Di bodyguard attacks butler

 Add your view

Ken Wharfe (with Diana): Has accused Paul Burrell of spreading "Best-selling fiction"

Princess Diana's former Scotland Yard bodyguard today turned on Paul Burrell, describing some of his most serious revelations as like "best-selling fiction".

Ken Wharfe, writing exclusively in the Evening Standard, accused Burrell, 44, of having become "obsessed" with the Princess and of thinking, wrongly, that he was the only man she would call "her rock".

In a lengthy rebuttal of the claims made after the butler sold his story for a reputed £400,000, the retired detective challenges Burrell's account of events, from the claim he had a three-hour meeting with the Queen - which he says he "seriously questions" - to Diana jokingly calling £50 notes "pink grannies".

Mr Wharfe also leaped to the defence of the Spencer family, saying Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, had been the woman to whom she turned in times of crisis. Although they sometimes fell out, like any other family, their bond always endured.

The former police protection officer also defends Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who has been vilified for "driving the prosecution" against Burrell, saying she had acted entirely properly and in her late sister's best interests.

The extraordinary intervention by Mr Wharfe, who has not asked for or been paid any money, comes as Burrell makes a second wave of revelations about the Princess's life.

It also comes after senior courtiers dismissed many of Burrell's key claims as "fantasy", accusing him of "selective amnesia". One said: "Paul Burrell's version is beginning to sound like the first ramblings of a madman."

Today Burrell describes the full extent of Diana's rift with her mother, only hinted at during his sensational trial, saying they did not speak for six months after a conversation in which Mrs Shand Kydd "hurled a tirade of obscenities" at her daughter.

He also launches a devastating attack on the Spencer family, claiming they cashed in on Diana's memory, adding: "They found her very acceptable at £10.50 a ticket."

Burrell's other revelations in today's Daily Mirror include:

• Diana "disintegrated in tears" when Earl Spencer refused to let her have a hide-away cottage on his Althorp estate.

• How his "stomach turned" as Earl Spencer delivered his famous speech at Diana's funeral, and the butler thought: "Am I the only one who thinks he is a hypocrite."

• Earl Spencer secretly brought a girlfriend to the funeral but would not be seen with her.

• Diana's sister, Lady Sarah, was "jealous of Diana" and at the Princess's wedding said: "I thought this would be all mine."

• Lady Sarah and Mrs Shand Kydd were "on a raid" as they rifled through the Princess's possessions after her death.

• The Princess did not speak to her sister, Lady Jane Fellowes - whose husband Sir Robert was the Queen's private secretary - for nearly two years before her death.

• She rekindled her relationship with her step-mother, Countess Raine Spencer - nicknamed "acid Raine" by the family - to irritate her sisters and brother.

Mr Wharfe challenged Burrell's claim that Diana's relationship with her family was strained to breaking point throughout her life. He told how he and not Burrell had gone on family holidays with the Princess and seen how close she was to Mrs Shand Kydd - despite their last falling-out before her death.

"I witnessed a close family bond and unity," said the bodyguard.

"When Diana was at her most troubled and really needed the most private of counsel it was to her mother she would turn.

"Yes, they would fall out from time to time, but what family doesn't?"

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter