Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Special Reports
Diana: Chasing a Fairy Tale. Aired 11-Midnight ET
Aired August 02, 2017 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I suggest you pour a very large Scotch.
PATRICK JEPHSON, PRINCESS DIANA'S PRIVATE SECRETARY: She got condemned for speaking, for revealing the truth. Rather than having the royal establishment respond to the message, they just shot the messenger.
WARD (voice-over):And while the palace doesn't support her airing of royal dirty laundry, many ordinary people relate to her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had huge letters (ph) of support saying actually you've done a pretty job in the public role, so you know, don't back off.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Was she concerned at all about how this might affect the boys?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she was mostly concerned that if she kept being crushed, as she saw it, by the system, that would be more damaging for them.
WARD (voice-over):The war of the Wales is on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARY TILLOTSON, CNN HOST: We're talking about the troubles through the royal house of Windsor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They may not love each other at all, but they love themselves very greatly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARD (voice-over):From the summer through the fall, every day seems to bring a new revelation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana's taped confessions, can life at the top get any worse?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Maybe fairy tales don't come true after all.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WARD (voice-over):Privately, insider's say, Diana and Charles meet and agree to separate. But the Queen will not allow it, a theory (ph) at the palace won't comment on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a very difficult situation and as the relationship was deteriorating to try and maintain a happy face and business as usual.
WARD (voice-over):Early November 1992, Diana and Charles arrive in Seoul, South Korea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the plane came to a stop, Mr. and Mrs. Glum stood in the doorway.
WARD: Is that what you called them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They looked like two people not only didn't they want to be in each other's company, but they probably didn't want to be in Korea either.
WARD (voice-over):It's clear things must change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JEPHSON: It was as if a weight had been lifted from them both.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At that stage, both of them could define new pathways and do what they needed to do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Princess of Wales would like to make a short statement.
WARD (voice-over):December 1993
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIANA SPENCER-WINDSOR, PRINCESS OF WALES: When I started my public life 12 years ago, I understood the media might be interested in what I did. But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARD (voice-over):Diana makes a surprise announcement.
(BEGIN VIDOE CLIP)
SPENCER-WINDSOR: At the end of this year, when I've completed my diary of official engagements, I will be reducing the extent of the public life I've led so far. (END VIDEO CLIP)
WARD (voice-over):She retreats inside Kensington Palace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): I think for her a lot of the time it did feel a bit like a gilded cage. There was usually a reporter or a paparazzo down by the gates of the palace. Very difficult for her to have a normal social life.
WARD (voice-over):They follow her every where; to the gym, to the store, even to the Alps on skiing vacations with her sons.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPENCER-WINDSOR: Excuse me. As a parent, could I ask you to respect my children's space?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRINCE WILLIAM WINDSOR, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: Back then, 20 years ago, people would be utterly appalled if they knew exactly what went on.
WARD (voice-over):Prince William reflects on those times in a new documentary on ITV.
W. WINDSOR: I sadly remember most of the time that she ever cried about anything was to do with press intrusion.
WARD (voice-over):By letting the press into her private life, Diana has opened Pandora's box. It is spring 1994, Prince Charles decides to go public with an authorized biography and interview.
JEPHSON: This is what happens when you get into a P.R. war. It's a race to the bottom.
WARD (voice-over):Making television history and dropping a bombshell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage?
CHARLES WINDSOR, PRINCE OF WALES: Yes, absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you were?
C. WINDSOR: Yes, until it became irretrievably broken down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARD (voice-over):On the night the interview airs, Diana files silently back with one threat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That picture spoke a million words.
WARD: What was she saying with that picture. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anything you can do, I can do better.
WARD (voice-over):Including a television interview. A little more than a year later, Diana sneaks a TV news crew into her home for a tell all interview.
WARD: What was your reaction?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Silly woman, was my immediate reaction. You know, you've done your dirty washing with the Andrew Morton book in 1992. Why do it all over again?
PAUL BURRELL, PRINCESS DIANA'S BUTLER: The Panorama interview was the incinderary device in the middle of the House of Windsor that blew up and nothing was ever the same again.
