Original subtitles

Princess Diana has been in an automobile accident.

Diana, Princess of Wales, has died.

The most photographed woman in the world has died trying not to have a photo taken.

That doesn't make sense.

Immediately, I said to myself...

...with loud voice, they killed her.

I remember vividly,

I got a text from my office.

You've been asked to do the inquiry,

uh, into the death of Princess Diana.

Given the manner in which the paparazzi chased Princess Diana,

this, in the eyes of many observers here,

was an accident waiting to happen.

It's very difficult to defeat a conspiracy theory.

It was the very infancy of the internet.

It was so new.

There were chatrooms, there were forums,

there where things being put out there.

Wild rumors.

The media just fed off these weird and wonderful stories.

There's so many coincidences, so many odd things that just don't add up.

Why would someone want to kill the Princess of Wales?

This is about...

...lies.

It's not the truth.

This isn't the truth.

Paris, France tonight, a tragedy.

Britain's Princess Diana has been in an automobile accident.

She has been injured.

Diana is seriously injured following a car crash.

The first details are still sketchy.

But the Mercedes 600 carrying the Princess,

according to some reports, at over 100 miles an hour,

as she sought to escape from several paparazzi

chasing the couple on motorbike.

I'm Patrick Stinson with breaking news coverage,

Princess Diana is seriously injured...

Diana, Princess of Wales, has been seriously injured

in a car accident in Paris.

Dodi Al-Fayed has been killed.

Would she have had any... any of her British security?

Most unlikely but the Al-Fayed family have gathered her up.

I mean, they have tremendous resources.

Very rich man, Mohamed Al-Fayed,

we all know this, and Dodi Fayed is very rich.

And they do have a full cohort of body guards of their own.

You know nothing can protect you, frankly, from these people.

A colleague came to my home,

and so hammered on doors and windows until I woke up.

Diana, she and I were friends.

I suppose I was in... in some kind of shock.

But I was also conscious that I was...

knew I have to... to work.

This was a... a very big story.

Possibly the biggest story I'd ever been involved in.

Given the manner in which the paparazzi chased Princess Diana,

this, in the eyes of many observers here,

was an accident waiting to happen.

But such recriminations will have to wait.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was traveling

in a blue Mercedes with her close companion,

Dodi Al-Fayed, when the crash...

Very, very unclear as to... as to what her condition is.

But, um, I... I think, uh, there's absolutely no doubt

uh, that she is receiving the very best medical care possible.

Harrods own, Mohamed Al-Fayed,

flew immediately to Paris to be with his dead son.

A spokesman said that Mr. Al-Fayed's thoughts

were with the Princess' sons and the rest of her family.

He said that this was an appalling and quite needless tragedy.

Diana's friends have been remembering her...

Many spoke of hearing screeching tires.

And described what appeared to be a chase

involving motorcycles and paparazzi...

Some say the paparazzi's persistent hounding of her...

is partly to blame for her death.

The... The secrecy around all this,

is... is really quite surprising.

There's very little leaking out at the moment.

We're still trying to piece together

exactly what happened when the couple left the Ritz.

It happened just after midnight, Paris time, 10 this morning...

Many questions will now be asked about the Princess' security,

and the role of intrusive press photographers who pursue her every move.

Good morning if you're just tuning our way, good morning to you.

I can bring you the sad news that Diana, Princess of Wales,

and her companion of recent days, Dodi Fayed, has been killed.

The crash happened in a tunnel near the Seine River,

at about half past midnight local time.

French police say the Princess' car

was being chased by several press photographers at the time of the crash.

It would appear that every proprietor and editor

of every publication

that has paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of her...

...encouraging greedy and ruthless individuals

to risk everything in pursuit of Diana's image...

...has blood on his hands today.

The world has lost a Princess who is, quite frankly, irreplaceable.

And Mr. Al-Fayed has lost a... a greatly loved eldest son.

Mr. Al-Fayed believes that...

...this appalling tragedy would never have happened

but for the attentions of these people

who I suppose we shall have to call photographers.

In those first 24, 48 hours,

there was a... a considerable hostility towards the media.

Harassing anybody...

She's dead by your photographers.

They're not harassing anybody here, they're just upsetting you.

Horrible.

There was this huge, collective sense of shock.

It's you press that killed her.

You're the scum.

Yes.

You're here to pick the bones!

My brain was scrambled.

I decided I wanted to go up to Kensington Palace.

I wanted to go and see what was going on.

I was shocked, I mean countless thousands were in tears.

People who didn't even know her.

And yet... And yet

they were also people who bought the newspapers in great volumes.

Circumstances surrounding the crash

we really don't know yet, exactly--

-We don't. -We do know several members...

All the papers lead on exactly the same story,

which is summed up on the front page of this morning's Sun.

"Drunk at 121 miles an hour".

This was a story the scale of which

brought a whole country to... to a standstill.

