http://www.scottbaker-inquests.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts/010408am.htm
41
1 His close friend, Claude Garrec, gave evidence.
2 They met, he said, about three times a week and Garrec
3 had been on the holiday with the Melos and Henri Paul in
4 July. He said Henri Paul was someone who could well
5 manage his consumption of alcohol. He had a very high
6 tolerance. He could drink four Ricards and a few beers
7 without any apparent ill effects. That is what Garrec
8 had told the police. Sometimes he drove after having
9 a drink, but he always got home after the party and he
10 had no points on his licence.
11 On the Saturday, he played tennis with Henri Paul in
12 the morning. They had a non-alcoholic drink and
13 a sandwich for lunch and he drove Henri Paul home.
14 Henri Paul said he was going to pick Dodi and Diana at
15 the air****t.
16 In cross-examination by Mr Keen, he said Henri Paul
17 was not tee-total; he was just normal, a "bon vivant".
18 If asked to drive by Dodi Al Fayed after having had
19 something to drink, Garrec said Henri Paul would have
20 done so.
21 You are not directly concerned with Henri Paul's
22 background and habits, although any acquired tolerance
23 for drink could be im****tant, but what he actually drank
24 on the night in question. There is direct evidence that
25 he consumed two 5cl measures of Ricard, which is said to
42
1 be roughly the equivalent of four single measures of
2 whisky. This was in the two-hour period before leaving
3 the hotel.
4 There is no direct evidence that Henri Paul drank
5 alcohol between 7 and 10 pm, since we do not know how he
6 spent those three hours. He certainly had the
7 op****tunity to drink at that time and the evidence is
8 that he was not expecting to return to work that night.
9 There is abundant CCTV footage to show that
10 Henri Paul did not display any obvious signs as having
11 been drinking. Indeed, at one point he can be seen
12 bending down and tying his shoelaces without any
13 apparent difficulty. The visible evidence on the CCTV
14 is sup****ted by members of the Ritz staff. Witnesses
15 who expressly said they noticed nothing to suggest he
16 had been drinking include Jean-Pierre Allidiere,
17 Philippe Doucin, Philippe Dourneau, Jean-Francois Musa,
18 Trevor Rees, Thierry Rocher, Francois Tendil,
19 Sebastien Trote, Kes Wingfield and no doubt others.
20 The one exception was Alain Willaumez. Willaumez
21 served Henri Paul with one of his two Ricards. He
22 described Henri Paul as appearing to be drunk. It was
23 noticeable in his eyes and the way he spoke, but most
24 specifically in his eyes. When he left the bar, he
25 clumsily bumped into Vincent L'Ottelier, but that is not
43
1 borne out by Mr L'Ottelier, or the CCTV, which shows him
2 leaving the Bar Vendome in a normal manner.
3 When Roulet returned to give evidence, having read
4 some of the other evidence on the website, he said that
5 the working relation****p between Willaumez and
6 Henri Paul was very bad and Willaumez actually disliked
7 Paul. So Willaumez may have had a motive for giving
8 evidence about Paul that was untrue. The other thing
9 Roulet said, when he returned, was that he had
10 remembered meeting Dourneau and Musa in the tunnel after
11 the crash and that they had come up to him and said Paul
12 was not in a normal state and Dourneau had said he
13 seemed a bit drunk. Musa said they could not say that
14 publicly because everyone knew Henri Paul was protected
15 by Klein. Dourneau and Musa denied this conversation,
16 although it appears that they were in the tunnel after
17 the crash.
18 Mr Keen, on behalf of the Paul family, perfectly
19 reasonably you may think, attacked Roulet's credibility,
20 pointing out it was difficult to see how Roulet should
21 suddenly have a clear recollection of such
22 a conversation ten and a half years after the collision
23 if he had never mentioned it before.
24 Members of the jury, it is for you to decide what,
25 if any, reliance you place on Roulet's recent evidence.
44
1 It is to be observed, however, that what he said about
2 the relation****p between Willaumez and Paul was helpful
3 to Henri Paul, intending to show that Willaumez's
4 evidence about Henri Paul's condition could indeed be
5 unreliable.
6 On the Monday after the collision, that is
7 1st September, Willaumez says Klein saw him and told him
8 the bodyguards had said Henri Paul had drunk some
9 fruit juice and showed no sign of being drunk. He said
10 they should stick to that line for the good of the Royal
11 Family.
12 He said he had a conversation with Tendil, who
13 reminded him of Klein's instructions, saying "We should
14 not remember anything". However, he accepted in
15 cross-examination that Klein told him not to talk to
16 guests or the media about the events. Later, between
17 9th and 12th September, Klein told him to tell
18 the police the whole truth, but not to talk to
19 the press.