WARD (voice-over):Just one month later, Buckingham Palace announces the divorce, putting Diana in the crosshairs more than ever before. That when we come back.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
WARD (voice-over):It is summer 1997, exactly one year after Charles and Diana's bitter divorce. And Diana is in the midst of a reinvention.
BURRELL: I remember the -- one of the last dresses she had made. And she said do you like it, well, I'm sure men will like it because it's far too low and it's far too high.
WARD: So less formal, more revealing.
BURRELL: She was a beautiful woman, why not show people this is me. Instead of hide it away, show it.
WARD (voice-over):Diana is free from a loveless marriage, royal responsibilities and a rigidly controlled way of life.
BURRELL: She's trying to withdraw and take (inaudible), trying to take some time out because she was trying to focus on really what was her life about.
WARD (voice-over):She scales back her public role, staff and Scotland Yard security detail. Butler Paul Burrell is one of the few who remains close to Diana.
BURRELL: She dismissed her body guards because they were running tales and stories back to Prince Charles. She wanted her freedom, she wanted a life.
WARD (voice-over):It's a dangerous move. Some even say reckless. But Diana wants a simpler life focused on her boys, a few select charities and her new romance.
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN, AUTHOR, THE DAY DIANA DIED: The love of her life, really after Charles was a Pakistani heart surgeon name Hasnat Khan.
WARD (voice-over):Diana met Hasnat Khan while he was treating a close friend.
ANDERSEN: She was instantly smitten with him for some reason. An unlikely guy because he's kind of a slightly punchy, nondescript fellow. But she said she had a thing for doctor and she became so enumerative of Khan that it because very serious, they had a very tempestuous affair.
WARD (voice-over):Kahn doesn't like the limeliGHT or want the pressure of being Di's guy. While Diana keeps Kahn hidden from the press, she public promotes charities close to her hEART, like The HALO Trust which advocates against landmines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was aware of the power she had, I mean ...
WARD (voice-over):Arthur Edwards photographs Diana's trip to Angola, Africa in 1997.
ARTHUR EDWARDS, PHOTOGRAPHER: She was going (ph) to comfort these kids who had their legs blown off and arms blow off and highlight this sort of the awful things about land mines. And then, get dressed in all the kit and walk through a mine field. To do that, knowing it would get massive publicity for that, I think it was commendable, I think it was tremendous.
WARD (voice-over):And Diana has an extraordinary gift for comforting those in pain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said "I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society".
EDWARDS: She was the ultimate outsider. Here is the most adored, celebrated - in many way beloved women on the planet. And vet she never felt like she belonged. I think that's why she had this affinity, this need really to connect with people who were out on the periphery of society.
WARD (voice-over):But the attention Angola brings is a reminder of the media circuit that comes with dating Diana. While Diana wants to get married, Khan isn't so sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wanted to get married. So much so that she went to Pakistan to meet his family twice without being invited by him.
WARD (voice-over):Diana confides in close friend, Roberto Devorik about the trip.
ROBERTO DEVORIK: I called her and she sounded threatful. I said, "You've been crying." She said, "Yes, but I will tell you when I come back things didn't go well." And as they said that the parents were vey against her because they said that she would ruin the life of the son.
WARD: Because of the media frenzy ...
DEVORIK: No ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... that surrounded her?
DEVORIK: ... I think it's, the parents were large from - he's Pakistanian, he's another color skin, she was going to be the future mother of the King of England. It would have created problems.
WARD (voice-over):Diana sees it differently.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she really delivered him an ultimatum and when she did that he stormed out.
BURRELL: I remember the Princess coming back and telling me that it was over. He was saying but if I marry you I'll become a nobody, I'll become your shadow and I've worked all my life to be a heart surgeon. It's what matters most to me, that has to be part of our equation. You can't just dismiss that. But Diana was Diana and she wanted it her way.
WARD: Was she devastated by the break up?
DEVORIK: I think that she was, she was. She really liked the man. And I think that after Charles that was the candidate.
