the Queen, either a diary or a notebook or
24 a memorandum sheet or something, saying "Discussion with
25 Her Majesty ..." and then a synopsis? Anything like

53

1 that?
2 A. During my time as Private Secretary and indeed before,
3 as Deputy and Assistant, if I thought there were
4 discussions of historical note or interest, I would
5 record a brief file note which at various intervals
6 I used to send down to the archives at Windsor for
7 safe-keeping. I have no idea whether this particular
8 discussion ranked as one of those in my mind, I am
9 afraid.
10 Q. Well, at the time it first happened -- perhaps it may
11 not, but I am having to ask you from memory -- when you
12 first broached it with Her Majesty, did she indicate
13 clearly but politely that this was a matter that
14 required investigation?
15 A. I cannot remember.
16 Q. Somebody has a quick recall. The "annus" speech was on
17 24th November 1992.
18 A. Well done.
19 Q. Well, no, not me. I remember the year, but not the
20 date. It is an internet research, obviously.
21 These file notes that you kept, they are sent to
22 Windsor. Are they retrievable easily or do you not
23 know?
24 A. They are in the Royal archives, for which I am no longer
25 responsible.

54

1 Q. No, I appreciate you are not. But they could be
2 recovered or retrieved now in relation to this period
3 and this issue?
4 A. Yes, if there are notes concerning them, they could be
5 recovered, but only by someone who has access to
6 the archives.
7 Q. Of course, presumably, there would not be any objection
8 to you helping with that process, would there, from any
9 source that you can think?
10 A. I have no idea. You would have to ask my successor.
11 Q. I want to be clear, if it is possible to be clear: does
12 she or does she not ask for an investigation and then
13 you say, "Well, we will have to take advice"? Is that
14 how it works?
15 A. I cannot remember the conversation I had with
16 Her Majesty on the subject, and therefore it would be
17 very unwise of me to speculate as to what passed between
18 us.
19 Q. Well, we will see if there is any note in relation to
20 that.
21 Would you kindly take the documents? As the jury
22 don't have them --
23 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I think they do.
24 MR MANSFIELD: I am so sorry. I did not realise. If they
25 do, I am going to take them in date order as they are

55

1 numbered at the moment.
2 These come from GCHQ, but of course there must be
3 some documentation in the Royal archive as a complement
4 to these, must there not?
5 A. Well, my letters are here, and I do not think anyone
6 else in Buckingham Palace would have been writing
7 letters on this subject.
8 Q. Well, we will come to what might also exist; do you
9 follow? But I will follow these through.
10 The first page is obviously not a document of yours,
11 but I just want you to bear in mind that the Hansard
12 debates for 20th January -- you see that at the top of
13 the page, right at the very top --
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Then there is a "holding answer" reference by
16 the Prime Minister on 19th January in brackets. Then
17 the reference is back to a statement made by
18 the Secretary of State for National Heritage. Has he
19 got much to do with the security services?
20 A. I do not know why he made a statement, actually. I have
21 no idea.
22 Hang on a second, responsibility for Royal Palaces,
23 I think. That would have been the link.
24 Q. All right. So Royal Palace link.
25 Were you aware that he had made this statement?

56

1 A. I cannot say now whether I was aware or not. I would
2 very much assume I was because it would have come in
3 the first place in the form of press cuttings from
4 a service that we got every day.
5 Q. What I want to ask your help on, before we have sight of
6 a witness statement from GCHQ, is that all the letters
7 and meetings are taking place after 14th January when an
8 assurance has been made. Do you know what happened
9 before 14th January that led to this statement in
10 the House of Commons?
11 A. No, I do not.
12 Q. So, before 14th January, nobody at GCHQ or anywhere else
13 for that matter had had the courtesy to let the Queen
14 know, is that right, what was going on?
15 A. I do not know. Whether someone had been in touch with
16 me to say that there is, of course, no truth in
17 the rumours, et cetera, et cetera, I would think quite
18 likely they had, but I am afraid my memory fails me on
19 that.
20 Q. This is becoming -- I am not trying to blow it out of
21 all proportion -- this is of some historic interest
22 because it is not every day that private conversations
23 of members, as she was then, of the Royal Family are
24 recorded. They may be overheard at dinner parties or
25 meetings or receptions, but this is rather different.

