Di’s butler helped himself

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Prosecutors said this week that Princess Diana’s butler, Paul Burrell, plundered her Kensington Palace home shortly after the princess was killed in a car crash in 1997. A police raid on his home last year turned up photos, letters, paintings, crystal, and other loot. In the opening of Burrell’s trial, prosecutors charged that the butler intended to sell the Dianabilia for personal profit. Describing photos of Diana’s sons William and Harry as toddlers in the tub, lead prosecutor William Boyce asked, “Royal princes in a bath. Can you imagine the value of those images if somebody got hold of them?” Burrell, who had worked for Diana since 1980 and was her most trusted servant, has pleaded not guilty. He has variously said that he forgot about the items, that they were gifts, that he could not bear to deal with them, and that he didn’t realize he had them.