WARD (voice-over):But it isn't the fist time Diana has had her heart broken, and days later she is on the rebound of the French Rivera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mohamed Al Fayed invited her to spend that summer at his villa in San Tropex, on his yacht; the Jonikal.
WARD (voice-over):Mohamed Al Fayed is a wealthy Egyptian businessman who owns the iconic London department store, Harrods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was in fact trying to arrange a meeting between his son and Diana, and he did.
WARD (voice-over):And it turns out Al Fayed's son Dodi and Diana have a lot in common.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He too was caught in the middle of his parents horrible divorce and a custody battle. He often felt like an outsider and was often - actually quite painfully shy.
WARD (voice-over):Shy? Yes and also immensely wealthy. Surrounded by body guards, Dodi can give Diana everything she needs and wants.
JEPHSON: The fact that she was a divorced mother of two growing young men, who was unable to offer them anything like the kind of holiday activities that their father could. So the attraction of a man and his family who had jets, and limousines and the trappings of royal life -- I would that played a pretty big part in it.
WARD (voice-over): Friends say Dodi also gives her unwavering love and loyalty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She demanded that people give up everything for her. I mean she was needy in that sense. And ...
WARD: She was needy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terribly needy. Absolutely. No question about it. Very draining and very demanding, but Dodi was willing to give up everything for her. So he was there constantly.
WARD: Over the next six weeks, Diana and Dodi are practically inseparable -- meeting up in London, Paris and back here on the Riviera.
DEBBIE GRIBBLE, CHIEF STEWARDESS, JONIKAL: They (ph) spent (ph) their (ph) day sunbathing, swimming, taking trips into little bays.
WARD (voice-over): Debbie Gribble, now a yacht broker, is at that time the chief stewardess for the Al-Fayeds.
GRIBBLE: They would have champagne and caviar most evenings.
BURRELL: She said well Hasnat better watch out because I've met somebody else.
WARD: Was it an attempt to make him jealous?
BURRELL: Absolutely it was. I have no doubt of that because the princess played out this new romance completely in the public eye knowing that those pictures would be splashed on the front pages of the British tabloids.
PIERRE SU, PHOTOGRAPHER: It was like the dream story. The most photographed woman in the world. A new lover ...
WARD (voice-over): Pierre Su (ph) is a professional photographer.
SU: I had heard stories about my colleagues flying on private jets, hiring speed boats -- helicopter. Any media outlet would give you anything you wanted because they couldn't get enough.
WARD: So what was the picture that everyone was looking for? That Summer?
PAUL BENNETT, THE SUNDAY MIRROR, EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Her kissing Dodi. It was the picture of her kissing somebody who wasn't Prince Charles.
WARD (voice-over): Diana allegedly tips off a photographer about the yacht's location. And days later the kiss is splashed across The Sunday Mirror's front page. Paul Bennett was the executive editor of the paper.
BENNETT: It sold off the shelves. The interest was phenomenal. WARD: But is it true that this photographer -- he made more than $1 million?
BENNETT: Oh. Absolutely. And he probably would have made $1 million the first week, I would have thought.
WARD (voice-over): The papers want more. The photographers will do anything to get it.
SU: It was like the media outlets didn't count the money. They were splashing the money around. They just wanted to shot.
WARD (voice-over): The game is on and there's no turning back. Diana's former secretary Patrick Jephson is watching from London and grows concerned.
JEPHSON: I got two very sharply contrasting pictures. One was of a woman who was -- yes -- free and liberated and rather determinedly happy. But another of a woman who was not nearly as grounded as she had been or needed to be. She chose the company of people who were rich jetsetters who tend to follow fashion rather than principle.
WARD (voice-over): When we come back tension mounts with the paparazzi.
GRIBBLE: There were times where Diana would be upset. I saw her crying on occasion.
WARD (voice-over): And then a high speed chase on the streets of Paris.
