Scotland Yard chiefs are facing fresh concerns over their handling of a memo detailing Princess Diana’s fears she would be killed in a staged car crash.
Diana expressed her fears to her lawyer, Lord Mishcon, in October 1995. She died in a car crash in Paris two years later, along with Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.
The mystery surrounding the note has been revisited in a four-part documentary – The Diana Inquest: Death in Paris – starting tonight on Channel 4 to mark the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
After Diana’s death, Lord Mishcon passed the account of their meeting, written at the time, to senior officers of the Metropolitan Police, who kept it in a safe. But the note was not handed over to French authorities, who have been investigating her crash for six years.
Diana’s siblings only learned of its existence more than a decade after it was written. Princes William and Harry were also kept in the dark for a long time.
There have even been suggestions of a mysterious addendum to the memo, which is said to be designed to cover up the fact that the original memo had not been released earlier.
Scotland Yard chiefs are facing fresh concerns over their handling of a memo detailing Princess Diana’s fears she would be killed in a staged car crash.
Operation Paget concluded that Diana’s death was a “tragic accident”. Lord Stevens concluded there was “no evidence” of a murder plot or cover-up by MI6 (Pictured: The wreckage of the car Diana died in after it crashed in the Alma underpass in Paris, loaded onto a lorry)
According to John Morgan, author of How They Killed Princess Diana, a second page was written in pen on a different pad and on different dates.
At a meeting with police chiefs a month after Diana’s death, Lord Mishcon read his note aloud to emphasize its importance. He told officers that Diana was recorded saying that “efforts will be made, if not to get rid of her by some accident in her car, such as a pre-arranged brake failure … at least to see that it is so injured or damaged to be declared unbalanced [in her mind]’.
Michael Mansfield, a barrister who represents Fayed’s father Mohammed Al Fayed, said on tonight’s programme: “The note is important because it is equivalent to someone’s hunch. If you’re a police officer investigating him, you want to turn the bill over to the French. They didn’t do that. They put it in the safe and don’t reveal it.
Mishkon’s memo, it has emerged, could be included in Prince Harry’s controversial memoir, due out later this year.
Harry is said to be “intensely focused” on the investigation into his mother’s final hours. Neither he nor his brother were privy to key details for nearly a decade, according to the documentary.
In 2006, former Met Commissioner Lord Stevens led Operation Paget, which investigated the conspiracy theories surrounding the incident. Later that year, he briefed William, then 24, and Harry, 22, at Kensington Palace for 90 minutes about the detailed findings in his report.
Until then, the princes had only “limited knowledge” of the incident. Lord Stevens said he had asked “very pertinent questions” from the princes, later saying the session had been “difficult for them”.
“I had the facts of what happened from the start of the problem with the car in front of the Ritz to the death and the return of the body,” he said. “They wanted to know the circumstances of the death, what happened to their mother in every aspect. Some questions were detailed – which I answered because they were not told the circumstances.
Operation Paget concluded that Diana’s death was a “tragic accident”. Lord Stevens concluded that there was “no evidence” of a conspiracy to kill or a cover-up by MI6.
He blamed drunk driver Henri Paul for the high-speed crash, which occurred as Diana and Dodi drove from dinner at the Ritz to an apartment.
Diana expressed her fears to her lawyer, Lord Michonne (pictured), in October 1995. She died in a car crash in Paris two years later, along with Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul
Lord Mishcon died aged 90 before the inquest, but had given a statement during Operation Paget, which is how the existence of the Mishcon Note came to light and how Diana’s sister Sarah first heard about it.
Sandra Davies, a barrister working for Mishcon, who was at the meeting with Diana, told the inquest: “Lord Mishcon was concerned about taking the note … because he thought it was important that the police knew that he had made it and that she [Diana] she had said what she had said.
The police recorded their meeting with Lord Mishcon in September 1997. He concluded that “if it ever appeared” that there were any suspicious factors in the fatal crash, the solicitor or his firm would be contacted by Scotland Yard.
But when the same note turned up at the inquest years later, it had a second page attached with text that supported the police’s decision to keep the note secret.
Mishkon’s note came to light when Diana’s butler, Paul Burrell, revealed he was in possession of a similar letter from Diana predicting her death. Lord Mishcon tried to contact Lord Stevens and the police consulted lawyers about what to do with Mishcon’s note in the safe.
It eventually arrived at the coroner’s office at Scotland Yard on 30 December 2003. An inquest into Diana’s death was opened a week later, then adjourned. In 2008, he concluded that she had been “unlawfully killed”, in part due to the driver’s “gross negligence”.
