The Diana inquest: Was it worth all the effort?

What a waste of time and money, said the London Daily Telegraph in an editorial. The inquest into the deaths of Diana, princess of Wales, and her companion, Dodi Fayed, took six months and cost British taxpayers upwards of $20 million. As for why the inquest was held a full decade after the couple was killed in a Paris car crash, that was the doing of Dodi’s father, Harrods owner Mohamed al Fayed. The British proceedings could not begin until the French investigation was complete, but al Fayed refused to accept the French verdict that the crash was the accidental result of a drunk chauffeur speeding to avoid pursuing paparazzi. Instead, al Fayed mounted numerous legal challenges to “the medical and judicial conclusions of the French authorities.” Once the British inquiry could finally begin, it had to contend with al Fayed’s “paranoid conviction” that Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, had Diana murdered to prevent a royal from marrying an Arab. His insistence that this “ludicrous fantasy” be investigated ensured that the inquest turned into “a circus” of high-profile witnesses and exorbitant expense.

It was certainly undignified, said Catherine Bennett in the London Observer. The public was treated to a full exploration of the late couple’s sexual relationship, complete with “the dates of Princess Diana’s periods” and her “prescriptions for contraceptive pills.” We heard gossip on why Diana’s earlier relationship, with Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan, ended—did he bail because he couldn’t take the publicity, or was he, as he said, “given the push”? And let’s not forget that our nation’s top spies were dragged in front of the court to assure us that they “don’t go around killing people.”

Yet al Fayed’s outlandish theory had to be investigated, said Daniel Finkelstein in the London Times. This is a nation of laws, where “every man—even this man—must have his day in court.” The jury finally found that Diana and Dodi were killed through the negligence of their driver and their pursuers, conclusions that were “entirely obvious to anyone with half a brain right from the beginning.” Still, “I would rather live in a society that took mad theories too seriously than in one that failed to take wrongdoing seriously enough.”

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Unfortunately, the verdict won’t change anyone’s mind, said Robert Verkaik in the London Independent. Those who were sure there was a conspiracy to murder the princess can easily find reasons to hold on to their delusions. Why, they can ask, did the coroner refuse to call Prince Philip to the stand? And why did he specifically instruct the jury that it could not return a finding of murder? How could justice be done when the British court lacked the power to compel French witnesses to testify? There are sound legal answers to all those questions, but of course “conspiracy theorists are no respecters of the finer points of law.” Remember, nearly 50 years on, thousands of people still believe all kinds of pap about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We can expect Diana’s death to fuel conspiracy theories for decades to come.