GRIBBLE: It felt like the whole situation was building up into something that was not going to be a good ending.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The French Riveria, a playground for the rich in famous. And in August 1997 the backdraw. For a summer romance between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw particularly in the pictures of her on the Hasnat Khan playing games with boat loads of photographers. Somebody who had maybe found a terrific new freedom. But she had lost a lot too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Diana's relationship with (inaudible) has recently ended.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hasnot Khan told me, he tried to reach the Princess. He wanted to tell her sorry, come back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If Diana was trying to Hasnat Khan attention it worked, but it came at a cost. She and Dodi are now in a risky game of hide and seek on the Mediterranean with the paparazzi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a lot of media around a lot of paparazzi. Small boats, big boats, big lenses, small lenses.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The couple is protected by Dodi's two bodyguards, but it's no replacement for the elite British security team Diana had given up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were times that Diana would be upset. I saw her crying on occasion. Dodi was agitated, it was starting to get to him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On Saturday August 30th, Diana and Dodi flee to Paris, but the photographers follow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That drive from the airport was fast and furious. The car was swerving through the streets of Paris.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Debbie Grivel (ph) is traveling with the couple and riding in the car behind them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was so much tension it felt like the whole situation was building up into something that was not going to be a good ending.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Later that night, Diana and Dodi leave his Paris apartment for dinner at the restaurant Benoit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they tried to go to the restaurant, it was impossible. Just horrids and horrids of photographers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So they changed plans and go to the Ritz Hotel which is owned by Dodi's father. Photographer Pierre Su is standing outside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they arrived at the Ritz, the car stopped in front of the entrance. I went up to the car window and I took a picture.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever have a sense that were invading these people's privacy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not really because as I said, she was the most photographed woman in the world. She was expected to be photographed everyday and she had been playing with the press all summer long.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Playing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, she used the press a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A dangerous game without Diana's usual army of protection. Even after they get inside Dodi remains tense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's really more and more upset hearing stories of how the press had gathered in Plaza Vendome right in front of the Ritz Hotel. But they weren't going to move, they weren't going to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hotels acting head of security, Henri Paul, is off duty but returns after Diana and Dodi arrive. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Henri came out of the hotel and he talked to me
and a colleague of mine. Oddly enough he was very reassuring in terms of, do not worry you will get your shot, they will come out through the front door and there was this Range Rover sitting up front so you could easily image that they would come out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it's a ruse. Inside Henri Paul is seen on the hotel security camera talking to Diana, Dodi and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones as they plan to escape through the hotel's back door and avoid the photographers. Paul will drive the couple to Dodi's apartment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched some of the footage of the footage of Diana on the CCTV from the Ritz Hotel. I could tell from her body language, the way she was holding herself and actually her interaction with Dodi, she wasn't happy. She knew something was wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They leave the hotel a little after midnight. A few photographers outback are immediately in pursuit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana and Dodi and the driver are all not wearing seat belts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Henri Paul is now speeding through the streets of Paris trying loose the photographers behind them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The car is now hurtling into the Alma Tunnel surrounded by the press on motorcycles, cars and Henri Paul lost control of the car and it slams into a pillar.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pierre Su is still with the decoy car in front of the Ritz Hotel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I decided to call a friend of mine whom I know was following them and I could hear in the tone of his voice that something was wrong and very wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: American tourist Robin and Jack Firestone happen to pass the crash site in a taxi.
ROBIN FIRESTONE: And there was already police, it was certainly before the ambulance got there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They see some of Pierre Su's colleagues taking pictures.
JACK FIRESTONE: What I saw was 6, 8, 9, 10 people taking photographs of the outside of the car and running around taking photographs of the inside of the car from every angle that they could possibly get their flashes and their cameras into.
ROBIN FIRESTONE: I was just saying to myself, what are they doing? Like there can't possibly be anybody in the car at this point because clearly if there was somebody would be helping.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire Chief Xavier Goremalone and his team of paramedics arrive at the tunnel minutes after the crash.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): So the front of the car was in the opposite way of traffic. The front was very much smashed in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dodi and driver Henri Paul are pronounced dead. The first responders work to save Trevor Rees-Jones and Diana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (trough translator): When I get close to her, she was waving her arm
(AUDIO GAP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: August 31st, 1997. The morning after Princess Diana's tragic death, her brother Charles Spencer makes a bold statement.
