Tuesday, 5 January 2010

1341 Princess Diana Conspiracy Theories

09.00 I have been up for an and enjoyed a coffee and several games of Hearts while listening to the music on my profile. Having selected music which means something to me and is part of my work, I like to listen from time to time. The master tune which opens the profile is Vincent by Don McClean who I had the privilege to see at the Newcastle City Hall last year and he did not disappoint. One friend wondered if the selection indicated a self destruction tendency to which I had to reply yes except for the idea of ending any life including ones own. I know I eat the flesh of animals and fishes and they are beings, and even vegetables have a cycle of life so in fact the respect for one's own life means that one needs to eat. I do not hunt or fish which to be consistent I feel I should. I have to come to the view that for any work to be regarded as art, the work has to be produced by the artist who conceives the work, and if such, as with a bronze the artist needs assistance he should be involved in all aspects of the casting, or with painting a ceiling he needs help in bringing paint and associated materials to where he is working then, that is OK. The artist may also employ apprentices so that he can contribute to their learning of technical abilities in the mutual field of interest, but even here the artist should resist the temptation to use the apprentice to undertake major components of his own projects but encourage the student to develop their own voice using the techniques and experience of the artist. Any work which involves a collaboration with others, including the work of others, such as my own, is a collaboration and the collaborators should be mentioned. This is particularly important where the point of a work is its concept. There are those who ridicule the concept artist. The concept, especially when original and illumines our experience and understanding of the world the world, makes an important contribution and my only complaint is when there is no reference to those who carry out the execution of the creative idea.

09.45 The writing of this has been undertaken while I listened to Somewhere over the Rainbow by Kamakakaiwo'ole, a Hawaian which I have now given prominence in part because he is a large man and because the his approach to the song as well as its sentiments are important to my work and to the life I have led. Credit for its inclusion goes to Jason Castro who adapted this version for his performance on American Idol this week. From before there is then It's My Life Jon Bon Jovi with Bruce Springsteen, This is my life, one of several version on the profile, Yesterday by the Beatles, Imagine John Lennon, Its My Life again the Shirley Bassey Performance, but thee Frank Sinatra My Way and Janis Joplin Cry have not loaded. My Favourite as a video is Ave Maria, because of the assembling of the video by Jeff Lloyd which achieves a deep spirituality with its focus on images of the Madonna and child and which is there to represent my birth mother and her Catholic Faith.

10.00 Going through the music and videos on my profile was not the purpose of commencing writing this morning, but it developed out of the waking up process as I thought around the subject of conspiracy as I study the guidance to the Jury by the Coroner who presided over the Inquest into the deaths of Diana Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed. I discovered that some of the videos have not loaded, and as this was also the position last night it may be that there is now a problem or they have been deleted from MySpace video in which I shall have to try and find replacements, but not now, Mary Hopkins Goodbye is another not available, but Elvis Presley Trouble on My Mind remains together with the entire Queen performance at the I was there Live Aid, Mother, Radio Gaga, Rich or poor or Famous(?) But not Candle in the Wind Elton John and Strangers in the Night. A new addition is the special video from McFly You've got friends to promote concern for the plight of starving and ill children in Africa. Always by Bon Jovi, and a MySpace Friend, one of the first, Margot McDonald Freewheelin, a new addition is The Beds are Burning Midnight Oil, but disappeared is P Diddy and Rod Stewart from the Concert for Diana. Remaining is the Here's looking at you Clip from the one film I can watch time and time again Casablanca, and the Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, but not Roy Orbison Only the Lonely. New addition Queen The Show must Go On. Crosby Stills and Nash and Grateful Dead Woodstock theme, but not Rose Royce Love don't live here anymore, or Total Eclipse of the Hear. Marlena Dietrich Where have all the flowers gone long time passing who I saw at Oxford, and Natasha Bedingfield's Soulmate, Band Aid Do they know its Christmas, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, Hallalujah, Tina Turner, The Best, Angels Robbie Williams, The Moonlight Sonata. Queen The Show Must Go on, Freedom and unintentional a copy of Here's Looking at you kid which is in its right place because it sums up the importance of one life against the problems the world faces.

10.50. While the saying "Ok I am paranoid but it does not mean they not out to get you" should be kept at the back of the mind, most conspiracies are in fact coincidences and mess ups. Government, political parties, large organisations, do conspire, collude , lie, deceive, both in the national and public interest and from self interest preservation and advancement. The best example of this was the assassination of President Kennedy, although I have do know if those investigating were defeated by the lack of evidence and the deceit of some witnesses or there was a decision taken to cover up or misrepresent what happened. Those undertaking investigations can only act within their terms of reference and on the basis of the information submitted. They do not usually go beyond the terms of reference, or commence a general search in the hope that evidence will emerge. It is up to those alleging conspiracy, crime and wrong-doing to provide the substance of evidence or at least provide a basis which will enable specialist enquiries to find evidence if it is available. One of the greatest cover ups and conspiracies to cover up that I have some knowledge is that in the field of public child care in the United Kingdom. There were and remain good reasons for not going public about the extent of physical, mental and sexual violence against children by those engaged in their care because it potentially makes all those in public care potential victims and creates additional problems to the fact they are in public care for those who are attempting to become an integral part of every day life, going to school, having friends who are not in public care, getting work and so on especially as some people assume that every child or young person in public care was because of delinquency while others assume that everyone must be an orphan. Publicity also makes it difficult to recruit and retain staff who have to be thick skinned to cope with comments such as who have you beaten up to day., a problem shared with prison warders. Because of these considerations and the diabolic British attitude towards children as possessions/chattels of their parents or carers who can be treated worse than animal pets, pets get better regard and treatment because they do not answer back or rebel against unfair treatment, children, especially very young children have always been easy prey for those with a need to commit crimes against human beings, because they are young, so who will believe them, because they can be seduced or frightened into submission and because it will eb difficult to prove if complaints are made when the youngster makes complaint on reaching adulthood.
11.30. It is my understanding that because of the nature of particular allegations and the international media attention given to various aspects of the lives and deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi, the Coroner felt obliged to ensure that every allegation was tested to see if evidence was available to back up what was being said, often being said because those making the allegation where aware that some individuals were not in a position defend themselves.

