| Diana Inquest: Burrell 'Removed Ring From Dead Princess's Body' |
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| Written by Joanne Leyland | |
| Monday, 17 March 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Former
royal butler Paul Burrell has denied a claim by his former bodyguard that he
removed and kept an engagement ring from the dead body of Diana, Princess of
Wales.Cross-examined by Nicholas Hilliard QC for the coroner, Michael Faux told the High Court inquest into the deaths of the princess and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed: "He said that he took it from the body in Paris." 
The princess is believed to have received two separate rings from the playboy film producer. One was a Bulgari friendship ring, which her butler advised the princess to wear on her right hand so as to denote that this was a friendship rather than engagement ring. The item of jewellery which Mohamed Al Fayed claims was an engagement ring is the £11,500 Repossi ring which was bought in the weeks before the couple died. Revealing that he felt "disgusted" by Burrell’s alleged act of removing the ring from the princess's dead body, Mr Faux told the court he believes it "was not right that he had taken it off her finger". Mohamed Al Fayed has repeatedly claimed that the princess and his son were engaged on the night of their deaths and that this news was due to be announced to the world on Monday 1st September 1997 – the day after the couple were killed in the Paris car crash. 
Lady Annabel Goldsmith revealed how the princess had said she needed another marriage "like a rash on my face". At the time she made this remark, the princess had been divorced from Prince Charles for less than a year, the royal marriage having legally ended on August 28th 1996. Despite Burrell having repeatedly said that he was horrified by the sight of Diana’s family – led by her mother, Frances Shand-Kydd – shredding documents inside Kensington Palace in the immediate aftermath of the princess’s death, his former bodyguard alleged today that the former butler has himself destroyed numerous items from his time as the princess’s 'rock'. |
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