Paparazzi photographer seen fighting by car, inquest told
A paparazzi photographer was seen fighting next to the wrecked car in which Diana, Princess of Wales was dying, a witness said today.
James Huth told how the scuffle with a passer-by broke out within minutes of the crash in the Pont de l’Alma underpass in Paris in the early hours of August 31 1997, before emergency services had even arrived.
Giving evidence at Diana’s inquest Mr Huth, one of the first people to reach the scene of the crash, also gave a vivid description of the carnage he witnessed.
He told how he saw he saw driver Henri Paul, his lifeless head wedged into an airbag, and the Princess’s lover Dodi Fayed hanging between the front and back seats of the car.
He spoke to the conscious but horrifically injured bodyguard Trevor Rees Jones, whose jaw was hanging loose.
But he did not see Diana herself in the back because she was trapped so low in the footwell and obscured by Dodi’s twisted body.
After looking into the car Mr Huth, whose parents’ flat was just metres from the entrance of the underpass, ran to borrow a mobile phone to call the emergency services.
Even before he did so, people were gathering and a photographer whom he was unable to identify, was taking pictures of the wrecked car, the court heard.
It was as he was returning that he saw the same photographer fighting with a passer-by.
Speaking by video link from Paris he said: “The man was trying to catch his camera, he was screaming that he didn’t have the right to take pictures...I did not know what the fight was really about, even though I thought it was really stupid to take those pictures.
“I told them to calm down, that we did not need someone, two persons, to fight right now on the place of an accident.”
Shown photographs of a number of paparazzi including Romuald Rat, who the jury has heard was among the first at the scene, Mr Huth could not identify who had been involved in the fight.
He also gave the court a vivid description of the scene of carnage he had witnessed as he entered the tunnel.
The film-maker, who used to work as a dentist, explained how he had been inside his parents’ apartment when he heard the sound of the crash.
Although he had seen many accidents in the tunnel, he said there had been none quite like that.
“When I approached the car, there was smoke and the sound of the horn,” he said.
“I saw the two air bags that were open, the driver unfortunately had his head inside and it wasn’t moving.
“He was supposedly dead, and this guy was panicking on the right, he had his jaw hanging and he was panicking.
“He was trying to move and I talked to him and told him in French to stay quiet, that it was going to be OK, that people were going to take care of him and he had to just try to be quiet, to calm down.”
Two men approached the car and tried to open the door but he stopped them.
He said that, as a former dentist, he had some emergency medical training and was aware of the danger of moving people with potential spinal injuries.
It was then that he looked in the back and saw Dodi’s body.
“I approached the car and saw the legs of a man, I didn’t know who those persons were, I didn’t know until at the end anyway.
“I saw the broken leg, that I remember clearly, of a man in blue jeans I guess, with a double fracture under the knee and a boot like a cowboy’s.
“I didn’t see what I learned after – that there was another person underneath, the Princess.
“I didn’t see that because I didn’t approach the car enough, I guess.”
Describing Dodi’s position he added: “This man was in the middle of the car. Probably his head was in the front...he was at an angle as he had been thrown.”
Mr Huth then called the emergency services but told them that there were only three people in the car, with one survivor, as Diana was not visible.
He added: “I got close enough ... to speak to the bodyguard – I know now it was the bodyguard – that was still alive, but not close enough to see that there was another person in the car, under the seat.”
The court also heard from Gary Dean, the first British witness to give evidence, who said he was walking next to the grassy area beside the tunnel when saw the car travelling at 70mph or more.
He told the jury that as the car entered the underpass the driver appeared to switch his headlights from dipped beam to full.
His account comes after French witness Francois Levistre claimed to have seen a “major white flash” in the tunnel preceding the crash, caused by “hitmen” on a motorcycle.
Counsel to the inquest Nicholas Hilliard asked Mr Dean: “Is there any doubt in your mind that the increase in light came from the car?”
He replied that there was not.
The inquest was adjourned and continues tomorrow.