This is how the Coroner summed up the lack of evidence to justify allowing the Jury to consider a verdict which concluded that their had been a criminal conspiracy.

"It may be helpful if I were to give an overview of the conspiracy theories. We know that Diana and Dodi died as a result of a car crash, but the underlying question, which was apparently raised by Mohamed Al Fayed from the moment he heard of the death of his son, has been whether the crash that caused the deaths was deliberately staged. For reasons I have explained, it is not open to you to conclude to the necessary criminal standard of proof that the crash was staged and return a verdict of unlawful killing on that basis. But it is none the less important that I rehearse the nature of the conspiracy theory that has been widely publicised and explain how it has evolved during the course of these inquests. We have spent great deal of time exploring whether the conspiracy allegations have anything to them. There has, it would appear, never been any doubt in the mind of Mohamed Al Fayed that Prince Philip organised the murder of Dodi and Diana through the offices of MI6. The motive ascribed to Prince Philip was that he could not contemplate the possibility of Diana marrying a Muslim and especially the son of Mohamed Al Fayed, who was quite independently a hate figure of what he calls 'the Establishment'.
The pair were planning to marry, indeed were engaged and Diana was pregnant. Dodi had bought an engagement ring chosen by the two of them earlier in the summer in the South of France. The murders were executed by MI6using an operational model drawn from a plan from the early 1990s to assassinate Slobodan Milosevic.

