«Death of the princess Diana: unlawful killing or unlucky accident? or the heavy cost of fame »

«Death of the princess Diana: unlawful killing or unlucky accident? or the heavy cost of fame »

Supervisor: Olga Peshcherskaya

.

My aim

• To compare and give the detailed description of several conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, based on some literary and documentary sources and fiction books and prove that life of a member of Royal family isn’t a bed of roses

My hypothesis

To prove that sometimes official data can be hidden in order to drag someone's name through the mud or hide uncomfortable truth from the public eye.

My tasks

• To find and select out all information on the theme
• To explore various life periods of Diana which can shed light on her death
• To explore the circumstances of her death and put forward several theories of her death
• To come to conclusions
• To compile an on-line map of the special places in the UK related to princess Diana life and death

My object

Object of my research work : the detailed biography of Princess Diana

Subject of my work : the comparison of several theories and defining the most life-like or believable

Novelty and topicality

• T opicality of this study lies in the fact that Diana’s death caused a huge resonance in all spheres of society, and even to this day this issue is relevant in historical science and public circles, some say that this is a tragic combination of circumstances, others – a murder-for-hire. Therefore, this study will help to compare existing theories and draw appropriate conclusions.
• Novelty

Nobody knows the truth and all conclusions will be only my personal investigation based on some documentaries and articles in mass media

The plan of my research work

• Theoretical background

• Some brief profile facts about Diana
• The reasons for her wide-spread world fame, popularity
• Death of Diana

2. Practical background

• Description of existing theories based on mass media sources and fiction books
• Making a comparative chart of these theories to find the most believable
• Giving several tips how to work with contractional sources of information

3. My personal conclusions

4.Bibliography

5.

Who is she: cast-off wife or an icon figure?

DIANA SPENCER : brief biographical facts which can shed light on her death

Childhood & teenage years

• Diana Spencer was born on the first of July, 1961 in Sandringham in England. She had two elder sisters and a younger brother. She was the youngest daughter of the Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, now the late (8th) Earl Spencer and the Hon .

In childhood she liked games, swimming, running and dancing. She dreamt of being a ballet dancer ,but then she had to give up this idea because she was too tall for that. Diana studied at ordinary schools – at first at Norfolk, then in Kent. Besides she loved children very much and at the age of sixteen she worked at the Young England School in Pimlico.

• When she was 16 she left for Switzerland and finished school there. She loved children very much and having returned to London she found the job of a teacher in a kindergarten.

Marriage

• On the 24 th of February, 1981 it was officially announced that Lady Diana would marry The Prince of Wales. Their families had known each other for many years, and Lady Diana and The Prince met when he had been invited to a weekend at Althorp in November 1977. They were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral on July 29,1981. Diana was twenty, Charles-thirty two.

• The wedding ceremony drew a global television and radio audience estimated at around 1,000 million people, and hundreds of thousands of people lining the route from Buckingham Palace to the Cathedral.

This wedding became most brilliant event in Britain. Princess Diana wore a silk taffeta dress with a 25 foot train designed by the Emanuel's.

Children & family life

• The Princess of Wales had two sons. Prince William was born on the 21 st of June, 1982 and Prince Henry on the 15 th of September, 1984 both in London at St Mary's Hospital . The Princess had seventeen godchildren.

As for the façade of their family life:

• They travelled a lot, they worked a lot, they visited many countries together, did charity .

The bitter truth about their relationship

But Diana was not quite happy because they did different things and Charles didn’t understand her. Her marriage was unhappy from the very beginning. She was always jealous of her husband to Camilla Parker-Bowls and had a set of nervous breakdowns. Charles continued cheating his wife and even didn’t conceal this fact from the public eye. He constantly tore down her reputation. What is more, Queen Elizabeth II supported her son and even approved of his shameful and infamous behavior.

The Divorce

• In December,1992 the Prime Minister John Major announced to the Parliament, that Diana and Charles were going to divorce. Officially spouses moved apart and began living separately in 1992. In November 1995 the Princess gave a television interview and told of her unhappiness in her personal life and the pressure of her public role. Official divorce was held on 28 th August, 1996. They had been married for 15 unhappy and tough years.