The Guardian announces 16 pages of reports, pictures, commentary.

Other news inThe Times is consigned to the second section,

starting page 29.

Papers were printed in black ink completely.

In that kind of void,

there was a feeling that this can't be...

it can't just be a simply accident.

There must be some other reason.

The most photographed woman in the world has died

trying not to have her photo taken.

That doesn't make sense.

There seems to be, Michael,

a... a different story every other hour.

Today we get reports that it was four times the legal limit in Mr. Paul.

Uh, it's... it's interesting.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that... that they could manage to get all the facts out,

so that we'd know what was right and know what was wrong.

The driver of the Mercedes was drunk.

The car was travelling well over 100 miles an hour.

And two days questioning of the photographers

has begun to establish the part they played.

Quite quickly, the quite characteristically secretive French investigation

suddenly, somewhere, somehow...

...it was being played out in the British tabloid press.

You had an angry public who didn't know who to blame,

but they wanted to be able to blame someone.

At the scene of the fatal crash,

someone has already delivered a verdict,

calling the photographers assassins.

The emotional backlash worries those...

For the French police

there can be no letup in working out exactly what happened

before, during, and immediately after Diana's crash.

For British royal watchers,

it has been another day afloat off the coast of Saint-Tropez.

Their focus? Mohamed Al-Fayed's villa,

where the Princess, and her sons, are holiday guests.

Diana was the most famous woman in the world, bare none, in my life.

She wasn't just a star.

It's something else just above celebrity.

Uh, one woman industry.

She was making everybody rich,

I mean very rich.

Hmm, honestly, some paps were doing £1 million a year on Diana alone.

This afternoon she boarded a 150 foot cruiser,

also belonging to the Harrods' boss,

to sail away from Saint-Tropez,

to slip away from the media glare.

Just above the tunnel,

tributes to Princess Diana are still arriving.

But at the same time, there's growing division about who was to blame.

On Mr. Al-Fayed's orders,

Harrods, the pride of his business empire,

had its world-famous illuminations switched off again tonight.

The open tributes, which are still arriving here tonight,

are in contrast with the vast array of flowers outside the royal palaces.

They're addressed to both the Princess and Dodi Al-Fayed as a couple.

Thank you! Thank you and God bless you.

This guy's a billionaire and he's...

...flamboyant, and he speaks with a different accent.

And he breaks every sort of mold in the book.

And he owns Harrods.

You know, whatever happens when you're a billionaire,

you get your questions answered.

Investigators here at police headquarters are now weighing up

possible charges against the Ritz hotel.

Did they know their driver had been drinking that night?

Investigators will now refocus on the Ritz,

the hotel could face charges of negligence.

One of the main reasons of taking

the very difficult decision to release this video,

is that it provides a graphic illustration of

the intolerable pressures...

...the princess was subjected to while trying to lead a normal, private life.

Mr. Paul had been with us 11 years.

He's used to driving many, many, uh,

VIPs and people of that kind.

Yeah, well he knew him. Obviously, he knew him.

Do we know, by chance, where Mr. Paul went after he left the hotel

-before he was called in that night? -I have no idea.

-No? -He was... He was called on his mobile phone.

If I'd had, uh, three times over the legal limit,

I would be on the floor, and I think so would you.

And it's even been put to me at times, four times over.

I mean, look at the pictures and, uh, make your own judgement.

Tonight, Paris detectives are on the trail of the truth

about the princess's driver.

Such was her extraordinary appeal,

that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service

all over the world via television and radio,

who never actually met her,

feel that they, too lost someone close to them

in the early hours of Sunday morning.

There is no doubt that she was looking

for a new direction in her life at this time.

She talked endlessly of getting away from England,

mainly because of the treatment

that she received at the hands of the newspapers.

A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was,

in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.

One person who could help the police investigation

is Trevor Rees-Jones, Dodi Fayed's personal bodyguard.

He is still in hospital receiving treatment

for head and lung injuries suffered in the accident.

"My god, what happened?"

Paris investigators are reportedly looking into the possibility

that a second car was involved in the crash that killed Princess Diana.

A British newspaper reports a third man,

now says that he saw a black car speeding from the scene of the crash

that killed Princess Diana.

Police sources pieces of a taillight

and traces of paint that do not match the Mercedes,

were found in the tunnel where Diana died.

The only survivor of the car crash that killed Princess Diana

will likely leave a French hospital for Britain later today.

Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones...

Trevor Rees-Jones in red,

emerges into the light of day for the first time

since the crash that almost killed him.

Trevor Rees-Jones in the red shirt,

was taken by French government helicopter to the outskirts of Paris,

boarding another helicopter sent by Mohamed al-Fayed.

He waved to a friend as he walked

without difficulty across the tarmac.

It's thought he's now being flown to an unknown location in Britain.

Just five weeks after the crash,

the bodyguard appears to have made an astonishing recovery.