The jury in the Diana, Princess of Wales inquest today returned a verdict of unlawful killing through negligent driving by Henri Paul in the Mercedes and the vehicles of the paparazzi.

They singled out Henri Paul’s drink driving as a contributory factor for the crash in the Alma Tunnel in Paris in which she and Dodi Fayed were killed on August 31, 1997.

They were being followed by paparazzi after leaving the Ritz Hotel, and a large amount of evidence centred on how closely they had followed the Mercedes in the minutes before the crash.

At last the focus of the blame is being turned from the outrageously improbable conspiracy theories to the real culprits : the Ritz Hotel’s security arrangements and the chasing pack of photographers who appear to have had Henri Paul in their pockets.

All this has been clear since the French magistrate’s meticulous report many years ago.

An interesting point arising is that the verdict clashes with that of the Paget Report by Scotland Yard, which concluded it was “a tragic accident”. The jury has defined culpability here and that has not pleased Mohamed Fayed whose representatives still maintain his blame-deflecting case.

This verdict leaves him open to private prosecutions for what the jury calls “gross negligence”.

We’re hearing that the coach carrying Lord Justice Scott Baker and the jury for the Diana Inquest has just crashed outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

The Ritz Hotel in Paris

The coach was apparently trying to avoid a large group of paparazzi when it took a circuitous route into the hotel. It crashed into a hoarding or billboard trapping the occupants inside.

At time of writing, it’s not known if there are any injuries.

The eerie echoes of the events of August 31, 1997, in which Princess Diana died, are striking.

It’s only a few days since Prince William and Kate Middleton were chased by photographers on motorbikes. When will the authorities in both London and Paris do something to stop these dangerous practices?

Today’s London Evening Standard is reporting some very specific information on how and why Prince William and Kate Middleton got back together following their March split.

The newspaper reports that they parted “because of his immaturity” in being photographed at various night spots with other women. Kate also has difficulties with his enjoyment of nights on the town with his in-crowd.

A friend reportedly told the Standard, “When they went on a skiing holiday in February, William insisted on taking the gang along. You had people like Thomas van Straubenzee and Guy Pelly there, all keen to do some hard partying. Kate could hardly get a word in.

“There were blazing rows and William responded by asserting what he believed was his right to go on benders with his friends. There was awkwardness between them at the Cheltenham Festival and she attended the Gold Cup alone.”

Kate and William — referred to as the Royal couple — were apparently reunited at a party at 17th Century mansion Upton Viva, given by Sam Waley-Cohen, son of racehorse breeder and trainer Robert Waley-Cohen.

As Royal Anecdotes reported at the time, guests said that Kate and William were seen having an intimate conversation at the event. “The body language said it all,” according to one.

During their recent holiday in the Seychelles, William and Kate are said to have “made an agreement that could underpin their future together” including how to tackle “two serious threats to their happiness” — William’s liking for lads’ nights out and the paparazzi.

Leading London lawyers have been consulted over the hounding of Kate by photographers, although they have been told that there is little that can be done under current British law.

The newspaper speculates that William and Kate will announce their engagement in 2009 when the Prince’s military service is complete, and predicts a Royal wedding in 2010.

Clearly, the meeting with the Queen and Prince Philip at Balmoral next month will be a weighty affair.

Yet another television documentary on the last days of Diana, Princess of Wales, is due to screen on ITV tomorrow. Diana’s Last Summer has a similar theme to the recent Channel 4 film which examined the role of the paparazzi in the car accident that killed Diana, Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, the driver.

In the film, former News of the World editor Phil Hall says, “I felt huge responsibility for what happened and I think everyone in the media did. It’s difficult because we knew the full story, we knew that Diana was helping newspapers and yeah, the driver was drunk. But my view is that if the paparazzi hadn’t been following her the car wouldn’t have been speeding and, you know, the accident may never have happened.”

The documentary tells what ITV calls, “the definitive story of Diana’s love-hate relationship with the photographers who followed her every move”.

It screens new interviews and pictures from the paparazzi who followed her before the crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel as well as her former security chief, Ken Wharfe.

Patrick Jephson, Diana’s former aide, comments, “The Paris paparazzi were a well-known phenomenon. They were a kind of circus. They would chase the Royal motorcade on motorcycles. They had pillion passengers carrying heavy television cameras. It all contributed to the sense of being inside a Wild West stagecoach while bandits were attacking it.”

No accident in history has been so scrutinized, pored over and retold as much as this one has. Let’s hope the 10th anniversary in ten days, and the Inquest in October will finally lay the matter to rest.