The Royalist - Diana Inquest: Paparazzo Received Death Threat After Crash

Diana Inquest: Paparazzo Received Death Threat After Crash

Written by Joanne Leyland

Tuesday, 04 March 2008

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However, Lyons himself admits he feared something was amiss as what he suspected was a break-in at his photo agency came just hours after the London home of photographer Lionel Cherrault was broken into during the night, four days after the Paris crash which killed Diana, Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul.

Explained Mr Lyons, who was himself a paparazzi photographer: "Why would two picture agencies have people break in at the same time...I suppose one would say assumption."

"I have no evidence of who was in my office that particular night at all. I got out of there as quickly as I could."

As Lyons himself noted at the inquest, it’s frequently been suggested that the break-in at Lionel Cherrault’s home was the result of a search by members of the security services who were keen to retrieve any photographs of the crash scene.

However, former Metropolitan Police Chief Lord Stevens concluded that this was not true.

Writing in the Operation Paget report of December 2006 in response to the original claim that members of MI6 broke into the two photo agencies, Lord Stevens and his team concluded: "There was no police investigation into this. This claim is incorrect."

"There was no evidence that the SIS had any involvement in either incident and no motive, in either case, to explain why they would take such action."

"Police investigated both incidents at the time and full contemporaneous police records are available for both incidents."

The High Court inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed will now take a short break and return on Thursday.