57

1 This is becoming mildly historic, isn't it?
2 A. That is your opinion.
3 Q. I was hoping you might agree because, looking back on
4 these years, there are two conversations in particular,
5 the "Camillagate", and this became known as
6 "Squidgygate", but leaving aside the tabloid labels for
7 them, these were becoming of central interest to
8 the public as well as just the tabloids, weren't they?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. The reason I preface that to you is because, in
11 the Windsor archives -- and there are more archives than
12 that because the Home Office is concerned with this as
13 well -- there ought to be file notes or something,
14 copies of letters or other memoranda, relating to all of
15 this, oughtn't there?
16 A. I have no reason to suppose that this is not a complete
17 file of the relevant documents, but I cannot say on oath
18 it is.
19 Q. No. One has to be careful and cautious about regarding
20 sets of documents as necessarily complete.
21 A. Absolutely.
22 Q. That is what is being said on 14th January. You cannot
23 help us as to what has transpired before. The next
24 document, the second document, it is at page 2.
25 I appreciate you were not there, but you have been asked

58

1 about it. Your representative or rather the Queen's
2 representative, your deputy, was there, and as has been
3 pointed out, there are three of particular interest in
4 relation to this: GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. To whom was GCHQ
5 accountable at that time?
6 A. The Prime Minister, I would imagine, but I would prefer
7 you to ask someone from GCHQ that question.
8 Q. Well, if we have that opportunity, I will.
9 Anyway, those three representatives that are
10 effectively concerned with security service material are
11 there. Then it says:
12 "Possible investigation into alleged interception of
13 the communications of the Royal Family."
14 The first sentence has been read, but if you don't
15 mind, since the jury have only just got this, it might
16 help if we just read this document. The second
17 paragraph:
18 "Sir Robin said that it would be helpful to consider
19 the arguments for and against the Government's
20 initiating an investigation into the interception of
21 communications of the Royal Family."
22 Can you help about this, although you were not
23 there? Was he responding in that way to a request from
24 somebody that there should be an investigation?
25 A. I do not know.

59

1 Q. You don't know whether that was the case.
2 A. It may have been the case, but certainly I cannot
3 confirm it now.
4 Q. It may be important to know who has asked for it,
5 particularly if, in fact, the request has come from
6 Her Majesty. Do you follow?
7 A. Yes, I do follow.
8 Q. All right.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I think you said the primary
10 concern was to stop something like this happening again,
11 rather than the secondary concern, investigating
12 the detail of what had happened.
13 A. Yes, sir. I just reiterate that because I said earlier
14 this morning -- there were two strands of thinking.
15 One, of course, is that if anything nefarious had gone
16 on, then it should be investigated and someone caught,
17 if possible. Secondly -- and I think, in my view, more
18 important -- was to ensure that it did not happen again.
19 So the question in my mind was perhaps more prominently
20 "What should happen now?" and not what happened in
21 the past.
22 Q. I appreciate the point the learned Coroner has put to
23 you and that you echo, but of course --
24 A. No, I actually said it first.
25 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I am not claiming the point!

60

1 MR MANSFIELD: Full credit to you. Actually you did not
2 make it first either because it appears in the next
3 sentence as coming from someone else. So never mind who
4 got there first. The problem is this, isn't it, that
5 you cannot stop what is going to happen in the future if
6 you don't know what has happened in the past?
7 A. Well, you can ask advice about how to stop it.
8 Q. How do you get advice about how to stop it if you don't
9 know what it is that you have to stop?
10 A. Well, we have advice here --
11 Q. Well, we will come to the advice and I am sorry to do it
12 through you. I am not suggesting you are an expert in
13 interception or anything -- I do not mean "or anything
14 else" --
15 A. You would be right, you would be right.
16 Q. -- of that nature. Please understand.
17 You don't know obviously what lay behind Sir Robin's
18 initial statement, but this is the next sentence:
19 "Sir Kenneth Scott said that the Prince of Wales
20 took the view that if there were any truth in the
21 rumours that more tapes existed, there might be an
22 advantage in an investigation being, and being known to
23 be, undertaken."
24 So, in fact, the Prince of Wales' position is not
25 that the main concern is it getting out that there is an