The theory suggested that Diana was the subject of constant surveillance. As a result her conversations with others, talking of her plans and pregnancy, were listened to and the intelligence agencies and Prince Philip would have been fully aware of them.
The plan was set up for Paris at the end of August
and involved a combination of a vehicle or vehicles to block the path of the Mercedes in which Dodi and Diana were travelling, combined with a bright flash of light to disorientate the driver, Henri Paul. He was an MI6 agent who had been with his handlers in the three hours between going off duty at 7 pm on the evening of 30th August and returning to the Ritz at 10 pm. It was Henri Paul who decided on using the third car from the rear of the Ritz and it was he who decided to drive. That was, of course, a vital link in the chain because otherwise those waiting to cause the crash would not have known whether the car would travel along the embankment expressway or take the route up the Champs-Elysees. There is a short period of about eight minutes when Henri Paul is out of view of the CCTV cameras at the front of the Ritz, so it must have been in that period that he made the necessary arrangements. Such a plot would have required the participation of a significant number of people. It was said that James Andanson, a well-known photographer, was an MI6 agent, also involved in the plot. He owned a white Fiat Uno, which it was suggested he had driven to Paris and deliberately into collision with the Mercedes as it went into the Alma Tunnel. It was suggested that Lord Fellowes, then the Queen's Private Secretary and Diana's brother-in-law,
was sent to the British Embassy to coordinate the plan. In particular, it was suggested by Mohamed Al Fayed that Fellowes was in a communications room at the Embassy sending messages to GCHQ. So the suggestion was that Prince Philip was
directing the murder of the mother of his grand children with the active involvement of Fellowes, who was engaged in the murder of his sister-in-law But, members of the jury, it does not stop there. It has been suggested that many others were involved in the plan, either before its execution or afterwards, in a willing conspiracy to cover it up. Mohamed Al Fayed suggested that the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister were involved, as was the Foreign Secretary. The French authorities assisted by disabling CCTV and speed camera coverage in central Paris. So did the French emergency services, who dawdled on the way to
Both the French and American intelligence services
were said to be involved, either before the crash or at least in covering up the true causes. So too were the French police, whose investigations were deliberately slipshod and, of course, the French judiciary were also said to be complicit. Indeed anyone who had investigated the crash and
failed to conclude that it was staged was necessarily, it would seem, part of the conspiracy. So Lord Stevens and his team of officers fall into the plot also. But, it was said, there were others more closely involved after the crash who were directly concerned to covert the tracks of the real killers. Leading that pack were the French pathologists and forensic scientists who, it was said, either falsified the results of the tests carried out on Henri Paul or
switched bodies in some way. There was the Royal Coroner, Michael Burgess, and an unidentified police officer at Scotland Yard who let the cat out of the bag by mentioning that the deaths were suspicious, only later to deny it, and there was the difficulty of the pregnancy that needed to be covered up.To that end, it was said, the British Ambassador gave instructions, conveyed to him variously by MI6 or the Home Secretary, through Mme Coujard, a senior prosecutor in France, that the body of Diana should be embalmed to conceal her pregnancy. Those instructions were acted upon. The cover-up extended, it was said, to ensure that the bodyguards, Trevor Rees and Kes Wingfield, were turned against Mohamed Al Fayed by MI6. Rees in particular was said to have a full memory of the events and to know the truth. His book, which is not at all helpful to the conspiracy theorists, was therefore written by MI6, who also arranged a job for him in East Timor. Wingfield was also said to have been paid off, as was Ben Murrell, another former Al Fayed employee. You have seen and heard much evidence about what we have called the "Mishcon note", which was a record of fears expressed by Diana to her solicitor in November 1995 and also about a note left for
Paul Burrell, also dealing with her fears. It was suggested that Lord Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Sir David Veness, one his senior officers, conspired to keep the note away from the prying eyes of the French investigators; perhaps Lord Mishcon also Even Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, was swept into the allegations of a cover-up, it being suggested that she was responsible for the disappearance of the originals of letters from the Duke of Edinburgh to Diana. Over many months you have heard evidence that demonstrated the straightforward unreality of much of this thesis, although, when he gave his evidence, Mohamed Al Fayed did not (resile) for a moment from any of the allegations he has made. His beliefs may be genuine -- that is something you will doubtless consider -- but there is no doubt that many of them have no support in evidence at all. In all of this, we should not forget that in addition to the official investigations carried out in France and by the Metropolitan Police and the evidence heard by you in these inquests, Mohamed Al Fayed has conducted his own investigation with no concern for cost. You are assured that anything that supported the conspiracy theory has been made available to the inquests. A belief expressed in legal proceedings which is unsupported by evidence is worthless. It is not evidence in itself. It is no more than unsupported opinion. Mohamed Al Fayed's beliefs are to be contrasted with the way in which his legal team have been putting
the matter to witnesses. Advocates are bound by professional rules of conduct which do not allow them to make allegations of serious misconduct for which there is no evidence. Those rules are a reflection of common decency and ensure that witnesses are treated fairly. My own counsel asked a number of witnesses to deal with the allegations if they wished, but at no time suggested
there was any truth in them. You will have noticed that those representing Mohamed Al Fayed did not suggest to a number of the key players in the alleged conspiracy that they had played
the part ascribed to them over the years and apparently still adhered to by their client. So there was no suggestion to Mme Coujard or Lord Jay that they had a hand in the decisions to embalm, still less that there was anything improper in the decisions to embalm or its being carried out. You may think, having heard so many witnesses on the topic, that there is really no doubt at
all that the embalming was entirely innocent Similarly, Fellowes was not troubled with an allegation that he was involved in the murder of his sister-in-law in the way suggested by Mohamed Al Fayed or any other way. No suggestion of cover-up was made to the French police officers. The suggestion that MI6 had got at Rees, Wingfield or Murrell was disavowed by Mr Mansfield. Allegations of cover-up were limited to Condon, Veness and Stevens -- and in his case implicitly his whole team. It was not even suggested to Sir Richard Dearlove (the former head of MI6) that MI6 covered up a murder plot, still less played any part in it. By
the time Dearlove gave his evidence, the suggestion that MI6 had any role in what happened was expressly disavowed. The highest at which it was put was that members of MI6, acting independently of the organisation, might. Where did those acting for Mohamed Al Fayed end upon the question of Prince Philip's alleged involvement? It will not have escaped you, members of the jury, that we did not hear evidence from Prince Philip. I made the decision not to call him in the light of all the evidence that we have heard which provided no basis what so ever for the suggestion that he was involved in killing his daughter-in-law and Dodi.
My decision was challenged unsuccessfully by Mohamed Al Fayed in the High Court. The way in which it was being suggested, on the evidence, that he might have played a part was on the basis that he was hostile to Diana and so may have contributed to a climate of hostility which impelled some unknown members of the
Establishment to take matters into their own hands and organise the crash. That, you may think, is a long way removed from an allegation that Prince Philip ordered the murder of Diana by MI6 with whom he secretly runs the country. The mechanism of the staged crash has also shifted. No longer could it be suggested that Mr Andanson was behind the wheel of his Fiat Uno. The evidence does not begin to provide any support for that. You will remember that some questions were asked about his motorcycle, perhaps with a view to canvassing the possibility that he was on a motorbike in the tunnel and somehow caused the crash from that. Indeed, I do not understand anyone to be suggesting that the Fiat was deliberately driven into the Mercedes at all. There is
no basis on which that conclusion could be reached. Instead, the accident is said to have been staged by a blocking vehicle and a following motorcycle with the use of a bright light. We shall look in detail at the eye witness evidence of vehicles in the vicinity of
the Mercedes when it crashed. But if the Fiat Uno was not involved in a conspiracy, it was indisputably involved in a glancing impact with the Mercedes. It is also no longer suggested that the intent of those who are said to have staged the crash was
necessarily to kill the occupants of the car or to cause them serious injury. That is the intention needed for murder. That you may think is not at all surprising. Killing someone or even seriously injuring them in a car crash is a very hit and miss affair. The tragic deaths in this crash resulted from a combination of chances coming together. The most potent feature of the way in which the
Mercedes was driven was its speed. That speed, combined with the fact that it impacted with the corner of the 13th pillar, was what sent such enormous and fatal forces through the car. Had it been travelling more slowly, the outcome might have been different. Had it hit the side of the pillar rather than the corner, it would probably have bounced off, and in a loss of control, nobody can predict which way it would go. Even at a high speed, had it hit the right-hand wall first, the outcome, you may think, would very likely
have been different. Even as the crash in fact happened, it was survivable. And then there was the fact that neither Dodi nor Diana was wearing a seat-belt. So it has been suggested to a number of witnesses that perhaps the intention was to do no more thanfrighten the occupants of the car. But one only has to think about that for a moment to see how improbable it is as a scenario. It presupposes that those who caused the crash expected all four occupants of the car to have survived. Each would have seen what was going on and been in a position to describe it. So the plot on this hypothesis leaves behind four witnesses who can tell all and who might be better placed to give a clear account than the myriad of other witnesses from whom you have heard whom the perpetrators of the staged crash would anyway have had to taken into account when executing their plan. There was also
the attention of the world's paparazzi to contend with So, it is said, the presence of a dark blocking car, a motorcycle and a light provide the evidence of a staged crash, but that is to ignore all the other evidence, especially that which is incontrovertible about the Fiat Uno. It also fails to grapple with the important question of how anyone knew that the Mercedes would be travelling along the expressway. That, as I have said, is where Henri Paul comes in Yet it is pure speculation that during the eight or so minutes that he cannot be seen on the CCTV outside the front of the Ritz, that he had slipped off to make contact with someone intent on staging a crash, and it has to be during that period because there is no basis for saying that he had any idea of the third car plan until he was told by M Thierry Rocher at about half past 10. For all the rest of the time, after his return to the Ritz, we know exactly where Henri Paul was and what he was doing, mainly because he was on CCTV footage throughout. It has been suggested that there were motives for killing Diana because she was a threat to the Royal Family and her support for the anti-landmines campaign was unacceptable in some quarters, as was Mohamed Al Fayed. It is said that there was extreme concern in Royal circles about the holiday with Mohamed Al Fayed and, finally, the relationship between Diana and Dodi had reached the point where it could no longer be tolerated. Whatever you may think about motives or alleged hostility to Diana, they cannot be
used to prove anything that something untoward happened on that night in Paris Later this week, members of the jury, you will
return to consider your verdicts on how Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed came by their deaths. The inquests into the deaths of Diana and Dodi are separate but have been heard together because most of the circumstances are common; the one possibly significant difference being that Diana lived for some hours after the collision. Nevertheless, you must consider each death separately and complete a separate inquisition for each of the deceased because that is the law. I would emphasise one inquisition and not all eleven that you have been given. Unlike in a criminal trial, counsel is not entitled to address you on the facts. The reason for this is that this is an inquiry and not a contest between two different sides. In summing up, I shall endeavour to
draw your attention to the evidence on the important issues and to point out where the evidence differs. But as I have said, I shall necessarily be selective would not help you unless I was. When I opened this case to you last October, I mentioned a number of questions which needed to be explored because the answers, depending upon what they are, could provide the building blocks for the conspiracy to murder theory. There were eight of them
and they are as follows. Whether and in what circumstances Diana feared for her life; Whether Diana was pregnant; Whether Diana and Dodi were about to announce their engagement; The circumstances in relation to the purchase of a ring by Dodi; The circumstances in which Diana's body was embalmed; Where Henri Paul was between 7 and 10 pm on the night of the collision and the explanation for the substantial amounts of money in his possession and in his bank account; Whose decision it was that Henri Paul should drive the couple and that they should leave the Ritz Hotel by the rear entrance; Whether the British security services or any other country's security services had any involvement in the collision. I shall cover each of these during my summing-up because they figured so widely in the public debate and you have heard evidence about them, but as I explained
in opening, as the case proceeded, it was likely that some issues would fall away and others arise, as has proved to be the case.
You may think examination of the evidence makes it plain that there remains little, if any, substance in some of the allegations, such as pregnancy and embalming, for example. In others, there still remained issues on the evidence. I am going to begin with Tomlinson and the MI6. It was always central to those who believed that Diana and Dodi were murdered that it was at the hands of the
British security services and, in particular, the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Central to that thesis has been the evidence of Richard Tomlinson. His allegations, which first surfaced in 1998, were said to provide confirmation that MI6 had people on the ground in Paris whose movements were suspicious. Furthermore, he provided evidence that MI6 was familiar with using flashing lights for nefarious purposes and had contemplated using one as part of an assassination plan in the early 1990s. He added that he believed that Henri Paul was an MI6 agent. These allegations lead to an unprecedented investigation by Lord Stevens and his team at MI6 headquarters and a unique public examination of a series of SIS witnesses in these inquests. For reasons that I am sure you will fully understand, the identities of serving and former members of MI6 had to be protected, save for Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6. You heard from a witness who dealt with record-keeping and searches of MI6 databases for confirmation of the allegations made by Tomlinson. You heard from those concerned with the Balkan section, where Tomlinson worked in the early 1990s. You heard from the head of the Paris station and a number of his colleagues who were in Paris at the time of the crash. And, of course, you heard from Dearlove, who, at the time of the crash, was the head of operations and so in a position to have an overview of MI6 activities. It is important to remember that Tomlinson's evidence comes quite independently of Mohamed Al Fayed, but you will need to consider very carefully whether the
evidence of Tomlinson advances the case that the collision may have been staged at all. Let me remind you of how Tomlinson figures in the story. Tomlinson graduated at Cambridge University
and joined MI6 in 1991. He was dismissed in May 1995.

