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Killed by drunken driving, not fame

John Lichfield
Monday 01 September 1997 23:02 BST
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The driver of the car in which Diana, Princess of Wales died had been drinking heavily - he had consumed the equivalent of about a bottle of wine - and was travelling at more than 120mph, it emerged yesterday.

The revelations, by police and judicial sources, threw into confusion an increasingly angry debate about responsibility for the death of the Princess of Wales.

A lawyer acting for Mohamed al-Fayed, father of the Princess's friend, Dodi, who also died, said he would go ahead with a civil lawsuit against the pursuing press photographers if French authorities failed to bring criminal charges against them.

The driver, Henri Paul, aged 41, the third victim of the crash, was the deputy security director at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which is owned by Mr Fayed. He had consumed more than three times the French legal limit of alcohol, police said. This would be equivalent to double the legal limit in Britain. Judicial sources also reported that the speedometer suggested that the armour-plated Mercedes was travelling at 196 kph - or 121 mph - at the time of the crash.

Mr Fayed's lawyer, Bernard D'Artevelle, said that he believed the photographers were responsible for events which led to the crash, even if it was confirmed that Mr Paul was drunk. The driver was described a tough, genial Breton, a former air force pilot who had worked at the Ritz Hotel for 11 years.

Chilling new evidence also emerged yesterday of the behaviour of the paparazzi in the minutes after the car collided with a pillar in an underpass in central Paris in the early hours of Sunday.

At least three photographers fled the scene, after taking shots of the dead and dying victims lying in the wreckage, according to lawyers and police sources. They are presumed to be the source of horrific pictures of the bodies and wrecked car which have been offered to publications in Europe and America but, so far, rejected - though one picture - taken some distance from the scene and showing the carnage, was published in a German tabloid yesterday.

The French authorities were expected last night to bring charges against some or all of the seven other photographers, taken into custody on Sunday morning. The charges were expected to involve failure to take action to save human life.

Three new American witnesses of the crash scene came forward yesterday to say that they saw photographers pushing police officers out of the way to shoot pictures of the wreckage from close range. At the time, they said, the body of the unconscious and dying Princess, was lying halfway out of the mangled vehicle.

A French doctor, who was driving past the crash and attempted to revive the Princess, told a similar story. He said he was surrounded by "10 to 15 photographers" firing off their flashes the whole time that he fought to save Diana's life.

Dr Frederic Maillez said that when he found Diana she was "unconscious ... moaning and gesturing in every direction". He said he lifted her head and helped her to breathe with an oxygen mask. All this time, he said, the photographers were "snapping away at the car non-stop though one cannot say they hampered me or my work".

A statement by the Public Prosecutor's Office on charges against those photographers held by the police - possibly including manslaughter - was expected throughout yesterday and delayed several times. A spokeswoman said only that there was a "hitch". Late in the afternoon, it emerged what a monumental hitch it was.

The prosecutor's office announced that the driver of the crashed car had an "illegal" level of alcohol in his blood-stream. Police sources said later that this was 175 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, compared to a legal French limit of 50 milligrams and a British limit of 80 milligrams.

Earlier, a lawyer for one of the photographers under police questioning alleged that Mr Paul issued a dare to the paparazzi earlier in the evening. Gilbert Collard, a Marseilles lawyer, said there was "banter" in which Mr Paul had said, words to the effect of, "You'll never catch me in any case".

A spokeswoman for the Ritz refused to comment on this allegation. She rejected earlier suggestions that he was an inexperienced driver; he had taken several driving courses with Mercedes-Benz.

The spokeswoman said that he took the wheel on Saturday night as part of an unsuccessful attempt to shake off the photographers gathered outside the Ritz. The more usual chauffeurs drove away in decoy cars, she said.

The plan failed. A group of photographers gave chase but police confirmed yesterday that they were 100 metres behind the Mercedes when it crashed and not directly involved. As Mr Paul entered the tunnel, he came upon a car travelling much more slowly. Police believe that he lost control as he tried to overtake.

The British Embassy in Paris opened a book of condolences for Princess Diana yesterday. Embassy officials said queues of people filled the courtyard of the ambassador's residence throughout the day.

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