20 Tendil was not asked about this and you will
21 remember Klein's evidence, when he was recalled
22 recently, vehemently denying requiring Willaumez to toe
23 a party line. He said, and this was denied by
24 Willaumez, that he had a disciplinary problem some time
25 before which could account for him saying these things.
45
1 It may be that this ties in to some extent with Roulet's
2 evidence. You will have to decide whether Willaumez's
3 evidence is credible and accurate.
4 What of Henri Paul's condition earlier in the day?
5 Quite a lot of people had contact with him and would
6 have been in a position to say if he appeared to be
7 the worse for wear. For example, he was in the party
8 that met Dodi and Diana at Le Bourget and drove
9 the Range Rover. Murrell was the security guard
10 employed by Mohamed Al Fayed based at Villa Windsor.
11 Dodi and Diana went to Villa Windsor from the air****t
12 and were there, according to the CCTV, for 28 minutes.
13 The evidence was that Henri Paul went from
14 the air****t direct to the apartment and then on to
15 the Villa Windsor. Murrell says he saw Henri Paul at
16 Villa Windsor and that he was acting out of character.
17 There were some inconsistences between his evidence in
18 court and what he was re****ted as having said in
19 a newspaper, but his evidence does not sup****t
20 a contention that Henri Paul had been drinking earlier
21 in the day.
22 Several of the paparazzi claimed to have noticed
23 signs that Henri Paul had been drinking. Darmon, who
24 was the motorcyclist carrying Rat, described the
25 situation outside the Ritz, where there were a lot of
46
1 people and a good deal of excitement. He said
2 "Henri Paul seemed joyful and looked by his eyes and
3 actions like an alcoholic", as his father had been.
4 Mr Keen suggested to him that his evidence contained
5 a series of self-serving lies because of the allegations
6 against the paparazzi. It may be that you will have
7 difficulty accepting some of Darmon's evidence about
8 the journey, but if you do, does it follow that he has
9 made this up?
10 Benhamou, Rat and Veres also made observations about
11 Henri Paul's condition. Mr Keen suggests that what they
12 said is explicable because of the unfortunate press
13 release from the prosecutor's office attributing
14 the cause of the collision to the drunk driver of the
15 Mercedes. It is notable that the paparazzi only began
16 to make these remarks about Henri Paul after that press
17 release. One might have expected at least some of them
18 to mention it in their very early interviews if they had
19 really noticed anything about Henri Paul's condition.
20 Finally on this aspect, while Lucard did not notice
21 anything untoward on the three brief occasions on which
22 he saw Henri Paul on the night of the collision, he said
23 that some time after the collision, Tendil mentioned
24 Henri Paul, saying that it was "terrible to drink".
25 Now, Tendil was not asked about this and the context is
47
1 not entirely clear, so it may be unwise to read anything
2 into Lucard's evidence on this.
3 What is clear, however, is that staff at the Ritz
4 knew Henri Paul had been drinking before he drove that
5 night. Trote, Doucin and Willaumez all knew that he had
6 drunk two Ricards and he told Rocher he was going to
7 finish his Ricard with the Englishmen. Willaumez's
8 evidence that Klein tried to suppress the fact that
9 Henri Paul had consumed alcohol before driving is
10 consistent with the manner in which the issue of drink
11 was, you may think, handled by Mohamed Al Fayed's
12 publicity machine.
13 Following the regrettable publication of the
14 suggestion that Henri Paul had been drunk as a pig,
15 Macnamara was dispatched to Paris to find out the true
16 facts. He told us he discovered on the following day,
17 Tuesday 2nd September, that Henri Paul had drunk two
18 Ricards. There was no doubt in his mind about that.
19 A press release from Harrods the same day spoke of
20 Mohamed Al Fayed having immediately dispatched his
21 director of security, a former detective chief
22 superintendent of New Scotland Yard, and lawyers to make
23 further inquiries. The release referred to the first
24 fruits of those inquiries. I quote:
25 "In the hotel he spoke to a number of members of
48
1 staff, none of whom detected any smell of drink or any
2 other signs to suggest that he had been drinking."
3 That, unfortunately, was less than the whole truth
4 because Macnamara's inquiries had revealed Henri Paul
5 had had two Ricards. Indeed Klein had obtained the bar
6 receipt.