He is plainly very bitter about the circumstances of his dismissal. Fortunately, we don't have to go into the rights and wrongs of it. The way he subsequently behaved may give some insight into the character of the man and why MI6 could not continue to employ him. He wrote a book, in large part he says, about why he was dismissed. It was first published in 2001 and most of the money he made out of it he says was later confiscated by the Government. When he originally asked for permission to write the book, it was refused. This irked him because Stella Rimington, a former head of MI5, was allowed to write a book. You may think he has half a point, but putting the lives of former fellow officers and others with whom he dealt during his service at risk by identifying them is, you may think, unforgivable. Copies of the draft manuscript were seized in 1996. In 1997 he was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Official Secrets Act. He spent time on remand in custody and eventually pleaded guilty to an offence for which he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment He was released after six on licence. The question is how far,if anywhere, does Tomlinson's evidence take you towards showing that a plot to kill Diana and Dodi was or could have been setup by a member or members of MI6.Tomlinson describes his involvement thus: in the summer of 1998 he saw a programme about the crash.

This was during the period when he was on licence following his release from prison and, as he accepts, at that stage he was particularly bitter towards MI6.The programme mentioned a flash before the crash and reminded him, he says, of a proposal which he saw whilst working in the Balkan section at MI6 to make a contingency plan to assassinate, as Tomlinson thought it was, Milosevic. That proposal, to which I shall return in a few minutes, was the brainchild of a colleague from whom we heard as"A".He wrote to Mohamed Al Fayed, who he knew was agitating for some form of inquiry. He wondered if something he had seen in a memorandum years before, whilst he was still employed by MI6, might be relevant Apparently the letter went astray, but having met
a journalist in, I think, New Zealand, he eventually went to see Mohamed Al Fayed who paid his fare from New Zealand to France.