61

1 investigation and how to stop it in future, but actually
2 trying to get to the bottom of how much has been
3 recorded. That is really what he is worried about,
4 isn't it?
5 A. You could interpret that sentence certainly in that way.
6 Q. I think, in fairness, there is only that interpretation:
7 "... if there were any truth in the rumours that
8 more tapes existed, there might be an advantage in an
9 investigation being, and being known to be, undertaken".
10 A. I think that is a fair interpretation.
11 Q. I suggest fair and in fact the only one in relation to
12 that.
13 I do not know whether, before I go much further on
14 this one, if we may know the rank of the MI6 officer
15 whose name has been redacted. It may be important to
16 know since we have the head of GCHQ and the head of MI5.
17 Is the head of MI6 --
18 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I have been looking at him as
19 well, to see if there is any objection, but there does
20 not seem to be.
21 A. I have no idea what his post was.
22 MR MANSFIELD: It is so secret that no one knows. I will
23 leave that for the minute. But if we follow that
24 through:
25 "The likelihood was that the investigation would not

62

1 result in charges being laid against an individual, but
2 it would demonstrate that the authorities were taking
3 the situation very seriously."
4 Again, I think this is meant to be speech or at
5 least reported speech concerning the Prince of Wales, or
6 is it Sir Robin saying that "The likelihood was ..."?
7 A. I think from my reading of this, it is Sir Kenneth
8 saying this.
9 Q. Sir Kenneth Scott?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Saying it on his behalf or the Prince's behalf?
12 A. I would say that he is reporting the views of the
13 Prince of Wales to the meeting.
14 Q. Interestingly, there does not appear to be, unless
15 I have missed somebody, anybody representing
16 Princess Diana.
17 A. Well, no, there was not.
18 Q. That is a serious omission, isn't it?
19 A. Well, at that stage, if I get my dates right, they were
20 still, more or less, as my memory has it, running
21 a joint household.
22 Q. Yes. It is the "more or less".
23 A. I am sorry I cannot be more specific, but I think at
24 that stage it would have been perfectly natural for
25 someone to represent the views of the Prince and

63

1 Princess as it would not have been perhaps three or four
2 years later.
3 Q. You see, as we go through, we will not see much about
4 the Princess of Wales; in other words, her view of all
5 this.
6 A. No, true.
7 Q. Because, in her case, as we will come to on another
8 document, the recording was in fact obtained very
9 differently to the one in relation to Camilla. Do you
10 remember that?
11 A. I do not know how they were obtained. I am not sure
12 I ever established how they were obtained. If you
13 know --
14 Q. Well, it is a letter you have written, so I will come
15 back to it. I have got to the "likelihood" statement,
16 that sentence:
17 "... it would demonstrate that the authorities were
18 taking the situation very seriously. On the other hand,
19 the Prince would not want a heavy handed inquiry, or
20 the adverse reporting that it would provoke. The Prince
21 did not think it would be helpful if the fact that he,
22 the Princess of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles were
23 interviewed by the investigated became known. He would
24 however be prepared to be interviewed (and he thought
25 that Mrs Parker Bowles would share this view), but

64

1 the Prince would have a preference for an interview
2 conducted by the security service rather than police."
3 Now, as we go through, another point I want to make
4 here is, with three members -- that is GCHQ, MI5 and
5 MI6 -- all present, at no stage does any of them pipe up
6 and say, "Don't worry, we have done an investigation
7 already and we can tell you absolutely that it is not X,
8 Y or Z but it is W", do they?
9 A. No.
10 Q. In fact it would appear there is a studied silence by
11 all three of them, at least in the sense that they are
12 not reported to have said much.
13 A. Well, it does not actually attribute points (i) to (vi)
14 to anyone.
15 Q. No, but it does in paragraph 2 because Sir Kenneth is
16 purportedly speaking on behalf of the Prince at that
17 point and he is speaking and he is identified. Then
18 there is a discussion. I accept it may include those,
19 but they plainly don't say, "We have done an
20 investigation already".
21 So on the next page:
22 "In discussion the following main points were made."
23 Then:
24 "(i) There was a strong possibility that a crime had
25 been committed. On one perspective therefore it might