Additional reporting by Claudia Joseph
Princes William and Harry did not learn key details of their mother’s death for almost a decade, according to a new Channel 4 documentary
By Claudia Joseph for the Mail on Sunday
Princes William and Harry did not learn key details about their mother’s death for almost a decade, according to a new Channel 4 documentary about the conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy.
Former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens, whose investigation into her death is at the heart of the programme, revealed the two princes had only “limited knowledge” of the 1997 Paris incident.
Nine years later, in December 2006, Lord Stevens was invited to Kensington Palace to brief William and Harry on the detailed findings of his report ahead of publication.
It was, he said, “a tough session for them” that lasted about 90 minutes. He fielded “very relevant questions” from the Duke of Cambridge, then 24, and the Duke of Sussex, 22.
“I had the facts of what happened, from the start of the problem with the car outside the Ritz, to the death and the return of the body,” Lord Stevens told The Mail on Sunday.
“I went in and had an hour, an hour and a half with them to tell them the details of what happened. I answered their questions more than half the time.
Former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens, whose investigation into her death formed the basis of the programme, revealed the two princes had only “limited knowledge” of the 1997 incident in Paris (pictured: William, Diana and Harry at heads of state VE Memorial Service in Hyde Park in 1995)
“I sat across from them and they sat together on the couch. I know they believed me.
“In general, they wanted to know the circumstances of the death, what happened to their mother in every aspect.
“Some of the questions were detailed – which I answered because they weren’t told the circumstances.
“I think that was an important thing for them – and I think they appreciated it. It was quite an emotional session.’
“It was so intense, to be completely honest, I don’t think any of us wanted coffee or any kind of drink. They had very pertinent questions about what happened to their mother and I was there to answer those questions.
Lord Stevens said in the documentary that he was in touch with Prince William as part of the initial fact-finding stage of the inquiry.
“We corresponded to inquire what William knew of his mother and her habits before this,” he said, “and whether she had said anything about marrying Dodie that he had no knowledge of.”
Lord Stevens also revealed that neither prince believed any of the allegations made by Mohammed Al Fayed, Dodi’s father, who also died in the crash on August 31, 1997.
In the years since the accident, the former owner of Harrods has offered a host of silly theories and barely credible accusations, not least that the princess was pregnant at the time of her death and that key members of the royal family were somehow involved in an extravagant assassination plot .
A subsequent report found all of the conspiracy theories — about 104 in total — to be completely unfounded.
Before the report was published, Lord Stevens tried to acquaint Al Fayed with its contents. But despite having weekly meetings during the three-year investigation, the Egyptian-born businessman turned him down.
“I went to Harrods and it refused to accept me,” he said. “We gave him the results of the report through his legal team and he refused to accept me.”
In the documentary, Lord Stephens also described how he interviewed Prince Charles at St James’s Palace about a note written by Diana – and left in a Kensington Palace closet for her butler Paul Burrell to find.
In it, she predicted that she would die due to “brake damage and a serious head injury”.
Disgraced BBC journalist Martin Bashir – who used false documents to trick the princess into giving him an interview with Panorama in 1995 – was later thought to have heightened her sense of paranoia at the time the note was written.
“The claim should have been investigated,” Lord Stevens says in the documentary, “whether it was the future King of England or someone else. You have to go there. No one is above the law.
“I was not afraid of the Establishment; the decision was made to see Prince Charles because of Burrell’s letter and the allegations made in that letter.
“Princess Diana had said she would be killed by her husband. We had to see if there was any substance to it and we had to have his response to it.
“I’m sure nothing like this has ever happened before, so it was unprecedented. He didn’t mind being involved in some form and that was noted.
Lord Stevens was among dozens of police officers, paramedics, firefighters and eyewitnesses interviewed for the four-part series Investigating Diana: Death in Paris, which starts on Channel 4 tonight.
It covers the twin inquests into the deaths of Diana and Dodi, the original 1997 investigation by the French Crime Squad and Operation Paget, as well as the inquest into the couple’s deaths, and includes interviews with both police forces.
Alan Brown, who was Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at the time of the report, told the programme: “You ended up with two grieving young lads. They were probably more affected than anyone else.
“To make someone assume that their father and their grandfather had some responsibility for their mother’s death, you know, no matter how small that concern – and the fact that it’s constantly repeated in the press – might give them confidence about what happened and why it happened is in itself really important.
Diana’s Inquest: Death in Paris starts at 9pm tonight on Channel 4