Mohammed Fayed announced last night that he was finally giving up his 10-year campaign to prove that his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales, were killed in a conspiracy involving the Royal Family and the secret services.
The Harrods owner, who said he was abandoning the public claims for the sake of Princes William and Harry, told ITV's News at Ten that "enough is enough". He added: "I'm leaving the rest for God to get my revenge. I'm not doing anything any more."
The declaration came after Gordon Brown led appeals for an end to a decade of speculation about Diana's death, after her sons issued a joint statement supporting the coroner's verdict.
Mr Fayed told Sir Trevor McDonald: "I'm a father who has lost his son and I've done everything for 10 years. But with the verdict I accept it, but with reservations.
"Enough is enough ... for the sake of the two princes, who I know loved their mother. But I have [had] enough. I'm leaving the rest for God to get my revenge. I'm not doing anything any more ... this is the end."
Mr Fayed said he was "tired" with his fight for justice despite his lawyers telling him he still had options.
Earlier yesterday it emerged that Paul Burrell, the former butler caught admitting he had not told the truth at the inquest, is unlikely to face trial for perjury. Lord Justice Scott Baker, who conducted the six-month-long inquest into the car crash that killed Diana and Dodi Fayed, confirmed yesterday that he is "not minded" to pass the matter on to Scotland Yard.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it would not be holding an investigation into whether any witness lied on oath during the inquest – but would not rule out an inquiry if it received a formal complaint.
Mr Burrell's escape from the consequences of his "blindingly obvious" untruthfulness is a sign that almost everyone involved wants the exhausting saga to be laid to rest after the jury's verdict that the couple were unlawfully killed due to "gross negligence" by their driver, by pursuing vehicles, and by their own failure to fasten their safety belts.
During the three days when Mr Burrell gave evidence in January, he was subjected to cross examination which left him floundering and humiliated
Afterwards, he was secretly recorded in a New York hotel admitting he had not told the whole truth. "I was very naughty, and I laid a couple of red herrings," he said.
Mr Burrell was once known as Diana's "rock", but during the inquest was mockingly described as a "porous rock" because of the amount of personal information he had disclosed about her.
Lord Scott Baker's summing up was scathing about his "shabby" evidence. "You heard him in the witness box, and even without what he said subsequently in the hotel room in New York, it was blindingly obvious, wasn't it, that the evidence he gave in this courtroom was not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," the coroner said.
Mr Burrell is now in the US, where he has exploited his former connection with Princess Diana to enable him to become a minor television celebrity. Perjury is an extraditable offence, but it is thought Lord Scott Baker's reason for not pursuing the case is the cost of the inquest, thought to be well over £12m.
Trevor Rees, Diana's former bodyguard and the only survivor from the crash that night, agreed. He issued a brief statement yesterday saying: "I agree with the jury's verdict. I hope that this now represents a point from which everyone involved can move on."
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