65

1 seem odd if there were to be no investigation ..."
2 Well, pausing there, that is absolutely right, isn't
3 it, that point?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Absolutely right.
6 "... although there was as yet little evidence of
7 press comment. One explanation for this might be an
8 assumption that the security services were already
9 undertaking covert inquiries."
10 Now, that would have been a point at which
11 the security services in the meeting would pipe up and
12 say, "Oh yes, actually we have done it", wouldn't it?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. The next paragraph:
15 "It would be very difficult to conduct a police
16 inquiry discreetly. In particular, once the
17 investigation progressed beyond an initial interview
18 with the three principals directly involved, it would be
19 likely to involve people with no incentive to keep quiet
20 and possibly an incentive not to do so."
21 Of course, there are provisions, aren't there, for
22 preventing people during an inquiry leaking an inquiry
23 to the press? Perhaps you are not aware of those.
24 A. I do not know what they are.
25 Q. All right.

66

1 "It was not clear whether the knowledge of a police
2 investigation would in fact provide a deterrent."
3 So here we are talking about the future.
4 "It may possibly deter those who might still be
5 trying to intercept communications, but was unlikely to
6 be a deterrent against the publication of existing
7 tapes."
8 Now, of course, at this point nobody knew how many
9 tapes there were, did they?
10 A. No.
11 Q. "There might be more possibility of maintaining
12 discretion if the security services rather than the
13 police were to undertake the inquiry. It would be
14 possible for them to do this under the Security
15 Service Act, in view of the potential terrorist threat
16 of unauthorised monitoring of Royal Family's movements
17 or on grounds of subversion."
18 Just pausing there, the meaning of that is that they
19 could do it covertly and they could publicly make it
20 known that they are doing it for the purposes of
21 anti-terrorism provision or anti-crime; yes? That is
22 the way it could be sold to the public or any member of
23 the press who pried on that?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. "The Security Service would, however, quickly run into

67

1 many of the same problems as the police force -- in
2 particular the lack of incentive for second order
3 witnesses to be discreet -- but might have more chance
4 of making discreet initial inquiries. If the knowledge
5 of the inquiry were to leak, it would be a bigger press
6 story if it were the Security Service involved."
7 Now, of course, it requires knowledge of what
8 happened in the Diana case which, as I understand it,
9 you don't quite remember; in other words, inquiries that
10 could be made to ascertain, certainly from Diana, where
11 she was when she made the call and all the rest of it.
12 That was not that difficult, is it?
13 A. It would appear from a letter I wrote that I did
14 ascertain that.
15 Q. We will come to that. So, the initial inquiries could
16 be made. Over the page, 4:
17 "If there were to be a police inquiry, it was not
18 clear which force would undertake it. If the Security
19 Service were to undertake an inquiry, the police should
20 be informed at a very senior level but would not be
21 involved in the initial stages."
22 Then finally:
23 "Ministers would need to agree any action that was
24 proposed. The Prince and Princess of Wales and
25 Mrs Parker Bowles would also need to indicate their

68

1 willingness to cooperate."
2 Then there is the summing-up paragraph which has
3 already been read. So, therefore, there is a report
4 back to the Home Secretary on this discussion, on this
5 particular day, again reminding you that this is a date
6 on 21st January after the House of Commons statements.
7 "It may then be necessary to convene a further
8 meeting to take forward any action."
9 Now, as far as you can remember, were there any
10 other meetings on this topic?
11 A. Not that I can remember.
12 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield, I am having some
13 difficulty seeing what you are seeking to get out of all
14 of this that is really relevant to the collision in the
15 tunnel nearly five years later.
16 MR MANSFIELD: May I come straight to the point?
17 I anticipate that when the security services come
18 and those that represent the security services, there
19 will be a bland and blanket denial of any participation.
20 Therefore I seek to adduce this for two reasons: one,
21 that there has been, in this case, an extraordinary
22 reluctance for there to be a proper investigation, most
23 of all by the security services, into what went on in
24 1992 in relation to Princess Diana, leaving aside
25 Prince Charles himself for the moment, because if, in