Tomlinson gave evidence to the French magistrate on 28thOctober 1998, and this was the first time he publicly drew a link between what he had been shown by A and the crash and flashing lights. He told the magistrate that he had seen a plan at MI6 to assassinate Milosevic, but he also said that he had never heard of any plan to murder any member of the Al Fayed family, Diana or anyone other than Milosevic He said it was impossible, given the structure of MI6, for an assassination plot of this type to have been implemented by them. It could, however, have been instigated by individual members of MI6, albeit not by the service itself. So no support for Mohamed Al Fayed's allegation that Prince Philip got MI6 to setup the crash is to be found in Tomlinson's evidence, but he suggested it would have been possible for one or more members of MI6 to have done it on their own. What motive would any individual in the service have for murdering Dodi and Diana and, practically, how could it have been arranged at short notice in Paris on 30th August 1997? Members of the jury, you must decide whether there may be anything in Richard Tomlinson's comparison between A's contingent assassination proposal and the collision or whether he was simply out to cause maximum damage and embarrassment to his former employer. Let me draw your attention to a possible clue. In the earlier version of the book, that is to say the one delivered up before the crash in 1996, there was no mention of a staged car accident. There it was a drive-past ambush. Why the change? When he was interviewed in May 2005 by the Metropolitan Police Tomlinson said that: "Due to the passage of time, and my deeply felt danger to MI6, it may be that I wrongly linked it the capacity to assassinate to the Milosevic minute. When I came out of prison I was extremely embittered owards MI6 and certainly wanted to cause them embarrassment and difficulty and this may have contributed to my mixing of my knowledge of techniques with my eventual account." When giving evidence, Tomlinson said that he felt under considerable pressure, when being interviewed by the Metropolitan Police, to tell them what they wanted to hear. However he attended voluntarily on each occasion on which he was interviewed and signed up to the record of the interviews afterwards. It was suggested that Tomlinson knew perfectly well that A's proposal did not relate to Milosevic,but Milosevic was a much better-known name than the person to whom the proposal did relate and it was therefore likely to make a better story in the book. Further ,the story changed from the first draft of the book from a drive-past ambush to a staged accident because, it is said, Tomlinson saw the opportunity to embarrass MI6 by linking them to the collision. We heard from A and a number of those in the hierarchy at MI6 about his proposal. It is striking,
you may think, that rather than denying the fact that a proposal was made, MI6 provided detailed evidence to the Metropolitan Police and to you about what had happened. A explained that he had proposed that a contingency plan should be prepared to conside assassinatinga Serbian politician in the event that he came to power because he would engage in genocide against the Muslim population. He was concerned to save hundreds of thousands of lives. All the evidence suggests that the proposal was strangled at birth, to repeat a colourful phrase used in evidence. Quite apart from A's proposal not relating to Milosevic, no bright light was involved, nor was a staged collision in a tunnel. A's evidence was that the options were either using dissidents opposed to a radical Serb group inside Yugoslavia to take action against this man or to use military options. Would Tomlinson have mentioned the bright light plan in the first draft of his book if he had read of it?

There is no reference to a light in either draft of his book. He says he finds the idea of a document containing A's proposal being destroyed as completely unbelievable. He thinks it was destroyed when the Stevens inquiry began and MI6 realised they would have of disclose it. Members of the jury, if that were eight, then every MI6 witness who gave evidence lied to you. Be that as it may, the fact that A did make such a proposal has not been denied.
The other aspect of Tomlinson's evidence that you will have to consider is whether he had anything relevant to say that links Henri Paul to MI6. In 1992,Tomlinson was aware of an operation involving smuggling weaponry out of the Soviet Union, albeit he was not directly involved. He read up the files insofar as he was allowed to do so. You heard about P files. These are opened in
respect of individuals who provide information or access. Tomlinson said that after the programme, he thought back to a P file that he had read. He could not remember who the person was, except that he was French, was a security officer at the Ritz and had an interest in flying. That description meets Henri Paul. Tomlinson accepted that it is quite unusual for a French person to work for the British SIS. The Metropolitan Police, despite extensive searches, found no file on Henri Paul and nothing has emerged to say that he ever worked for the SIS. Tomlinson said in evidence that he had never once claimed Henri Paul was working for SIS and also that he could not positively disagree with the police after 17 years. This is how it was recorded when Tomlinson was seen by the police in May 2005 "Richard Tomlinson accepts, because of what we have told him, that Henri Paul did not appear in the operation he referred to and therefore he may be mistaken on this point." But Tomlinson saysthe security officer of a big
hotel is always a person to target and he felt he would have been recruited by someone and it was a plausible inference to draw that he was the individual he had seen referred to, but he could not be more specific. There is no evidence from any of the SIS witnesses that Henri Paul was ever of any interest to them. It may, of course, be a different matter with regard to the French security services, but we have not been able to explore that in evidence with the French and, in any event, so what? There was a third matter to which Tomlinson's evidence related. He did not regard it as of great importance and I mention it for completeness. He said he had heard that a member of the paparazzi was an SIS informant. He accepted, however, that he had no evidence that this had anything to do with the crash in Paris. It came to no more than this: in the early 1990s, i.e. years before 1997, one of his colleagues on
a training course was going off with a photographer somewhere. He says he believed the photographer worked for the tabloid press and was giving ad hoc help to the SIS. The last particular matter raised by Tomlinson's evidence was the dates of deployment oftwo operatives in Paris. This was, you may think, a particularly mischievous -- even unreasonable and malicious -- aspect of Tomlinson's various accounts. He casually identified two people as possible murderers, relying upon the dates of their postings to Paris, in support of his account that they could have been posted for a sinister purpose. He must have known very well that diplomatic postings are arranged months before they are taken up. That was such a baseless allegation that it was dealt with by a single statement from the Foreign Office head of personnel, which was read to you as undisputed evidence. Do MI6 kill people? Are they allowed to? What is the evidence? Members of the jury, you heard from Dearlove, a former chief of SIS, who has held a variety of senior posts in SIS, being on the mainboardfrom1993untils retirement. Along with MI5 and GCHQ, the general policy in the security services is neither to confirm nor deny allegations. Otherwise, it was said, you create an expectation that you will always comment. In these inquests, you have learned about two exceptions to that policy. The first relates to the bugging of the
conversations known as the "Squidgy tapes" and "Camillagate"; the second to the allegations arising from Tomlinson's evidence of the SIS's involvement in the collision. MI6 has been on a statutory basis since 1994. It is responsible to the Foreign Secretary. Its concerns are national security, the economic well-being of the United Kingdom and the prevention or detection of serious
crime. The Intelligence and Security Committee of senior parliamentarians oversees it and other security agencies. The starting point is that the intelligence services are subject to the constraints of the law. This applies to Crown servants acting abroad.

