Prince William and Prince Harry have issued a statement about the outcome of the six-month Inquest into the death of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Prince William and Prince Harry at Diana’s funeral in 1997

The jury found that Henri Paul, the driver of the car in which Diana and Dodi Fayed died, was guilty of “unlawful killing” by “gross negligence” for being under the influence of alcohol and driving too fast. The paparazzi photographers who followed the car were effectively guilty of “manslaughter”.

The Princes’ statement is as follows :

We should like to thank the members of the Jury at the Inquests into the deaths of our mother and Dodi Al Fayed for the thorough way in which they have considered the evidence. We agree with their verdicts, and are both hugely grateful to each and every one of them for the forbearance they have shown in accepting such significant disruption to their lives over the past six months.

Both of us are much indebted to the Coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, for his unfailing courtesy, and for all the consideration shown by him and his staff not only to us but to all those involved in this hearing. We are particularly grateful to Trevor Rees, and to others who came forward to give evidence – in many cases reawakening their painful and personal memories.

Finally, the two of us would like to express our most profound gratitude to all those who fought so desperately to save our mother’s life on that tragic night.

I think most of us would agree with the sentiments expressed.

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”.

With Mohamed al Fayed taking the witness stand today at the Diana inquest, the European Court of Human Rights has thrown out his allegations about the deaths of Princess Diana and his son, Dodi. The judges in Strasbourg found no evidence of foul play, and will hand down a verdict that the cause of death was a simple road traffic accident. They said Al Fayed’s case was “manifestly ill-founded” and ruled it “inadmissible”.

This is the third major investigation into the crash, and each has reached the same conclusion. Given the overwhelming weight of evidence presented, it would be perverse if the inquest did not also reach a similar verdict in five weeks when, thankfully, this three-ring circus finally comes to an end.

So how will the man who has generated all this activity perform today? The consensus is that he may fight his corner quite well. When he took the witness stand in 1999 at Neil Hamilton’s libel action over claims that the former Conservative MP took cash and gifts from Al Fayed in exchange for asking questions in the House of Commons, the Harrod’s boss was said to have performed “brilliantly”.

However, the direction of travel of this inquest is so much against him that he may struggle with some of the most aggressive questioning yet as old scores are settled and his wild accusations regurgitated.

He will take the stand for two days. It would be gruelling for any 75-year-old, but he will reap a whirlwind of his own making.

Update: At the inquest, Mohamed al Fayed has called the Royal Family the “Dracula family” and Prince Philip a Nazi who should be sent back to Germany. He also implicated hundreds of people in the alleged “consipiracy” by accusing French police, security services and investigators, as well as the Metropolitan Police, the Royal Family and MI6. That would make it the biggest conspiracy in history.

Paul Burrell has been caught on tape by The Sun newspaper claiming he lied under oath at the inquest and threw in a lot of “red herrings”. Perjury is a very serious offence and the Coroner has called for a copy of the video.

Why is it that most of Diana’s friends appear to be complete nutcases?

With the Diana Inquest reaching a gripping conclusion and the imminent presence of Mohamed al Fayed expected on the stand, a dizzying array of witnesses are falling like ninepins.

Fayed’s head of security, John Macnamara, has admitted he lied over Henri Paul’s drinking on the night. He now confesses that he had two Ricards in the hotel and possibly much more when he went off duty for three hours.

Michael Cole, former Royal Correspondent of the BBC, now with Al Fayed, was completely tripped up by Lord Justice Scott Baker, the Coroner, when his testimony didn’t match what he had said in the days after the crash.

Lord Stevens, author of the British police report on the crash, has demanded an apology from the Al Fayed team for accusing him of “not doing his job”, and for having been “got at” by sinister forces.

A former spy, Richard Tomlinson, said the death was similar to one cooked up at MI6 for the former Communist leader of Serbia. Tomlinson later revealed that God had told him he was the “second coming of Jesus”.

No wonder the Coroner is getting increasingly irritated by the quality of testimony at the inquest.

Both bodyguards on the night have questioned the Fayed version of events, and Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, was found to have made claims over evidence that were not true.

It seems Burrell has now been forced to shut down his website following his humiliating appearance at the inquest. He attracted so much “hate mail” that he decided to batten down the hatches.

A friend is reported as saying, “So many people have sent messages to the site criticising Paul that he’s had to take it down. It’s shocked him.”

Burrell admitted to copying Diana’s personal correspondence to preserve it for its “historical importance”. He subsequently used extracts for his best-selling books about life with the Princess.

With friends like these, no wonder Diana was all at sea in the last few months of her life.

Enough of the monkeys, we now await the organ grinder with barely suppressed anticipation.