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Diana driver was “reckless”

London: In the carnival of vanities that is the Diana inquest, Tuesday’s witness was the most exotic yet.

From the moment that Dodi al Fayed’s long-term personal masseuse and spiritual healer, Myriah Daniels, stepped into the witness box, asking: “Is this, like, being on the stand, or what? OK?” and took the oath to “so help me, everybody’s gods,” it was a case of American verbosity versus the English bar’s circumlocutions, with the U.S. winning by a long head.

Carefully removing her chewing gum before giving evidence, she disclosed, perhaps most crucially for the inquests, that the driving of the chauffeur Henri Paul had terrified her when he took the couple’s party, without Dodi and Diana, from Le Bourget airport earlier on their last day. He drove like that though there were no paparazzi that she could see chasing their Range Rover.

Asked by Richard Keen QC, representing Paul’s parents, why Kes Wingfield, princess’s bodyguard who was sitting in front, had said the driving had been appropriate and reasonable, Ms. Daniels replied: “Whatever his experience was, I will never forget it as long as I live.”

Ms. Daniels was Dodi’s regular attendant for 10 years and accompanied him and Princess Diana on their last holiday in the Mediterranean.

“I have a natural gift for being able to fix the human body,” she said. “I do treat the whole person ... I am a minister of natural spiritualism. I work with people of every religion and culture.”

In the torrent of words that was her evidence, she succeeded in undermining Mohamed al Fayed’s conspiracy theories about the deaths of Diana and his son in the Alma tunnel on August 31 1997.

Ms. Daniels revealed that Mr. Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrods, had been given a nickname by the princess. “His father was pretty much always in contact with him. Diana would say: ‘God is calling,’ and they’d both have a giggle.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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Diana driver was “reckless”

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