Butler Paul Burrell did not tell the truth at the inquest into Princess Diana's death, the presiding judge told a jury in London today.
"All in all, you may think Burrell's behaviour has been pretty shabby," Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury as he concluded the official inquiry into the death of Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Mr Burrell, the butler who called himself "Diana's rock", faced a three-day grilling from lawyers when he appeared at the inquest in January to be repeatedly asked how much he really knew about secrets he was supposed to have held for Diana.
In February, Lord Justice Scott Baker asked Mr Burrell to return to court to explain discrepancies between his evidence and comments attributed to him in a tabloid newspaper, but he refused.
"It was blindingly obvious wasn't it, that the evidence that he gave in this courtroom was not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," Lord Justice Scott Baker said today.
In a scathing reference to Mr Burrell's emotionally charged testimony, he told the jury: "I advise you to proceed with caution especially when and if you are left with the impression that he only told you what he wanted you to hear."
The coroner was summing up to the jury after they had heard from more than 250 witnesses over the past six months in an inquest that has attracted worldwide media attention.
British and French police inquiries have both decided it was a tragic accident because Paul was drunk and driving too fast when their car crashed in a Paris road tunnel while they were being pursued by paparazzi.
Yesterday, the opening day of his presentation to the jury, the judge dismissed conspiracy theories of Mohamed al-Fayed, father of Dodi.
Mr al-Fayed had claimed Diana and Dodi were killed by British security services on the orders of Prince Philip, because the royal family did not want the mother of the future king to have a child with Fayed's son.