69

1 fact, at the end of the day, there is evidence to
2 suggest that this was conducted by the security
3 services, then the denials that they make from time to
4 time, either through ministers or anyone else, are
5 probably not worth the paper they are written on.
6 Secondly -- and this is important -- that if it was
7 done by the security services as opposed to a newspaper
8 or an individual or someone else not on behalf of
9 the security services, so, in other words, if it was
10 done by the security services, why would they be doing
11 that at that stage? The idea that they would be doing
12 it in order to, as it were, prevent some terrorist
13 attack hardly bears investigation.
14 Therefore it is for two reasons. It is concerned
15 with, even at that stage in 1993, only four years before
16 the crash, the question of whether there was already
17 established within certain elements of the security
18 services and the Establishment, which is how it has been
19 put in the past, animus towards Diana, never mind
20 Mr Al Fayed who comes later, as it were.
21 So it is for those two reasons that this is being
22 closely examined because we do make that suggestion very
23 clear, as will become clear in these documents. That is
24 the reason, I am afraid, for going through them --
25 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: There must be a limit to how far

70

1 you can examine it without actually getting anywhere.
2 That is the point.
3 MR MANSFIELD: So far we have got some way, if I may say so.
4 The first point is that there has been no investigation
5 by anybody. We did not know that before today and
6 before these documents.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I am probably going to take up
8 more time by arguing this with you than letting you get
9 on with it, but do bear in mind the point.
10 MR MANSFIELD: Yes, I do.
11 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: We need to keep to the point,
12 rather than round the edges of the point.
13 MR MANSFIELD: The point is contained within these
14 documents, and I want to demonstrate, if I may, that
15 when it comes to Diana, this call, the issue has been
16 put on the back-burner and marginalised and not
17 investigated and there is no good reason.
18 So I am sorry to do it through you, Lord Fellowes,
19 but you understand, these are the documents produced
20 through you this morning.
21 Then there is the heading "Press allegations about
22 the security and intelligence agencies". This is where
23 again one runs into the observations by Sir Robin, who
24 is from the Cabinet Office, saying:
25 "... despite the categoric assurance by ministers

71

1 that there has been no such involvement. Sir Robin had
2 spoken to Lord Rees-Mogg ...", obviously concerning
3 the press.
4 Once again, nothing said by the security agencies at
5 that stage that in fact they had provided the minister
6 with any kind of investigation or anything, is there?
7 A. Not in this paragraph, no.
8 Q. They are all three of them there. So paragraph 6:
9 "In discussion, the following points were made.
10 "(i) It had been right to get a categorical and
11 ministerial assurance on the record the previous week
12 ..."
13 Then we see this:
14 "... and for GCHQ to put out its own further
15 statement to counter the specific allegations that they
16 operated without legislative and ministerial control."
17 That does not provide an answer to the question,
18 does it.
19 A. What is the question?
20 Q. Did they eavesdrop this conversation with Diana?
21 A. I think I would answer that by saying that it is clear
22 from these documents that the various heads of -- the
23 permanent secretaries and Sir John Adye were quite
24 certain in their minds that the security services were
25 not responsible for the bugging and therefore they were

72

1 prepared to support the issue of ministerial statements
2 to that effect.
3 Q. Nowhere in these documents is that made clear, is it?
4 I have already asked you.
5 A. I cannot speak for them, but I can only imagine that
6 they were content for ministerial statements to be made
7 on the lines they were made. I cannot believe that
8 the statements were made without their agreement.
9 Q. But you see, the way in which statements were made are
10 very precisely and carefully worded. In other words, to
11 say that GCHQ is countering a specific allegation that
12 they operate without legislative and ministerial control
13 does not mean to say that when and if they eavesdropped
14 this conversation, it did have some form of supervision
15 or control. Do you follow?
16 A. Well, it is a difficult point, but I follow what you are
17 saying.
18 Q. "There was ... little to gain from putting out further
19 statements ...", keep the pot boiling.
20 Then we come to paragraph (ii), page 5, coming
21 towards the end of the Melanie Leech note:
22 "Comments from so-called 'experts' -- such as
23 John Le Carre [and so on] ... were particularly
24 irritating. In some cases it might be worth refuting
25 blatant untruths, such as claims to the ex-members of

