Britain:The first photographer to reach the mangled Mercedes of Diana, Princess of Wales, phoned a British newspaper from the scene to offer "exclusive" crash pictures, her inquest heard yesterday.
Romuald Rat allegedly demanded £300,000 (€430,000) for the UK rights to his photographs. He was also accused of keeping other photographers away from the smashed car to protect his scoop.
Kenneth Lennox, former picture editor of the Sun newspaper, recalled receiving a "slightly panicked" call on the night of August 30th, 1997. "The French-speaking photographer Romuald Rat said he had got photographs of Diana being involved in a car crash and I could have them exclusively for the UK for £300,000," he said in a transcript read to the jury.
"He said it was a serious crash. Dodi looked to be very badly injured. Diana looked to be very lightly injured, did not look too severely hurt at all.
The five photographs he received "jumped off the screen" at him, Mr Lennox recalled. One showed Diana with her back to the open door and a trickle of blood on her face. A second depicted a doctor attending to her with an oxygen mask.
Stephane Darmon, Mr Rat's motorcyclist that night, admitted the photographer could have got some of his pictures out of the underpass via another paparazzo before the pair were arrested.
But Richard Keen QC, counsel for the family of Diana's driver Henri Paul, asked him: "the fact is that by the time Mr Rat and you were arrested, you knew that Mr Rat had got his scoop in the tunnel, didn't you?"
Speaking via videolink from Paris, Mr Darmon replied: "it was their business. I'm . . . not a photographer, I'm not a member of the press. I was just there to carry someone to a place, and that's it."
Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed died along with Mr Paul in the crash in Paris in the early hours of August 31st, 1997.
Mr Darmon earlier told the court he recognised the tell-tale signs of an alcoholic in Mr Paul when he saw him outside the Ritz hotel. But Mr Keen said: "It is very convenient, isn't it, Mr Darmon, for you to suggest that the driver of the Mercedes was an alcoholic and that therefore he was responsible for the crash and not you? Would you agree?"
He replied: "I do not know what to answer to that."
Ian Croxford QC, representing the Ritz, questioned Mr Darmon's claim the Mercedes had "taken off like a plane" at a set of traffic lights, leaving him behind.
"On the face of it your motorcycle was rather quicker than the Mercedes. Did you have to slow down to make sure you didn't overtake it?" The inquest was adjourned until today, but legal arguments mean there will be no further evidence heard until tomorrow.