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Sunday 31 August 2014

WHY I DON'T
BELIEVE PRINCESS DIANA WAS MURDERED





Like most people I remember the day that Diana died vividly. It was a Sunday morning I got up early as I had a radio show to do. I grabbed my coffee and as usual switched on Sky news. The news reader was waffling on about some irrelevant sports results of which I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested but it was the blue ticker tape than ran across the bottom of the screen that caught my eye. It read something like ‘Princess Diana in a critical condition after a car accident in Paris’ My instant reaction was I’ve read it wrong, Wendy then walked in and I asked her to read the ticker tape again just to confirm that I wasn't mistaken. It was at that point the true horror of that the tragedy was confirmed as the news reader announced that in fact Princess Diana had died. I just couldn’t believe it. I started flicking from channel to channel every one of them including Spanish channels were now reporting on Diana's death in a car crash in Paris.
Although it was still early in the morning my phone rang, it was Mary Harboe a fellow broadcaster on the then station I was working on Onda Cero International. After us both expressing our sadness and shock she asked me what I intended to do on my show, it was the only live show that morning. One of the main reasons she asked was because she knew that I wasn’t a very big Diana fan, in fact I always felt she was a headline grabbing individual who condemned Princess Charles’s admitting on television his affair with Camilla Parker Bowels as a disgrace and then went on a TV special with Martin Baser to admitted her affair with James Hewitt. There were other instances that I can think of one most notable she was caught kissing a news reporter in a car. There was the annoying late night telephone calls to art dealer lover Oliver Hoar which she denied it was her but were traced to her private phone. There were many other instances but this didn’t take away from the tragedy of what had just happened in Paris. The death of a mother of two young children at such a young age.


I decided to go ahead with my scheduled show. The first thing I needed to do was to get hold of the guest that was confirmed for that morning show and cancel him. Then I started to plan exactly the content of what was going to be a difficult broadcast especially of my past history reporting on Princess Diana. I then got a call from the station director Pepe Navajas who suggested we should play nonstop sober music. I disagreed with him and I told him I believed that our very large expat audiences (we were the only English radio station at the time) would want to express their sadness and shock with us.
I remembered two people who had connections here on the Coast with Princess Diana and decided I would call them and invite them into the studio to share their memories of meeting Diana. Thankfully they both agreed. One was a hairdresser the other a paparazzi photographer.
I’ll start with the hairdresser: His name is George Guy who was running the hairdressing salon at Lew Hoads Tennis center (See photo). It was around 6pm when two young girls arrived by at the tennis club hoping to play a game or two. As the club was closing for the evening the only person present was a young Spanish cleaner who explained to the two girls the club was now closed. Disappointed thy asked the cleaner if she could call them a taxi. It was then George Guy was about to leave after closing up his saloon when he spotted the two girls obviously having trouble trying to explain to the Spanish girl that they needed a taxi. George approached them and asked if he could help? It was then that realisation hit home like a bolt of lightening, for there standing in front of him in living colour was Princess Diana possibly the most famous woman in the world!!! After explaining to George they needed a taxi to get back to the Biblos Hotel Mijas where they were staying he offerd them a lift. How surreal, he later explained to me, to have Princess Diana and her friend Kate Menzies in his little car having climbed over a box of cat litter all singing Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give A Dog A Bone!!! When they got back to the hotel the Princess invited George in and had his photograph taken with her.


Next was the photographer Juan Carlos Teuma a well known Gibraltar paparazzi snapper. It wasn’t long before word got out that Princess Diana and her Friend Kate Menzies were staying at the Biblos Hotel. The paparazzi came out in force but thanks to the hotels security and police they were kept way back beyond the hotels parameter. But nothing was going to keep Juan Carlos back from getting ‘the shot’ that he knew would make him good money. He somehow got into the hotel and made his way up a stairwell where he had perfect view of the swimming pool area and a clear shot of the Princess and her friend. At that point he tells me: "Diana , was lying topless on her stomach , she spotted me and slowly stood up in a suggestive way looking directly at me as if to say, show this to the royal family!!" Juan Carlos went on to tell me that this photo never made its way into the public domain as it was bought up by Hello Magazine and buried ( I assume Hello wanted to keep in favor with the royals) they paid a substantial amount for the photo , certainly a lot more than Juan Carlos could ever have dreamed of the day he set off to snap some photos of this world famous princess! Thankfully it was a hugely successful show although some tears were shed especially from George Guy and many who phoned in

This photograph of princess Diana was taken that day by the swimming pool at the Biblos Hotel

So why do I not think Princess Diana was murdered and how did I come to this conclusion? Before I start I know many of you, in fact the majority of you, who are reading this will rubbish my report etc but it’s what I know after interviewing first hand those that were present.