Doing charity: The Queen of people’s hearts

She was a kind-hearted, helpful and supportive woman. Hundreds of people talked about Diana’s kindness. She liked ordinary people, though she was rich and had many rich friends. Wherever she was, she was always ready to lend a helping hand. She devoted much time to the sick and the poor. She visited hospitals for people with HIV/ AIDS, cancer, disabled people and wasn’t afraid to touch them, talk to them, listen to them.

• The Princess was the president or patroness of 100 charities working with the homeless, youth, drug addicts and the elderly. From 1989, she was the President of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. She was founded and sponsored several charitable funds that donated money to people in need.

Her attempts to escape from depression and pressure of the mass media

• In 1995 she became acquainted with Pakistan surgeon Hasmat Kham, but due to social media pressure she had to leave Great Britain for the Mother-land of her beloved. Failures followed her and they broke up as Kham’s family was against his relationship with the Princess.

Diana and her friend Dodi

Several last weeks of her life Princess Diana spent together with her friend Al- Fayed,41years old, the senior son of the Egyptian billionaire Mohammed Al – Fayed, the owner of the fashionable London shop «Harrods», Paris hotel «Ritz», and a lot of other.

Diana’s Death

• The tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales occurred on Sunday, August 31, 1997 following a car accident in Paris, France.
• The vehicle in which the Princess was travelling with her rumored boyfriend was involved in a high-speed accident in the Place de l'Alma underpass in central Paris
• The Princess was taken to the La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, Diana suffered from a concussion, a broken arm, a cut thigh and massive chest injuries. In hospital she underwent two hours of emergency surgery before being declared dead at 03.00 BST.
• The Princess's companion, Mr Dodi Fayed, and the driver Henri Paul of the vehicle died in the accident, while a bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was seriously injured.(he survived because he was wearing a seatbelt, while no one else in the car was wearing one)

Princess Diana’s cause of death

In Tina Brown’s book,  The Diana Chronicles , Dr. Frederic Mailliez, “She kept saying how much she hurt,” Mailliez told Brown.

In an interview with The Independent in 2018, Sergeant Xavier Gourmelon, who led the response team in Paris, revealed that Diana’s last words were: “My God, what’s happened?”

Diana's funeral was unprecedented. Diana's funeral was held on September 6, 1997. The grief at her senseless death stretched all around the globe – from America to the Far East. That is why more than a million people came to London to remember her . Nearly all of them carried flowers. They put thousand of flowers in front of Diana’s home, Kensington Pala ce .

Her death deeply impacted many people

• The news broke late on a Saturday night. Around the world, news broadcasts (and an episode of  Saturday Night Live ) were interrupted so that visibly stricken announcers could share what had transpired.
• This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
• If you were old enough to form memories on August 31, 1997, then chances are you remember where you were when you heard that Princess Diana had died. It was a moment in which the world stopped, and a moment that many fans of Diana's still remember vividly.

I. Was it a sudden car Accident?

• There were several official versions of her death as unlucky circumstances

1. Alcoholic intoxication of her driver

2. Paparazzi prevented her car from moving and caused this crashed as The Diana’s car was chased by a car which belonged to one of the paparazzi.

Many questions what really caused the accident

• What caused Henri Paul, the acting head of security at the Ritz Hotel and a licensed driver, to so drastically lose control of the car? According to a statement from French authorities   given the Monday after the crash, Paul's blood exceeded the legal blood-alcohol limit. He had reportedly been drinking and driving recklessly.
• According to eyewitnesses, there was another element involved in the crash. Their black Mercedes was being pursued by paparazzi in cars and on motorcycles, hoping to snatch a photo of the Princess and Fayed.
• To this day, conspiracy theories about the crash abound.

II.The theory of her faked death

One of the more poorly constructed Conspiracy theories. Princess Diana, upset with the intrusions into her private life by the media,  staged the whole thing to get some privacy .

The evidence for this is that the bodyguard; Trevor Rees-Jones is still alive. However, it is impossible to survive a crash at a car traveling at such a high speed. Other evidence cited is that Diana’s usual driver was not used but was changed at the last minute.

An offshoot of this theory is that it was supposed to be a fake crash which went horribly wrong resulting in the death of the popular Princess Diana .