7 There was a press conference on Friday
8 5th September. There were comments by Cole and
9 Professor Vanezis, who had gone to Paris, but who had
10 been thwarted by the French system from making any
11 meaningful inquiries of his own. No mention was made
12 then about discovery of the driver having had two
13 Ricards in the Bar Vendome. It was said at the press
14 conference that:
15 "With Mr Macnamara, director of security, we are
16 satisfied and happy that their accounts of Henri Paul's
17 demeanour are accurate and those accounts are that he
18 was sober, he did not smell of alcohol, his gait was
19 steady, they had no suggestion or indications that he
20 was anything other than completely sober."
21 Lack of complete honesty is compounded, members of
22 the jury, on the following Wednesday, 10th September,
23 when Macnamara took part in BBC Primetime Live on
24 television. He told viewers that Henri Paul had had
25 a pineapple juice and nothing else. When asked:
49
1 "And nothing else?"
2 He replied:
3 "And nothing else".
4 And when asked in evidence, he said, "Yes, that is
5 what he said". He then reluctantly admitted that it was
6 a lie.
7 You will have to ask yourself how reliable you find
8 the evidence of the Ritz employees to be on the issue of
9 drink and whether there may have been an element of
10 closing ranks. You will also have to decide what weight
11 to attach to the evidence that Henri Paul was a person
12 who could consume alcohol without necessarily showing
13 adverse signs and the expert evidence that some
14 individuals have such a degree of tolerance to alcohol
15 that they may give the appearance of being sober to
16 a casual observer, even when their blood/alcohol
17 concentration is quite high.
18 Now, members of the jury, something has arisen that
19 I need to raise, I hope briefly, with counsel, so I am
20 going to ask you just to retire, I hope for a short
21 time, while I do so, before I continue.
22 (Jury out)
23 (11.45 am)
19 in view of the evidence to the effect that Andanson was
20 not in Paris on the night of the crash, you may think
21 that the Sipa burglary is another red herring.
22 Henri Paul and drink.
23 There is an issue about what part, if any, alcoholic
24 drink played in the collision. It is im****tant to reach
25 your conclusion on this issue on the whole of the
39
1 evidence and to have in mind the complete picture.
2 Science should be the servant and not the master in
3 situations like this.
4 We have spent a great deal of time examining
5 the pathological and toxicological evidence of what
6 happened in France. Unfortunately, most of those who
7 dealt with the relevant matters in France, most
8 particularly Professor Lecomte and Dr Pepin, have chosen
9 not to give evidence.
10 Four experts from this country have examined the
11 scientific evidence in detail and given their opinion
12 about it. In some instances, opinions differed. It
13 would have been much better had you heard from
14 the horse's mouth, then you could have had first-hand
15 explanations for apparent deficiencies in what was done
16 or not done and you would have been better able to form
17 your own view about the weight to be placed on
18 the French results.
19 Let me start with the background. Dr Dominique Melo
20 was not only a friend, but Henri Paul's doctor. Her
21 evidence was read to you relatively recently.
22 Henri Paul had been on a few days' holiday with
23 the Melos in Spain at the end of July 1997. He was, she
24 said, a secretive man who did not discuss his feelings
25 and dealt with his personal problems on his own.
40
1 She prescribed an anti-depressant in the year before
2 his death. She said he had feelings of extreme solitude
3 and isolation which led him, on occasion, to drink
4 outside a social context, namely alone at home. She
5 also prescribed Aotal, which causes a dislike of
6 alcohol, the efficacy of which is relative, and
7 Tiapride.
8 When he was not working or on holiday, he did not
9 take this medication so that he could drink alcohol in
10 reasonable quantities in a social context. She
11 authorised him to do this because he did not have
12 the classical signs of a chronic alcoholic. He had
13 a medical for his pilot's licence just before he died,
14 and passed. Those medicals are thorough. On holiday,
15 he drank like everyone else, but not to excess. She
16 says she was convinced that he would not have drunk
17 alcohol knowing he might have to drive a car, which led
18 her to believe that cir***stances led him to do so.
19 We heard evidence that Henri Paul obtained regular
20 prescriptions of Aotal in the months before he died. No
21 trace of Aotal was, however, found at post mortem, and,
22 of course, he had been given the all-clear by Dr Melo
23 not to take Aotal if he wanted to drink. An empty Aotal
24 packet was found in the waste-paper basket in his
25 office.
41
Hearing transcripts
1 April 2008 - Morning session
1 Tuesday, 1st April 2008
2 (10.00 am)
3 SUMMING-UP (continued)
4 (Jury present)
5 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Good morning, members of the
6 jury.
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