Letter on Di's fears of being killed withheld by senior police officers

London, Sep 26 (ANI): It has emerged that a letter in which Princess of Wales Diana had expressed her fears of being killed in a staged car crash was withheld by senior police officers investigating her death.

Scotland Yard failed to tell the French authorities about the contents, or even the existence, of the extraordinary note written by Diana's divorce lawyer Lord Mishcon after a conversation with her in 1995.

"Efforts would be made if not to get rid of her (be it by some accident in her car, such as a pre-prepared brake failure or whatever)...at least to see that she was so injured or damaged as to be declared unbalanced," the Daily Express quoted the note as stating.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioners Lord Stevens and Lord Condon, and then-Assistant Commissioner Sir David Veness, hanged on to the note expressing the Princess's beliefs for three years.

"Anyone who has lost a child in these circumstances would want to know why this note was not made public so the matter could be thoroughly investigated," a source close to the case said.

"Under French law there is still until 2018 for the matter to be brought back before a court and there is mounting pressure to make these officers explain why the note was not made public," the source stated.

Diana died on August 31, 1997, after the Mercedes she and Dodi Al Fayed were in crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, and the accident was blamed on acting security manager of the Ritz, Henri Paul, who was driving the car.

Paul had been told to elude photographers chasing them, and after the accident a French investigation concluded that his driving in an intoxicated state and at high speed caused the crash.

Lawyer Michael Mansfield, who represented Mohamed Al Fayed during the inquest into the deaths of his son Dodi and the Princess, said on September 25 that reasons given by officers for not revealing Lord Mishcon's note did not stand up to scrutiny.

"They say two things. One, that they didn't do it at the time, but they did do it later. They did eventually hand it over but three years down the line. Had they handed it over to the French initially, they would have been able to investigate properly," Mansfield said.

"The police secondly argue that they didn't hand it over because of confidentiality with respect to Lord Mishcon.

"All they needed to do was say to the French, 'We have some information, we have a note that we can't tell you the details at the moment, but you need to know'," he added.

Diana had revealed to Lord Mishcon in October 1995 of her fears of a plot to kill her in a car accident, and he had written it down, and following her death he passed the note, in strictest confidence, to the police.

The note had been passed on following a meeting with then-Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon and Assistant Commissioner Sir David Veness.

"All these issues have been thoroughly dealt with at the inquest," a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police stated. (ANI)