Sir Richard also explained the detailed judicial oversight to which MI6, and indeed other agencies, are subject. By section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 the Secretary of State can give authorisation for acts that would otherwise be impermissible. Obvious examples would include breaking into premises or stealing something. Lethal force is not absolutely excluded, but
as Mr Douglas Hogg, a Government minister, put it in the House of Commons, it is inconceivable that, in ordinary circumstances, any Secretary of State would authorise the use of lethal force. No force, far less lethal force, could be used unless authorised. Absent authorisation, it would be unlawful. The Foreign Secretary is subject to strict legal tests before he can authorise something that would otherwise be unlawful. That is the effect of an Act of Parliament of 1948. Assassination, said Mr Hogg, is no part of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, but the door is left open a chink to the extent that it has not been excluded in the event of some dire emergency, war or crisis causing great damage to Great Britain or her citizens. Dearlove was unaware of MI6 ever having assassinated anyone. He joined in 1963. He has extensive and detailed knowledge of the service from the time that he
became a member of the board in 1993. Nobody else from whom you have heard is aware of MI6 having assassinated anyone either. He was able to speak with complete authority of the time he was on the board in very senior positions in MI6.

In a modern democracy, very strict managerial controls are required of an organisation like MI6. Any significant operational proposal would be thoroughly prepared and discussed before submission to the Foreign Secretary for authorisation. That, it was explained, covers all operations and not only those that might require an authorisation to do something otherwise unlawful.

There are controls from outside MI6. The Intelligence Service Commissioner gives judicial oversight. He has unfettered access to audit what has been going on. You heard extracts from various of his reports. There is a separate Interception Commissioner, another senior judge, and you also heard from his relevant reports. The Intelligence and Security Committee also has a role in directing MI6 where its efforts are to be applied. There are also financial controls. Mr Hogg, the Government minister, said in a House of Commons debate that an undisclosed, private agenda,
either by an individual officer or the head of the agency, would not be sustainable and was impossible. Dearlove said that any rogue elements in MI6 would not be able to mount such an operation without authority. Other witnesses described an operation of the nature proposed by A as against the ethos of the service, and
that, you may think, is why it was immediately squashed. What of Prince Philip? Dearlove told you that he had no connection with SIS, except occasional visits as the Queen's consort. He could say with complete confidence that no operation of any kind was mounted against Dodi or Diana in the summer of 1997.

Freelancing was inconceivable. Tomlinson's was a mischievous and fanciful allegation. Those who say that MI6 were involved in staging an accident would probably say, "Well, MI6 would deny it,
wouldn't they? "In the past you might have heard no more than a blanket denial to such an allegation, but in this case you have had unprecedented access to information about how they work, what they do and the controls imposed upon them. You may think they have provided compelling evidence that they could not have been
involved in any conspiracy. Although, as you will remember, Mr Mansfield disavowed with Dearlove any suggestions that Diana and Dodi were murdered on the orders of senior people in MI6, Mohamed Al Fayed's beliefs are not that some rogue element did it without the boss's authority. His contention is that MI6 were in it up to the hilt and in cahoots with Prince Philip, the British Ambassador to Paris, the French and many others, including those in the medical profession. Members of the jury, it perhaps says something for the basic freedoms in this country that he is able to make such allegations. It is only after the allegation against the Duke of Edinburgh was shown to be fanciful that the claim shifted to a rogue element within SIS being responsible. Yet you heard from the head of the Paris station that he knew where all his staff were on 30th August. You heard from or had read to your statements from all those who were in Paris that day. You heard that nobody had any idea that Diana and Dodi
were in Paris. It is argued that if assassination was out of the question, A would not have put forward his contingency proposal. Dearlove says that the service does not control the thoughts of its officers, but that the proposal was categorically rejected. In fairness to A, the proposal was only a contingency proposal.

It was made in the context of the loss of thousands of innocent lives and, as is apparent from Mr Hogg's answer in the House of Commons, whilst assassination is no part of Her Majesty's Government policy, it was not absolutely ruled out, however extraordinary the circumstances. There is some dispute about what SIS officers were told in training. Tomlinson accepts that nowadays assassination could not be organised by an SIS officer or officers independently, but says that in earlier days the security services were not so tightly controlled Dearlove disagreed. Tomlinson suggested that during his training the question of assassination was raised in the bar after one of the formal sessions, but that the senior officer, who was asked if it was permissible, declined to answer the question. It was suggested that the implication was therefore that this was something that could and might happen.T omlinson did not mention this in his book, but he did mention, as Mr Hilliard brought out, that, "One evening in the pool bar, when nobody else was listening, I asked about whether SIS ever assassinated a peace-time target. The answer was absolutely not. No, never. His face puckered with severity and sincerity". In truth you may think the whole suggestion of MI6's involvement in a staged accident is dependent on A's contingency proposal. This, it is said, is evidence of the real workings of MI6. Mohamed Al Fayed and others would say it is not just the fact that the proposal was made that is relevant, but what happened to the document that contained it.

We spent a lot of time exploring the point at which
and the circumstances in which a document of this kind would become shreddable or have to be destroyed. The fact that such a document can be and is eliminated from the records without trace indicates, so it is argued, that it would have been easy for MI6 to expunge all record of anything that might implicate thoseinthe murder of Dodi and Diana. I am not going to go into all the evidence about pink memoranda and white minutes and white minutes with "treat as pink" written on them. You heard the evidence and it is a matter for you, but you may think there is nothing sinister in the fact that once A's proposal was, as Sir Richard put it, stifled at birth, there was nothing to be found in MI6's records Dearlove thought an investigation was carried out into A's proposal by one of his senior officers, but no evidence has been found that one was.

