Diana inquest: Security worries

2007-11-21 17:59

Robert Barr

London - Princess Diana's private secretary told an inquest on Wednesday that he repeatedly expressed concern about security and possible bad publicity - but she rarely reacted to his warnings.

Michael Gibbins told the British jury examining the 1997 death of Diana and boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, that he had expressed concern about her decision to accept a holiday invitation weeks earlier with the family of Mohamed Al Fayed.

Al Fayed, owner of Harrod's department store, had invited Diana to the French resort of St Tropez. She accepted and a romance blossomed between the princess and his son, Dodi Fayed.

Concerned about negative publicity

Gibbins, who joined Diana's staff about a year before her death, said he had been aware - "by inference, certainly" - that the royal household was concerned about negative publicity surrounding her past relationships with lovers or suspected lovers.

Gibbins also noted that Al Fayed "had not always had favourable press reports, and a concern that I had was that if the princess went on that particular holiday, she might expect unfavourable press coverage as a result."

Diana generally did not respond to his concerns, Gibbins said. Generally, "she took it on board, but did not react".

Diana and Fayed died in a car crash in Paris. Gibbins also said hours after the princess' death, he asked Colin Tebbutt, Diana's driver and security adviser, to accompany her butler, Paul Burrell, to Paris.

He said he wanted Tebbutt to keep an eye on a very distressed Burrell.

"I wasn't entirely clear why he (Burrell) needed to go to Paris but in the circumstances, I was not going to stop him," Gibbins said.

Gibbins said he spoke several times with Tebbutt during the day, including discussion of efforts needed to preserve the princess' body and make it presentable for family and dignitaries who planned to pay their respects that afternoon.

French officials carried out embalming

Al Fayed claims his son and the princess were the targets of a plot orchestrated by Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, and that Britain's intelligence agency, MI6, directed the British Embassy to insure that French officials carry out the embalming to cover up an alleged pregnancy.

But Gibbins said he could not recall discussing embalming with Tebbutt.

"I never gave Colin Tebbutt directions to have the princess embalmed," he said.

On Tuesday, Maud Morel Coujard, who was a deputy public prosecutor in Paris in 1997, denied being instructed by the British Embassy to have Diana's body embalmed. Embalmer Jean Monceau said he had first suggested the process to the British consul-general.

- SAPA