CHARLES SPENCER: This is not a time for incriminations but for sadness. However, I would say that I always believed the press would kill her in the end. 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nine photographers are under investigation for manslaughter and failing to render assistance to the victims. While the French investigate what happened, the world comes to grips with the loss of an icon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel like, everyone else in this country today, utterly devastated. We are today in a state of shock, in mourning, in grief that is so deeply painful for us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thousands of mourners gather around London and outside Kensington Palace in a public display of grief unlike any Britain has ever seen before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So (ph) this nation, lost complete -- well, it just lost all control of it's senses, you know? Everybody just was flooding to these different centers around the country and laying flowers and signing these books of condolences. So we all were gripped in this hysteria, losing this princess.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While a nation known for keeping a stiff upper lip unleashes it's grief, the royal family remains in seclusion at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where William and Harry have just been told their mother was killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were (ph) two boys up there, age 15 and 12 respectively, who lost their mother in the most tragic of circumstances. And the grandparents of dad were doing the best they could to support those two young men.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Princes William and Harry recently spoke about their mother's death for the first time, in a documentary on ITV. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Losing someone so close to you is utterly
devastating, especially at that age. I think it sort of really spins you out. You don't quite know where you are, what you're doing and what's going on. Family came together and Sarah (ph) and I tried to talk as best we could about it but being so small at that age, it's very difficult to communicate or understand your feelings, it's very complicated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To their grandmother, the Queen, the best course is to soldier on. London is in an uproar, demanding the Queen speak and show us you care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can remember thinking or sensing even -- because I've done a lot of royal work over the years -- come on, guys, do something. People had quite naturally thought they should gravitate towards Buckingham Palace, the home of the monarchy. And there they were, thousands of them, in the dark, around the palace and I don't think there was a single light on. Everybody was away in Scotland. The people had come to the monarchy and the monarchy wasn't at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this sets off, really, the most perilous period in modern times for the British monarchy. And Tony Blair was pressed into the fight by Charles and the two of them pretty much made it clear to the Queen that unless she did something and fast to show the people how much Diana meant to the world -- family as well as the people at large -- the monarchy could be in jeopardy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seeming disconnected, Queen Elizabeth is facing a crisis of image and sensitivity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The night before Diana's funeral, she gave the speech of her life because it was a speech she knew on which everything depended.
QUEEN ELIZABETH MARY II: As your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart first I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think that the Queen perhaps underestimated or didn't realize right away what an enormous outpouring of grief there would be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just the Queen underestimated, everybody underestimated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The next day, 2.5 billion people watch on T.V. and on the streets of London as Diana's coffin is carried to Westminster Abbey for her funeral. Her young sons walking solemnly behind. Inside the Abbey, Charles Spencer gives a surprising eulogy that is critical of the Royal family.
CHARLES SPENCER: Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and she proved in the last year that she needed no royal type of to continued to generate a particular brand of magic.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all clap so hardly that never happened inside an Abbey or in a church in England like that. I live in England 29 years of my life; the English once said that they are very cold blooded. But my god they show the world that they are not. That day - the days before the funeral, the world stopped following dispute.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Charles Spencer also has a word about the paparazzi.
CHARLES SPENCER: Out of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this. A girls given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was Diana hunted to death? After the Princess is laid to rest, the world wants answers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody's blaming everybody else.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the next two years investigators and friends try to determine what really happened.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Will we ever know exactly who or what was responsible fro the death of Diana?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The French investigation finds that the driver Henri Paul was speeding and intoxicated, deeming him solely responsible for the accident. The photographers are cleared and the case is close, but for years afterwards conspiracy theories linger. Especially with Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Mohamed believes and will always believe that his son and the family's very dear friend Diana, Princess of Wales were murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we come back, an alarming new piece of evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a letter which says the next few months of the most difficult of my life, I few I am going to be killed in an automobile accident.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the streets of London in January 2007, the press is in pursuit of a young, beautiful woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was about 40 photographers outside our flat. I don't picture, they pursued her down the street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But this time, it isn't Diana, it's Kate Middleton, Prince William's girlfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They chased her down the street just like they chased Diana down the street. And it angered William so much, it really angered him because he couldn't protect her. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While the paparazzi are on the hunt for Kate, a British inquest into what happened to Diana is set to begin here at the Royal Courts of Justice. It's been 10 years since Diana's death, but the conspiracy theories have lived on.
