The French photographer accused of callously taking close range photos of the dying Princess of Wales, last night denied acting improperly at the scene of last weekend's car crash. Mr Romuald Rat, told how he gently spoke to the Princess in English after arriving at the scene, urging her to stay calm and saying that help was on the way.
"That was it. I did nothing wrong. I did not take any photos at all. It really was not the moment to take any pictures."
Mr Rat was one of six photographers and a motorcycle driver who were put on notice by a French judge of manslaughter charges on Tuesday.
Last night in a French TV interview Mr Rat explained how he and his bike driver decided not to chase the car containing the Princess as it sped through Paris after photographing her and Mr Dodi al Fayed leaving the Ritz Hotel - "in any case we could not catch her".
The crash had already happened when they arrived at the Pont d'Alma.
"I opened the door of the car and saw Princess Diana sitting on the floor. I took her hand. I tried to help her," he said. He said he did not call for help himself but heard someone say they had already called the fire brigade.
"I didn't deal with that. I went and opened the car door. I told her in English to stay calm, that I was there and help was coming."
But Mr Rat did confirm that he "resumed my work" after rescue and medical teams arrived on the scene.
"I went back to my profession. I took wide shots of the car."
He said it was a coincidence that he came across the crashed car, because he had already given up attempts to tail it. - (PA) 997584
Lara Marlowe, in Paris, adds:
Not only was he drunk and speeding, but Mr Henri Paul, the Ritz Hotel employee who drove Princess Diana and Mr Dodi al-Fayed to their deaths, took the wheel of the Mercedes S280 without the required chauffeur's licence.
The revelation, in a French radio interview with one of the Ritz's drivers, further weakens the al-Fayed family's attempts to blame, not Mr Paul, who was killed in the crash, but the pursuing photographers. "The people at the Ritz should never have put him in the car, because he wasn't qualified to drive this type of vehicle," the Ritz driver, whose voice was altered to protect his identity, told Europe 1 radio station yesterday morning. "You have to have a special licence to do it, which he didn't."
In London, the al-Fayeds' spokesman, Mr Michael Cole insisted that no special licence was needed by Mr Paul and that an ordinary driver's licence was sufficient.
However, although Paris police headquarters would not comment on Mr Paul's case, a police spokeswoman confirmed to The Irish Times last night that drivers of luxury cars rented to big hotels (like the Mercedes which crashed) must have a special certificate for which there are three requirements: an ordinary driver's licence; a certificate guaranteeing the driver's morality - "someone known for drinking wouldn't qualify", the spokeswoman said - and a detailed medical examination every five years.
Mr Paul will be buried on Saturday in his home town in Brittany. His parents dispute two blood tests which show him to have had nearly four times the legal amount of alcohol in his blood.
The al-Fayeds' credibility suffered earlier when French investigators rejected their claim that one of the photographers had caused the accident by driving in front of the Mercedes, trying to slow it down so his colleagues could take pictures. Six photographers and a motorcyclist working for a photo agency have nonetheless been put under investigation for manslaughter and failure to help the accident victims.
The Ritz Hotel has ordered its employees not to talk to the press, but interviews damaging to the management and the dead driver continue to leak out.
Liberation quoted one employee as saying that Mr Paul was "hyper-active and drunk as a pig" when he arrived at the hotel on Saturday night.
"Everyone knew that he was knocking it back when he wasn't working," his former colleague told Europe 1 yesterday. "He was in no state to drive. He should have tried to find someone else to take the wheel, because he knew he'd drunk too much," he said.