The parents of the driver of the Mercedes that carried Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed to their deaths told a court today that the French authorities had refused their requests for independent blood tests to prove if he was drunk.
They also dismissed suggestions from Mohamed al Fayed, the father of Dodi, that their son Henri Paul was in the pay of the security services.
Mr Paul, the acting head of security at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, was at the wheel of the Mercedes when it ploughed into a pillar in the Alma Tunnel in the early hours of August, 31, 1997, and was also killed.
Shortly afterwards French investigators announced that he had been three times over the French drink-drive limit, and described Mr Paul as an alcoholic.
His parents, Jean and Giselle Paul said they had been incredulous at the findings. At the inquests into the deaths of the Princess and Mr Fayed today, they said they had never known their son to drink to excess.
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“It was certainly wrong,” they said, speaking jointly through an interpreter. They insisted that he had not been drunk at the time of the crash, but their requests for an independent analysis to prove the point have all been refused.
In November 2006 the couple met the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Stevens, who was carrying out a British investigation into the circumstances of the crash.
They said he assured them that his investigation, the Paget report, would not find that their son was “drunk”.
In fact the report, published the following month also concluded that Mr Paul had a blood alcohol level equivalent to three times the French limit.
However, the jury at the inquests have heard experts express doubts as to the authenticity of the results of French tests carried out on Mr Paul’s blood samples.
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The couple agreed that their son was “very loyal” to Dodi and the Ritz Hotel. Cross-examined by Richard Horwell QC, for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, they agreed that if their son had drunk some alcohol, he would still have driven if ordered to do so by Dodi Fayed. However, they were uncertain whether he would have obeyed any order to outrun pursuing photographers, and denied claims that they believed Dodi shares some blame for the crash.
Michael Mansfield, QC, representing Harrods owner Mr al Fayed, asked: “When Lord Stevens came to see you in 2006, did he tell you this - that if this were an assassination, the repercussions in England would be great and incalculable?”
The couple replied: “Yes.”
They were asked about large sums of money found both on their son’s person after the crash, and in several bank accounts. Mr al Fayed believes that the cash is unexplained and could lend weight to his suggestion that his employee was in the pay of the security services in a plot to kill the Princess and his son.
Today Mrs Paul offered an alternative explanation for the money her son was carrying as well as the 80,000 francs (around £8,000) that he paid into his accounts in each of the three months leading up to his death.
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“When he had to do some shopping for the clients of the hotel, he needed to have some cash with him to be able to pay for it,” she said.
As for the payments into his accounts, Mrs Paul said this would have come from tips. She said her son had rarely spoken about this, fearing he would have to declare the money on his tax return, but the couple believe their son occasionally received large one-off tips from rich guests. They said a Saudi prince had once tipped him 5,000 francs for taking his wife and daughter shopping in Paris.
They returned to their son’s flat in Paris the day after the crash to find it very clean. Unable to afford the rent, they began packing up his property in boxes to vacate the apartment, though for the next 10 days or so they were unable to leave because of the number of paparazzi outside.