It may be that Sir Richard was confusing this with a damage assessment exercise that was carried out following Tomlinson's revelations. You heard evidence of that and saw the relevant documents. Additionally, you saw extracts from A's personnel file which referred to the contingency plan and fixed it in the year when A dated it; not in the year given by Tomlinson. It is said that A's proposals would never have seen the light of day but for Tomlinson. You may think that is undoubtedly correct, but where does it take you? You may think Tomlinson has used bits of his knowledge which he has collaborated with the intention of causing mischief and the greatest possible difficulty for his former employers. Finally, before leaving this topic, I would like to say a word about a letter written by Mr Johnston of the Foreign Office to the French inquiry on 16th December 1998 [INQ0008320]. I hope it is possible to put this up on the screen. You may think that this letter was accurate; there was no plot to murder Milosevic and it would not have been appropriate to have gone into any greater detail if, as MI6 saw it (you may think correctly), Tomlinson was causing mischief and the collision in the tunnel and A's proposal were completely unrelated incidents. One of the consequences of an organisation operating largely in secret, as does MI6 and the other agencies, MI5 and GCHQ, is that it is inevitable that ill-informed speculation about their activities abounds. Yet, having seen the way in which MI6 works through the evidence of Witness X, Dearlove and others, you will have gathered how far removed the reality is from the myth. The records and databases, said Witness X, showed that MI6 had no interest whatsoever in Diana or Dodi, Henri Paul and many others whose names have casually been linked with them in public. Dearlove confirmed that there was no operation, surveillance or interest whatsoever in Diana and Dodi during their brief relationship. It was not the business of MI6, which had clearly defined statutory responsibilities. They had better things to do. If MI6 was not involved in setting up a staged
accident, you may think there is nothing or no evidence that points to anyone else having deliberately set up the collision. If there is an absence of any evidence showing who set up the collision, you may think that may be a strong pointer that the collision was not staged at all and was in reality an accident. The murderer, so-called, would be missing from the story. There have been various suggestions made over the years that other countries' intelligence agencies were involved in some way in the murder of Diana and Dodi. There really is no evidence of that. Nonetheless, for completeness, I remind you that both the French and American intelligence agencies were contacted andyouheardtheirdenials Pregnancy: the only evidence that Diana was pregnant comes from the mouth of Mohamed Al Fayed. On the other hand there is a great deal of evidence that she was not pregnant, although you may think it cannot be proved with absolute scientific certainty that she was not as it is theoretically possible that she could have been in the very early stages of pregnancy withouttherebeingany clinical signs. The issue of pregnancy is said to be important as providing a possible motive or part of a motive why somebody should wish to murder her. Mohamed Al Fayed's evidence is that on the evening of the crash, Diana told him she was pregnant and that he was the only person that she had told, other than
Dodi. It was during the same conversation that he wastold that he and Diana were engaged and that they would
announce it on the Monday morning after she had told her
sons when she had returned from Paris. The conversation took place about one hour before he fateful journey. He says it was a private and personal matter and he does not remember discussing it with anyone. It was suggested the first time anything emerged in public from him about pregnancy was in the Daily Express on 14th May 2001. You will have to decide whether Mohamed Al Fayed is
telling the truth about the pregnancy conversation. If
he is, it is strange that he sat on this important information for three and three-quarter years. It is also difficult to believe how, if the information that Diana was pregnant was only available in a telephone call for the first time an hour or so before the
collision, it could have any relevance to the collision. Mohamed Al Fayed went into a little more detail about the phone call when cross-examined by Mr Horwell. Dodi and Diana called him, Dodi spoke first and said he had already proposed and that they were declaring their engagement on the Monday. He had got the ring. Diana had accepted. Then he spoke to Diana. She was happy.
She had got good news. She said she was pregnant and
Dodi would declare his engagement to her on Monday. Members of the jury, you may think it is difficult to be mistaken about the main thrust of this conversation; i.e. engagement and pregnancy. Either it took place or it did not. The conversation involved
three people, but there is only one who can tell you about it now. Sadly, the only people who could confirm or deny it are no longer alive to do so. So the issue fairly and squarely raises Mohamed Al Fayed's credibility. Is he a man on whose word you can rely?