I'll start with the story told to me by Rene Delorm, Dodi Fayed’s butler on my radio show. Rene was with him and princess Diana on that tragic trip to Paris .
Dodi and Princess Diana had flown into Paris by private jet after spending a few days on the Fayed’s stunning yacht the Jonikal off Sardinia’s golden coast. Tanned and happy and obviously very much in love Rene told me as they settled into Dodi’s luxury penthouse apartment next to the Arc de Triomphe where they intended to stay for the next few days. Rene told me that Dodi had secretly told him that he had bought an engagement ring for Diana and was going to give it to her that night after they returned from dinner. Rene went on to tell me that Dodi had bought the 200,000$ ring from the famous Monaco boutique of jeweller Alberto Repossi across from the Ritz hotel (which of course the Fayed’s also owned)
That afternoon the Princess and Dodi visited the Windsor Villa, the house in Paris where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had lived for decades and which Fayed's father had leased from city officials since 1986. (see photo)
The elder Fayed had ordered the Duke and Duchess's effects cleared out and auctioned off for charity in order to turn the property over to his family's personal use. Dodi had his own plans for the stately mansion and told the Ritz Hotel Manger, Frank Klien who was looking over the Windsor villa, that he planned to move in there with Diana after he married her in October. Please remember at this point Diana knew nothing of Dodi’s plans and tragically she never lived to find out.

Whilst Diana and Dodi were visiting the stately home, Diana's royal bodyguard ,Trevor Rees-Jones, along with Dodi’s head of security visited Chez Benoit, a trendy restaurant near the Pompidou Center. It was one of Dodi’s favourite restaurants in Paris and the bodyguards were there that afternoon going through security arrangements for that couples visit that evening. One thing they made very clear to the manager of the restaurant that the Princesses visit had to be kept secret and that in no way should the press know.

That evening Princess Diana, Dodie , Trevor Rees Jones set off for the restaurant in black Rang Rover. Rene stayed back in the apartment with the orders to have champagne on ice ready for the moment that Dodi would present Diana with the ring. On the way to Chez Benoit Dodi got a call that the press were swarming outside the restaurant obviously having been tipped off by some inside source. Dodie was furious and ordered the driver to turn around a take them to the Ritz instead.

This is the first clue that brought me to the conclusion that Diana wasn't murdered, because if it had been planned tht she was going to die either on the way to the restaurant or on the way back all now had changed once Dodi ordered the driver to take them to the Ritz. If it was a planned assassination I imagine phones would be buzzing all over Paris to abort and wait new orders! Possibly months of planning to kill one of the most famous woman in the world and the future king of England's mother had now gone out the window and the planners had only an hour or two to re plan the assassination and alter all their plans. I say that was impossible.

Hotel security cameras catch Diana's arrival at the Ritz
After going into the dinning room for dinner Diana told Dodi she felt uncomfortable because so many of the dinners were staring at her so Dodi orderd dinner to be served in the Royal suit. It was then that Rees Jones informed Dodi that the press were all over the front of the hotel and they would need to plan a safe rout out.

Clue number two: If the killers were lying in wait how did they know what was being planned in the Royal suit for the only people present were Diana, Dodie and now Rees-Jones. Dodi suggests that the Range Rover should leave as a decoy and that they should use the hotels Mercedes. Clue three; The killers would need to know all of this. You don’t attempt to kill the Princess of Wales unless you have a well worked out plan that would have been months in the making! Rees-Jones would have none of this he said that the hotels courtesy car had not had a security check etc and Diana certainly couldn’t travel in it. With that Dodi called his father in London to explained what was happening. A very agitated Fayed senior told Rees-Jones in no uncertain terms that the car was safe and he would organise a safe passage back. With that Rees-Jones reluctantly agreed. The Killers now would have to have known exactly what was going on. My question how unless Rees-Jones tipped them off and considering its alleged that they were all going to die in the car I doubt it was him! Was it Fayed himself? Surly not, he idolised his son Dodi and his dreams of him marrying a British royal princess was all he could have ever wished for. So that only leaves Dodi himself. I don’t think so.


