Diana inquest jury pleas rejected
The inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales will not be heard by a jury, it was announced today.
Britain’s former top female judge Lady Butler-Sloss will sit alone on the high profile case.
She made the decision today after scrutinising legal arguments delivered at the British High Court last week.
Lady Butler-Sloss intends to hold the inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Crash victim Dodi Fayed’s father, Harrods tycoon Mohamed al Fayed, had wanted a public jury.
Lady Butler-Sloss had already ruled out using a jury made up of senior members of the Royal Household as would normally be the case for royal inquests.
She declared that such a jury would be “inappropriate”.
The Queen’s lawyer, Sir John Nutting QC, argued last week that the public interest would be best served by choosing a panel who were not senior members of the Royal Household.
The inquest is to be heard jointly with that of Dodi Fayed, who was killed alongside Diana in the 1997 Paris car crash.
The inquest can proceed following the publication of Lord Stevens’s findings last month, which dismissed the many conspiracy theories surrounding the fatal incidents which took place in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31 1997.
It concluded that the crash was nothing more than a tragic accident and driver Henri Paul was drunk and driving too fast.
Lady Butler-Sloss conceded last week that there were elements of the police investigation which could be questioned in court.
“There is much in what Lord Stevens’s report says which is capable of challenge,” she said.
Mr al Fayed maintains the couple were murdered and claims their deaths were part of a secret plot by the British establishment.
At least 40 witnesses will give evidence at the full inquest, many of them French and some appearing by video-link from Paris.
Coroners aim to confirm the identity of the deceased and the details of how, when and where they were killed.
According to British law, inquests must be held into deaths abroad if they are deemed not to have occurred due to natural causes.
Lady Butler-Sloss said in the detailed 34-page judgement: "I do not propose to summons a jury and I shall sit alone to hear the two inquests.''
The concurrent inquests will be heard at a single hearing, she said.
In order to do this, Lady Butler-Sloss will transfer Dodi’s inquest, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Surrey coroner, to the jurisdiction of the Queen’s household, which Diana’s inquests falls under.
Lady Butler-Sloss was appointed deputy coroner of the Queen’s Household and assistant deputy coroner for Surrey for the inquests, which were opened in separate locations in 2004.