73

1 the agencies where this was not the case.
2 The Daily Telegraph had offered SIS the chance to
3 respond."
4 Was there some particular link to the
5 Daily Telegraph?
6 A. No idea.
7 Q. "There were ... dangers ... by letting the allegations
8 run."
9 Well, I think you can read the rest of that. Then
10 the agreement appears to have been, therefore finally --
11 and I think your attention has been drawn to this
12 already -- that further comment should rest on the
13 ministerial statements already given. So that is
14 the position as of that date.
15 Can we turn to the next document, 22nd January?
16 Again, this is a document that originated in
17 the Home Office. I am sorry, just before we leave
18 the previous one, could you go back to page 2?
19 I meant to ask you whether, on the top of that page,
20 there are any signatures or initialing that you
21 recognise? It may well be that it is only within GCHQ.
22 Do you see what I mean?
23 A. No, I do not recognise any of them.
24 Q. Thank you very much. Page 6 please. Now, this is from
25 the Home Office indicating very generally a position

74

1 that they are adopting, which is basically that they are
2 not persuaded that any investigation is necessary,
3 beginning of the second paragraph and so on, basically
4 because they are not persuaded that it is going to
5 result in anything.
6 "He thinks there is a real danger that even a
7 security service inquiry of the kind we have in mind
8 would quickly come to the attention of the media. His
9 strong fear is that when that happened, the press would
10 portray the existence of the inquiry as clear proof
11 that, notwithstanding what he and other ministers had
12 been saying about their conviction, that members of the
13 security service or of GCHQ had had absolutely no
14 part in the interception of Royal telephone
15 conversations ..."
16 What seems to be being conveyed here is a real fear
17 of publicity rather than the truth coming out and being
18 accorded that statement by the Government, isn't it?
19 A. Far be it from me to interpret the Home Secretary's
20 thoughts, but such an inquiry might only lead to further
21 harm being done to the reputations of the security
22 services, unjustified harm. On balance, he apparently
23 came to the view therefore that an investigation was
24 the wrong route.
25 Q. Well, it would not be if, in terms of the security

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1 service, since it was in the public domain, if they were
2 able to say authoritatively: there has been an
3 investigation conducted by X, hopefully somebody
4 independent of the security services. Recently there
5 have been privy councillors looking at intercept
6 evidence, haven't they?
7 A. Sir, I think I am being put in a position of trying to
8 answer questions that really are not in my line of
9 country --
10 Q. I did not object at the start of the day that you were
11 asked about these documents, you see, because it seemed
12 to me that you really were not the right person to be
13 asking.
14 A. I think you are now asking me to try to interpret what
15 the Home Secretary of the day's thoughts were, and
16 I cannot do that.
17 Q. I understand that. Page 8, please. This is your
18 letter. This I do want to ask you about because what
19 you are writing about here is presumably -- I hope this
20 is fair -- what you had read in the press about
21 technical abilities.
22 A. Yes, broadly speaking, and various opinions offered to
23 me from people who know a bit about it.
24 Q. Yes. If I may say so, you quite properly ask for an
25 expert opinion on that. Then we go over the page to

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1 page 9, a letter back to you by the head of GCHQ. Now
2 he wants to know more information about either end.
3 Then, page 10 -- sorry, I am going through these
4 more quickly -- this is where you indicate firstly if
5 the tapes are genuine, (a), and I am going to
6 concentrate on that for the moment:
7 "In the conversation between the Princess of Wales
8 and James Gilbey, the former was using a fixed line at
9 Sandringham and the latter a portable car telephone in
10 a rural area."
11 Now did you know where the rural area was?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Sandringham you know well.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Is there security at Sandringham?
16 A. What form of security? Security -- physical security or
17 communications security?
18 Q. Both actually. In other words, not being a regular
19 visitor at all to Sandringham, can you just --
20 A. It will only be a matter of time, I am sure.
21 Q. It depends how I am taken there. I cannot presumably
22 just walk up the front drive --
23 A. No, the police do security.
24 Q. And communications?
25 A. Anyway, at that stage, I have no knowledge of any secure

