The driver of the car in which Princess Diana and her Egyptian companion were killed was drunk and the car was travelling at 196 kilometres per hour (121 m.p.h.) - four times faster than the legal limit - when it crashed.
And there was a claim last night that the driver, in effect, goaded the paparazzi photographers pursuing the princess and Mr Dodi al-Fayed into a chase. According to a lawyer representing one of the seven paparazzi arrested after the fatal crash, the driver, Mr Henri Paul, was chatting to the photographers before leaving the hotel and said: "Anyway, you'll never catch us."
The astonishing disclosure by the French prosecutor's office that Mr Paul (41) was drunk has utterly changed perceptions of the tragedy: now the blame may shift from the media who pursued Diana to him, and also to the Ritz Hotel and the al-Fayed family who own it.
The French prosecutor's office said Mr Paul, the assistant director of security at the Ritz, who was driving the couple and Princess Diana's bodyguard, Mr Trevor Rees-Jones, had 1.75 grams per litre of alcohol in his blood when the car crashed - the equivalent of half a bottle of whiskey, according to Dr Michel Craplet. The legal limit in France is 0.5 grams per litre; in Ireland it is 0.8 grams per litre.
Mr Paul died along with the couple and Mr Rees-Jones is still in a serious condition. Mr Paul was "definitely drunk", Dr Craplet, of the French National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism (ANPA), told The Irish Times.
When the news about Mr Paul emerged, the press service of the Ritz Hotel, which had employed him since 1986, put all of its telephones on answering machines and did not return The Irish Times's calls.
Last night, Mr Michael Cole, the spokesman for Mr al-Fayed's father, Mr Mohammad al-Fayed, insisted that paparazzi were responsible for the crash. Mr Cole said the princess's party had to leave the Ritz Hotel hounded by photographers.
Several on motorcycles pursued the car and one, as it was entering the underpass, drove in front of the Mercedes, zig-zagging in an effort to slow it down so that other photographers could come alongside and take pictures.
"The photographers were flashing off blitz lights into the eyes of the people inside the car," he said. "It was like a stage coach surrounded by Indians, but instead of firing arrows, they were firing these lights into the eyes of the people."
Pressed about Mr Paul's drinking, he said: "Mr alFayed's wants the truth to come out . . . We are all mortified. What more can I say?"
The disclosure that Princess Diana's driver was drunk will radically alter the earlier conviction that their deaths were caused by the paparazzi - although the seven photographers chasing the princess's car may still be charged with criminal offences.
Last night, police sources said some or all of them were likely to appear in court today.
According to a rough scale used by the ANPA, Mr Paul's post-mortem blood test indicated he had drunk eight units of alcohol before embarking with the princess, her companion and bodyguard on the fatal journey.
"Beyond 0.5 grams per litre, body functions are greatly impaired," Dr Craplet said. "You have difficulty carrying out simple acts like driving - especially driving at night and at great speed." Vision, especially night vision, is affected at a level of 0.3 grams per litre.
Contrary to earlier press reports, Mr Paul was an experienced driver who had twice travelled to Mercedes headquarters near Stuttgart for special training in escorting celebrities.
But last night, an RAC spokesman said that with the amount of alcohol now known to have been in his blood, "he would have had no chance of controlling a big car at high speed in a confined space. Having drunk as much as he had, he would have felt immortal".
Before it was revealed that Mr Paul was drunk at the time of the crash, one of his former colleagues at the Ritz told The Irish Times that the stocky, dark, mustachioed and balding assistant security director had a knack for making people laugh. "He was jovial, very good with snappy comebacks," the Ritz employee said.