It was pointed out to Mohamed Al Fayed that various witnesses spoke of Diana's menstrual cycle and contraception and that their evidence all pointed against pregnancy, but his response was that these witnesses are all part of the cover-up and that they
have been told what to say. I told you that Mohamed Al Fayed's evidence of the telephone conversation, if you accept it, is the only evidence as such that Diana was pregnant, but there is one other
piece of evidence to which I should refer. You will remember Mr Posner, the American journalist, who was commissioned to write a piece for Talk Magazine and who had two sources whose names were known only to him and the person he described as
the aggressive lawyer, Deveron Chatillon. One of the sources told him the call was made from the Home Secretary's office to the room where the autopsy on Diana was being carried out and that
the caller ordered the omission of any reference to pregnancy in the final report. Dr Chapman made no reference to any such call, nor did anyone else who was there speak of him being interrupted in any way and it was not suggested to Dr Chapman that he was anything other than an honest and skilled witness who had done
his job properly. Mr Posner said this information came to him
unsolicited and without any detail, but he said he had to assume that what Dr Chapman had said on oath was correct. One of the problems in this case is the number of rumours that have emerged from no identifiable base and gained, in some circles, an apparent credibility by their mere repetition. Whilst on this topic, let me remind you of Professor Coriat. A document was published in a Spanish paper and reproduced in a book. The document, which
purported to be that of Professor Coriat, said that Diana was pregnant when she died. The uncontested evidence of Professor Coriat that was read to you is that this document was a crude
forgery. The statement you heard read to you just before my summing-up started about Dr Dion is another example of false information circulating in the press about pregnancy. The scientific evidence pointing against pregnancy comes from the pathologist, Dr Chapman, and from Dr Shepherd. Dr Chapman said there were no signs of pregnancy and no suggestion that Diana might have been pregnant. However, he said he always looked, during
a post mortem, at the uterus in women of child-bearing age. He would expect to see changes in the uterus at three weeks from fertilisation of the egg. There would be nothing to see in the first seven days; from seven to 14 days you might see something, but it was unlikely; and after 14 days, there was an increasing likelihood. Dr Chapman also said that the fact of her body having been embalmed makes no difference to whether you can identify pregnancy from looking at the uterus. None of Mohamed Al Fayed's representatives or anyone else had suggested that he look for pregnancy. Dr Shepherd said that he agreed in very broad terms with Dr Chapman's evidence about pregnancy.
In June 1998 there was a meeting at New Scotland Yard at which Dr Chapman and the French pathologists were present and the post-mortem reports were handed over. There was no discussion then about possible pregnancy, no doubt because the subject had never been raised and, indeed, it did not surface until May 2001. Professor Riou, the professor of anaesthetics and resuscitation at La Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, said that pregnancy tests were never performed on patients suffering from multiple trauma. He thought a sonogram (or echogram) must have been performed to determine
whether there was blood in the abdomen and that such a test would be capable of showing a pregnancy of five to six weeks if you were looking for it or happened to notice it. However, an experienced radiographer might have to spend half an hour or so looking at the details. He did not hear anyone at the hospital mention pregnancy and did not know which radiographer was on duty. Professor Coriat was the head of the department.
Professor Riou had no specific recollection of a sonogram being performed or indeed even if a radiographer was present. You may think, as Professor Riou said, that if one had been performed, it would have been recorded in the medical records, which it was not.
e Professor was asked the next day about pregnancy by a journalist, which would surely have triggered his memory of anything relevant Professor Pavie said no one mentioned pregnancy to him on the night or in the days or months that followed. Evidence that Diana was taking a contraceptive pill
comes from a number of sources: Dr Lily Hua Yu, who treated Diana from September 1996, said that Diana was on the pill before her death and that she had a period six days before 21st August 1997, which was the last occasion on which she had seen her.
That evidence, which was read to you because it was not disputed by anyone, was confirmed by Rosa Monckton, who said that Diana had a period when on the boat with her between 15th and 20th August. Hasnat Khan, whose evidence was read to you, said
that Diana was assiduous in taking the pill. There was also evidence from Deborah Gribble, the stewardess on the Jonikal. On the cruise between 31st August and 6th August, she saw a strip of
contraceptive pills with some missing and she again saw pill packets on the second trip. Myriah Daniels, the masseuse and holistic healer, was on the second Jonikal trip. She described Diana's irritation at the newspapers. You will remember the famous picture in the leopard swimsuit taken on 12th or 13th July 1997 [Photo produced - Sunday People 15-02-1998]. Now you can see it. Diana complained to Myriah "Now they have me pregnant". Miss Daniels' expression in evidence was "She was not pregnant, period". None of this evidence was challenged in cross-examination. Lucia Flecha de Lima said that if Diana had been pregnant, she would have told her. Before leaving the topic of pregnancy, there is one other witness to whom I should refer and that is Michael Cole. Cole said in evidence that Mohamed Al Fayed had told him of his conversation with Diana and that Diana had said to him that she was pregnant. This, of course, conflicts with Mohamed Al Fayed's evidence. He says he did not tell anybody. But Cole is adamant that he knew Mohamed Al Fayed had had a conversation with Diana and that he knew the content of it. There is a real difficulty with Cole's evidence on this, which you will have to resolve. For why, if he knew Diana had told Mohamed Al Fayed she was pregnant by Dodi, did he write to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, on 22nd September 1997, complaining of what he described as scurrilous and baseless allegations that Diana was pregnant and that cocaine had been found in the wreck of the Mercedes? And why, furthermore, did he later complain to the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission that the Daily Telegraph had not published his letter of complaint? Such rumours were circulating. The cocaine rumour was manifestly without foundation and so was the pregnancy rumour, based, as it was, on the forged document&183; Absent anything Diana had said to Mohamed Al Fayed in the hours before the crash, there was no evidence that Diana was pregnant, nothing except the forged Coriat document&183; It would have been perfectly reasonable for Cole to have written the letters he did if Mohamed Al Fayed had not said anything to him about Diana being pregnant. You may think -- it is a matter for you -- that that is indeed why Cole wrote the letters that he did, but that is not what Cole said in evidence. He said it was difficult to complain about cocaine without complaining also about pregnancy, and also he did not regard what Mohamed Al Fayed had told him as evidence. It was, he said, an entirely private matter The inescapable fact is that if Cole's account is correct, he wrote a lie or, at the very least, a half-truth to the Daily Telegraph and the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Wakeham. If, on the other hand, the truth is that Mohamed Al Fayed never told Cole anything about pregnancy, then what Cole has told you in the witness box is untrue. I think we will break off now, members of the jury, until a quarter to two. (12.47 pm) (The short adjournment)

15.30 This afternoon I completed my viewing of the Lord of Rings back ground disks and found myself moved once again by the sense of jounrey, comradeship between the film makers, the quality of the craftsmanship, the intense nature of the experience over so long a time and the justifiable adulation which greeted the holding of the World Premier in New Zealand followed by those around the world, remarkable with the final one in Norway held in an arena where 250 actors had practiced creating scenes from the previous two films over a period of six months on a voluntary basis, culminating with the Oscars when at first that tension in the hope that after two nominations but no award it would be first time lucky for those first nominated and then mounting concern that one or two of the departments would be left out and then that Peter would miss out on Directing and the film would miss out and then the sense of triumph when all 11 nominations were successful and at the party after the parties held in Peter's room on one table all 20 Oscars were laid out, something which no film had achieved before and then they all went home.. Well no because three weeks after that they commenced worked on the special edition DVD. A bit like how I feel at this moment Ok what do I do next. Another cup of tea. Well a shave would be good and then perhaps a film while I sort out the work and more project set making, while await to hear from parliamentary and Health Ombudsman, the annual statement on my pension, and the end of days.

20.45 I am tired, discontented, bordering on self pity. It will soon pass. Earlier on regional TV a couple discovered after her marriage that her partner had Huntingdon's disease and that it had been inherited by their two sons, Now she faces the loss of her family over the next decade. Now that is the a cause to feel down and have occasional bouts of self pity.

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