The events surrounding the inquiry into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, have threatened to damage the inquest process, writes Andrew Cox


In June, to little fanfare, Lord Justice Scott Baker became the fourth coroner to assume responsibility for the inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed. He did so at a critical time, with the final hearing due to begin in October. What is more, if his predecessor Dame Butler-Sloss's opening statement at the pre-inquest hearing on 15 May was anything to go by, there was a very real risk of the inquest process being usurped for something altogether less desirable.



Her Ladyship then remarked: 'An inquest is an inquisitorial process in which a coroner publicly investigates the circumstance of a death. There are no parties to inquest proceedings, and the rules of evidence which apply to adversarial litigation do not govern the proceedings. The tactics used in litigation often have no place in an inquest - a fact which lawyers can sometimes forget.'



Her comments cut little ice with Michael Mansfield QC, counsel for Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, who promptly protested about delays in disclosure, the production of a schedule of experts and even the location of the court for the final hearing. It all led Lady Butler-Sloss to comment: 'I feel I am the one who is in the dock.' Mr Mansfield then produced his piéce de résistance by demanding that the Queen be approached for a statement concerning a comment she allegedly made to the former royal butler, Paul Burrell, that there were 'powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge'.



It all made for lurid headlines in our newspapers, but what did it do to further the inquest process? An inquest is an inquiry intended to find answers to four limited but factual questions: who has died, and when, where and how did the death come about? The first three issues are usually straightforward, but the fourth has the potential to be the stuff of nightmares, even though the scrutiny into how the death arose should be limited to looking at the sequence of events which directly led to and caused the death. As the Coroner's Bench Book spells out: 'It is not an opportunity to examine the broad circumstance in which the death arose.'



Those broad circumstances, in this instance, include Mr Al Fayed's claims that the collision was engineered by persons who wished to dispose of the Princess and his son, and his further belief that there has been a conspiracy between HRH Prince Philip and the UK security services. This claim was investigated by the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, now Lord Stevens. His report concluded that there was no evidence to support the allegations of conspiracy to murder. In the absence of new and persuasive evidence, that should have been an end to the matter, but Mr Mansfield's remarks concerning the Queen at the hearing in May suggested it may not be.



It fell to Lord Justice Scott Baker to define the remit of the inquests and he began to do so by setting out a list of directions. That process was taken a stage further at the latest pre-inquest hearing on 9 July when the coroner 'at this stage' rejected Mr Mansfield's repeated request that both the Queen and Prince Philip be approached.



It is now the responsibility of the interested persons and their legal representatives to respect the defined boundaries. Should either fail to discharge their obligations in this regard, the coroner must act promptly to stop any attempted diversion at the first opportunity, or risk the inquests becoming a trial in all but name with all the associated allegations of blame and culpability.



A sufficient inquiry into the deaths is what the law requires. Let the inquiry be made, let the inquest run its proper course, and let us all move on.



Andrew Cox is a former solicitor and now the deputy coroner for Cornwall