LORD JOHN STEVENS: I had a very skilled team of detectives, 14 in all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lord John Stevens was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
LORD JOHN STEVENS: The allegation that was made by Mr. (Al-Fayed) was that Prince Philip together with MI5 and MI6, the security services of the United Kingdom had conspired together to kill Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana. That the French inquest that had taken place is flawed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this was extraordinarily delicate.
LORD JOHN STEVENS: It was very delicate indeed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lord Stevens' team investigates all of Al- Fayed's claims that Diana was pregnant, that Diana and Dodi were soon to be engaged and that the Royal Family would not accept a Muslim step-father to the future king.
MICHAEL COLE: If Diana had married Dodi, if they'd had a couple of children who would the press be focusing on in this country today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael Cole was Mohamed Al-Fayed's long time spokesman.
MICHAEL COLE: They would be focusing on what Princess Diana was doing and in effect you would have had an alternative Royal Family in this country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The murder theory is far-fetched to some, but a real fear for Diana. One she shared with her butler, Paul Burrell.
BURRELL: I have a letter which says the next few months are the most difficult of my life. I fear I'm going to be killed in an automobile accident in order that Charles can remarry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it turns out, Burrell wasn't the only one Diana shared her fears with.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana was completely convinced that the Royal Family or the men in grey who really run the operation, or British Intelligence would kill her if she became too big of a problem. She went to her lawyer, Lord Mishcon and said they're going to kill me and here's how. It's going to be either a helicopter accident or a car crash it'll be staged to look like a car crash. Her lawyer took notes, detailed notes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Patrick Jephson was Diana's private secretary and attended the meeting with her lawyer. JEPHSON: And I can remember how shocked Lord Mishcon was by that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she give any details as to why she was concerned for her safety?
JEPHSON: Not enough, the trouble was those last few years from '93, '94 onwards was a very, very unsettled time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Lord Mishcon's notes from the meeting were never shared with French investigators even though they were given to British police just weeks after Diana's death. At the time, British police didn't believe they were relevant to the French investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have a note like that and somebody then does end up dead in the way they predicted, the first thing you do is get the note. Examine the note and investigate.
CLARISSA WARD: Michael Mansfield represents Mohamed Al Fayed during the British inquest.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: But of course the powers that be felt that it shouldn't be handed over. Why? Because of course it would involve investigating the Royal family. Investigations by the French police.
CLARISSA WARD: Lord Stevens' investigation does look into Mishcon's notes and over 600 other pieces of evidence.
LORD STEVENS: We started with totally open minds. There's no point in going into an investigation like this and saying, oh, there's no evidence for this. Prove the point there is. We had to go and see 300 witnesses, at the same time we had to negotiate bringing back the car from Paris. We even examined the blood in the car.
CLARISSA WARD: After three years of detective work, Lord Stevens' team presents their findings to the high court.
LORD STEVENS: The finding of the investigation was that it was an accident. The car had been driven too fast. The driver had been drinking, lost control of that car going down the ramp at the underpass and that was our conclusions.
CLARISSA WARD: Did you find any indication whatsoever that the Princess and Dodi were murdered?
LORD STEVENS: No. No evidence whatsoever.
CLARISSA WARD: No evidence of murder or any involvement by MI5, MI6 or the Royal family.
What about reports that the Princess was pregnant?
LORD STEVENS: Those were totally disproved by her closest friends. Ad of course we brought the car back from Paris, analyzed the blood by the latest techniques at that time and found out that she was not pregnant.
CLARISSA WARD: What is the truth behind the reports that Dodi had bought Diana a ring that day in Paris?
LORD STEVENS: He may well have done that but we don't know what he was going to do with that ring and neither does anyone else.