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1 communications.
2 Q. Again, it may be for somebody else.
3 Now, just going on and bearing in mind what you have
4 informed them in relation to your beliefs there --
5 sorry, can I just ask you the source for the information
6 came from ...?
7 A. It would have come from the Princess of Wales' staff or
8 her direct. I cannot remember which.
9 Q. Right.
10 A. That was (a), and (b) would have come from
11 the Prince of Wales' staff.
12 Q. 18th March, page 11, I am not taking any time on that.
13 23rd March:
14 "Dear Robert ...
15 "I have consulted my technical experts ... we have
16 seen a copy of a report written by a Mr John Nelson."
17 Again, his name was -- I do not know whether you
18 remember now, it is a long time ago -- his name was in
19 the public domain as an expert who had looked at, in
20 particular, the Diana tapes.
21 A. I think I remember the piece in The Sunday Times, but
22 I do not remember his name.
23 Q. Now, I want to put some detail to you on this to see if
24 you can help. The difference, I suggest, between
25 the Diana recording and the Camillagate recordings, as

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1 you have pointed out, was that one of them was on
2 a fixed landline and one of them was in a car telephone.
3 Now, as far as the people who claim to have made
4 the recording, do you remember who they were? They were
5 two individuals.
6 A. No, I cannot remember.
7 Q. I am going to mention them so that again there is no
8 difficulty about it. The individuals who said they had
9 recorded these calls -- and they said effectively the
10 recordings were on different days despite the fact that
11 the conversation was on one day -- one was called
12 Cyril Reenham(?) and the other was called
13 Jane Norgrove(?). Does that ring any bells?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Now they both claimed -- not that they lived in the area
16 of Abingdon; they obviously did live in that area. They
17 both lived in the same area. Did you know that?
18 A. No.
19 Q. What Mr Nelson established was that they could not have
20 recorded a call because the cell net relating to
21 the area in which they lived was not operative until
22 3rd March 1990; in other words, several months later.
23 Are you following?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And it --

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1 A. Are you assuming then that one end of the conversation
2 was in the Abingdon area? You are ahead of me there.
3 Q. Yes, the assumption that has been made -- and Mr Nelson
4 was pointing out the error of the assumption -- the
5 assumption was made that the tapes had been provided as
6 claimed by two radio hams in the Abingdon area. I have
7 just given you their names. What Mr Nelson established
8 was that they could not have recorded it from an actual
9 call. Whether they got it from some transmission later
10 and provided the tapes to the press on that basis is
11 another question; in other words, either somebody has to
12 have -- the car with Mr Gilbey in was not in the
13 Abingdon area, but somewhere else, and somebody had been
14 following his car and picked it up that way or,
15 alternatively, somebody has intruded at Sandringham. Do
16 you follow what I am putting?
17 A. I follow what you are saying, yes.
18 Q. Were you aware of all of that when you wrote the letter
19 which got the response on 23rd March?
20 A. I will have to look back to my letter. This is mine of
21 2nd March.
22 Q. Yes. The detail does not appear.
23 A. I was not aware of where James Gilbey was supposed to
24 be.
25 Q. You see, these are matters that would be easily

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1 ascertainable from both the parties, since they were
2 still living at that time and still are.
3 23rd March, page 12, the experts' advice that is
4 coming back -- and we are really near the end of this
5 sequence now -- is that it would be able -- I will read
6 the paragraph:
7 "My experts' advice is that people intent on
8 recording private telephone conversations between
9 members of the Royal Family and their friends would be
10 able to do so on a regular basis in a rural area by
11 equipping a vehicle with a scanning receiver and
12 tape-recorder and by positioning themselves within a few
13 kilometres of the portable hand or car phone in use.
14 Both of the alleged conversations would have been
15 vulnerable to such a technique."
16 Now, do you follow, that actually does not deal with
17 the situation in Diana's case?
18 A. A car phone, it does mention a car phone.
19 Q. Yes, it mentions a car phone. The problem is if it was
20 picked up at the Gilbey end and not the Sandringham end,
21 somebody has actually had to have been following
22 Mr Gilbey fairly closely, and assuming he parks up to do
23 the call, has to be parked up pretty near in another
24 car. Do you follow the point?
25 A. Yes.

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1 Q. That does not seem to have been addressed, given
2 the public nature of the information that it was radio
3 hams that did it. Do you follow?
4 A. I do not know what the public information was at the
5 time.
6 Q. That two radio hams did it.
7 A. But a car phone -