Princess Diana leaves the back of the hotel making her way into the waiting Mercedes

The car was organised to pick them up from the back of the hotel , the driver Henry Paul was a senior driver with the Ritz who was in fact off duty that evening but was brought back in especially to drive the couple back to their apartment. Was Henry Paul in touch with the killers who now must have been making frantic arrangement to alter their plans, After all if Diana and Dodi had done what was planed and had eaten that night at the Chez Benoit restaurant their route home would have been entirely different,So the assassination would have to have been planned totally different , different time different place????

The last know photograph of Dodi and Princess Diana alive


What fallowed is now history, the princess of Wales along with her then boyfriend died in a tragic accident and that's exactly what I believe it was AN ACCIDENT. Conspiracy theorist would have us bellive that the first doctor on the scene injected the princess with a lethal substance to make sure she was dead but here is exactly what that doctor, Dr Frederic Mailliez reported: "The philosophy here is to try to stabilize the patient as much as you can, because travelling with this kind of status can be very dangerous for a patient." Are the conspiracy theorists saying that he was also part of the plan?

Another so called conspiracy clue to Diana's death that was in fact murder was that the ambulance stopped only minutes from the hospital , again the conspiracy theorists say that was to make sure she was dead on arrival. The Fact: The ambulance carrying the dying Diana, Princess of Wales to hospital was deliberately driven slowly due to the severity of her injuries, an inquest heard today.
The ambulance driver told the inquest jury that the onboard doctor ordered him to drive slowly in an attempt to save the princess's life.
The account of the driver, Michel Massebeuf, contradicted claims that the journey to hospital through central Paris was prolonged as part of a conspiracy to kill Diana.

So I suppose the ambulance driver and the doctor on board were also rudely awakened that night and told the plans to kill the princess had been changed. Also the conspiracy theorists believed all the cameras to the tunnel were turned off. So I suppose these technicians were rallied up at home that night and told to get to the central engineering office as the murder was on and they needed to turn off the cameras leading to the tunnel where the accident was about to take place!!!

How about that white Fiat Uno, the center of all the conspiracy theorists beliefs, they bellive that this little car was brilliantly maneuvered to simply and ever so precisely to glance off a Mercedes limousine being driven at high speed causing it to career into to one of the tunnels concrete upright! I doubt Louis Hamilton would have had the skills to do that. Well, I believe if I had been driving that Fiat Uno and possibly had been drinking that night, I would have quickly destroyed the car that killed Princess Diana rather than have been blamed for the rest of my life for my part in the death of the Princess of Wales. Hit a runs do happen!

I also interviewed the ex chief of police for Greater Manchester who visited Paris and inspected the crashed Mercedes . He told me he was 100% sure it was an accident because that the car just hitting the tunnels upright would certainly not guarantee the death of the occupancy it needed to hit the sharp corners of the concrete upright to let it rip through the car. This could never have been planned to actually happen and was it just a tragedy. He went on to say that 9 times out of 10 times the car would have glanced off the post and at worse caused some serious injuries


Sadly the rest is history and like the death of JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and many other famous celebrates, a simple death was unacceptable. Famous beautiful young people don’t just die after all the money making industry would never accept that and thanks to the conspiracy theorists the Diana industry of books, moves and TV specials went on to make millions and still does.

I’m sorry to say I will never accept that Princess Diana was murdered. Most will tell you she was pregnant with Dodi’s child and that the Royal family would never accept that the mother of England's future King William could have a Muslim baby. Well, that theory is also shot out of the water when Rosie Monkton Diana’s best friend who was on the Fayeds yacht Jonekal days before they left for Paris told royal correspondent the late great James Whitaker that Diana was miserable on that yacht because she was having her period.

To conclude I doubt I’ve changed any of your minds Diana was such an Iconic character to accept her death as a simple accident is just unacceptable to most.


Princess Diana's memorial in Paris

1 comment:

  1. Hello, great article!
    I was wondering if you happen to know where Mr. Rene Delorm lives now? I'm wanting to do an interview with him for a school project. I heard he now lives in California but I can't find any information on him.

    ReplyDelete