CLARISSA WARD: Stevens also investigates the role of the paparazzi.
LORD STEVENS: They followed them around obviously but we didn't know how close they were up to the car, whether they actually played a part in the deaths of those people in that car. It's difficult to say.
CLARISSA WARD: It would be speculation?
LORD STEVENS: It would be speculation. We don't get into speculation. We deal with the evidence.
CLARISSA WARD: But you have said previously, I believe, that they were a link in the chain.
LORD STEVENS: No doubt about that. They were a link in the chain. If the paparazzi hadn't been in the front of Ritz they would have gone off in their normal cars without having Henri Paul taking over that duty.
CLARISSA WARD: While French investigators cleared the paparazzi of criminal charges the British jury believes that the photographers share some responsibility.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The deliberated carefully and they produced careful and reasoned decision.
CLARISSA WARD: Sir Scott Baker was the judge overseeing the British inquest.
SIR SCOTT BAKER: This was caused by a combination of the following paparazzi and the manner in which they were driving and the manner in which they were driving and a driver who was under the influence of drink and driving too fast into the tunnel.
CLARISSA WARD: No one was ever charged for the crash that killed Princess Diana.
Are there any lingering questions in your mind as to what happened that fatal night?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely none. It seemed to me that it was as tragic accident.
CLARISSA WARD: Do you believe that Mohamed Al Fayed was flat out lying then?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, Mohamed Al Fayed had lost his son and he genuinely believed, I think, that there had been some conspiracy to murder his son and Princess Diana and that's his right.
CLARISSA WARD: Did he strike you as a man who was shattered?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he was shattered.
CLARISSA WARD: He never recovered from the loss of his son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He looses a son 42 years old. It's part of you, like somebody chop your hand or chop your leg.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He still believes that the truth is out there and will come and I hope it happens in his lifetime but it might not.
CLARISSA WARD: Many who knew Diana best say the crash never would have happened if she had not given up her security detail after the divorce.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The truth is that the Paris paparazzi didn't kill Diana. Incompetent travel arrangements killed Diana. A failure to do up a seatbelt killed Diana and the paparazzi only became an actual naissance or a threat to Diana after she had chosen to get rid of her bodyguards.
If Charles Spencer or anybody else wanted to see the cause of Diana's unhappiness or ultimately the circumstances in which she died, they should look at the Royal organization which had taken responsibility for her at a very, very young age.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just 19 when she became engage to Prince Charles and dead at the age of 36, leaving behind two young boys.
PRINCE WILLIAM ARTHUR PHILLIP LOUIS, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: And everybody talks about losing your mother at such a young age.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: William was 15. Harry, just 12.
PRINCE WILLIAM: But you know, even Harry and I over the years have not talked enough about our mother.
PRINCE HENRY "HARRY" CHARLES ALBERT DAVID OF WALES: Never enough. I always thought to myself, you know, what's the point of bringing the past, ain't going to change it. It ain't going to bring her back. And when you start thinking like that, it can be really damaging.
PRINCE WILLIAM: But it's, I think -- what must -- what's happened with us and must happen with others as well is that you have to prioritize -- you know, prioritize your mental health. Someone has to take the lead and has to be brave enough to force that conversation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: William and Harry have forced that conversation, addressing mental health openly and often, in a way that was difficult for their mother. It's just one example of the change she brought to the Royal Family.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without Diana, I don't think we'd have the monarchy today, in it's present form.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana dragged the Royal Family kicking and screaming into the 20th century. She said from the moment she set foot in that family, there was never any feeling in it and that she really wanted to lead from the heart and not the head.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Diana lived a life of fairy tale and tragedy. Hunted by the press, beloved by the people, a charismatic and yet complex character, vulnerable and manipulative but strong and sympathetic. There can be no question of the impact she made. Her boys, William and Harry, have combined the best of the traditions of the monarchy with the warmth and humanity of their mother.
A commitment to public service, deep personal compassion and a dedication to family. Qualities that make Diana's legacy as vibrant today as it was 20 years ago.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