III. Intentional murder(murder-for-hire)

• 1. The driver Anrie Pole wasn’t drunk at that night and performed the special task of MI6. Also Diana was killed by one of paparazzi James Anderson. He performed MI6 task at that night. She was killed by secret services
• 2. The members of Royal family were going to get rid of her because her possible pregnancy and her relationship with a Muslim. . Princess Diana is a threat the stability of the Empire , and has to be taken out.
• 3.Prince Charles was guilty in her murder as she was more popular and more loved by people than he and she could reveal some uncomfortable facts about their common life.
• 4. The death of Diana would act as a smokescreen for their real intent to kill Dodi.

Royal family’s plot

• Some say it was the  Royal family who were simply unhappy at Diana’s behavior  and taught her a permanent lesson.  Dodi Fayed was not a Christian  and it apparently would not do to bring an outsider into the Royal family . He was allegedly going to propose to Diana on the trip, said to have purchased a ring from a jewelry store beforehand. This was backed up by Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father. It was also claimed that Diana was pregnant when the car crashed, another reason the Royal Family might not have been best pleased. The Coroner who carried out the postmortem examination claimed that this was not true.

Prince Charles plotted the murder of the couple

• A British inquest in 2007 found the crash to be the result of extremely negligent driving by the driver of the Mercedes and of the paparazzi following behind. It is plausible that she told the driver to lose the media which contributed to the crash in  Pont de l’Alma tunnel . Dodi’s father  publicly accused  Prince Charles of plotting the murder of the couple at the 2007 inquest .

IV. Attempting to Dodi (business rivals)

• Other theorists have claimed that the death of Princess Diana was caused by business rivals of Dodi’s father, the Egyptian billionaire . The death of Diana would act as a smokescreen for their real intent to kill Dodi . This is an exceptionally thin conspiracy, killing a princess to avoid suspicion.

Supposed pregnancy: gossips or truth?

This was no accident. For example, Mohammed al-Fayed, Dodi's father, believes Diana was pregnant with his son's child (this was  later disproven )

"I am sitting here at my desk today in October," she wrote, "longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high. This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. X is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry."

The majority of conspiracy theories were debunked

• In 2004, the British Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the rumors that proliferated around the accident. The findings of Operation Paget, as the investigation was called, were released in 2006.
• In short? The police found nothing to substantiate Mohammed Al Fayed's claims of conspiracy—and neither did anyone else. "Operation Paget disposed of every substantive allegation. So did the official French inquiry. And so did independent investigations, notably Martyn Gregory's  Diana: The Last Days . The evidence is overwhelming that this was a traffic accident—period," Brown writes in  The Diana Chronicles .

On-line map of places connected with Diana’s name in England

Symbols:

1. The place of her birth - Sandringham, England.

2. Norfolk. Her School.

3. School in Pimlico. Her 1st work.

4. London - St Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Palace, St. Mary's Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children,Westminster Cathedral.

5. Westminster Cathedral – the place of funeral ceremony.

On-line map of places connected with Diana’s name in Paris

Symbols:

1. The Place de l'Alma underpass in central Paris.

2. The La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital.

Sources of information to know much more

Films:

Unlawful Killing: The Murder of Princess Diana(  British documentary film about the deaths of Diana and Dodi, was shown May 2011 in Cannes)

Who Really Killed Diana?

DOCS: Diana – The Night She Died

Books:

The Murder of Princess Diana  is a bestselling 2004 book by British journalist  Noel Botham

The Diana Chronicles  by Tina Brown

Diana: Her True Story — In Her Own Words Andrew Morton ( published in 1992)

Links:

• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1051910/
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1979385/
• https://www.miramax.com/movie/the-queen/
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058073/
•  
• https://www.conspiracies.net/princess-diana-conspiracy-theories/

Conclusion

• The Princess Diana was the most popular member of The British Royal Family. She has become a symbol of charity and closely with folk.
• By comparison all the existing theories and versions I had come to certain conclusion. To my mind, the death of Princess Diana was an intention murder, because it’s more true and there are more evidences to prove it. But who killed her, it stays as a mystery and it’s a question for discussion…

Thank you for your attention!