Media
For the benefit of Mr Al Fayed
Published 20 September 2007
The ultimate media circus is about to begin, featuring jewellers, lawyers, embalmers, spies, doctors, lost boxes and of course the proprietor of Harrods. This one will run and run
Are you ready for six months of Diana inquest coverage? Six months of artists' impressions of Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice? Six months of live television reports from that precarious pavement on the Strand in central London? Six months of famous people marching up those steps to the neo-Gothic entrance? Six months of relentless indignation from Mohamed Al Fayed and his counsel, Michael Mansfield? You had better be: it starts in less than a fortnight.
Just weeks after the Bishop of London pleaded "Let it end here", civil servants with experience of grand legal set pieces ranging from Lockerbie to Hutton and from Shipman to Soham are making the final arrangements for what promises to be the mother of all media circuses.
The courtroom is not nearly big enough to accommodate all the press, television, radio and online reporters wanting to see the action, so an annexe has been created in a courtyard, where 150 more journalists can watch live feeds of the proceedings. Something similar was done for Hutton, but officials say this time the facilities are bigger and better, although they admit that on some days they may strain at the seams.
The interest comes not just from all branches of the British media, but from across the world, with the Americans (no network could miss it), Japanese, Australians, Russians and, naturally, the French among those booking early. The Strand will be a new Babel.
A reasonable person might wonder how a car crash in a foreign country could turn into this, and especially how it could stretch to six months. A clue lies in a remark by Mansfield at a preliminary hearing: "Sometimes the smallest stone overturned can reveal the largest truth."
Expect entire beaches of pebbles to be overturned one by one as Mansfield seeks what his client calls "the secret hand of the Establishment". From the driver's drunkenness (the jury, on their visit to Paris, will retrace his route to work at the Ritz, stopping off to examine the many hostelries he might have visited along the way) to the notorious white Fiat Uno, from the ring that may or may not have been an engagement ring (the jeweller will testify) to the engineering of the Alma tunnel, from the "Squidgygate" tape (the work of the security services?) to the embalming techniques used on the princess's body, every possible stone will have its underside well and truly scrutinised.
The barrister himself will provide additional theatre: where a century ago Edward Marshall Hall moved juries with sentiment ("I beseech you, look into the eyes of the pitiful creature in the dock. Is that a murderer?"), Mansfield is the master of eye-swivelling disbelief. You and I, he hints with a dip of the voice or a shrug of the shoulder, could never possibly believe the twaddle uttered by this witness.
And what witnesses there will be! Mansfield alone wants to call 68 of them at the very least, and his is just one of half a dozen legal teams in court - though the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, is showing signs of resistance. We will have much sweating in the witness box by Lord Stevens, the former police chief who wrote the official report on the deaths. And we should see the likes of Paul "My Rock" Burrell and Trevor Rees, the ex-paratrooper bodyguard who survived the crash.
But there will also be Parisian officials and eyewitnesses (the inquest website has a section in French), paparazzi and reporters (Richard Kay of the Daily Mail is in Mansfield's sights), friends of the couple, palace flunkeys, MI6 officials (the Secret Service will have its own legal team in court), Al Fayed himself, and - who knows? - perhaps politicians, one or two of the men "romantically linked" to the princess and even, conceivably, royalty (though not the Queen).
And of one thing you may be sure: whatever Mansfield and his client ask for and do not get, be it the mahogany box of letters, the missing police laptop or the technician who maintained the mobile phone mast which relayed James Gilbey's voice to Diana, that very absence of evidence will be held up to the many cameras on the Strand as proof positive that this was indeed an assassination conjured up by the Establishment.
Six months is still officially the maximum run envisaged, but a lawyer involved told me that was a "ludicrous underestimate", and one official spoke of nine months. Which goes to show that if you are rich enough you don't have to settle merely for your day in court. You can have the best part of a year.
Breaking the news
Nice to see a proper story-getter bringing a big scoop to BBC News, which has been such an unhappy place of late. Robert Peston's Northern Rock story was a plum, and those who moan that he is not the slickest act on television might note that it was the ultra-slick Huw Edwards who managed to rename the bank "Northern Wreck".
Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
