Mother's 'abuse over muslim boyfriends'

 Add your view

In the latest set of revelations from Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's former butler mounts an astonishing attack on members of the Spencer family. He accuses her brother of cashing in on her death, tells how her mother abused her over her "Muslim" boyfriends, and reveals the bitter personal feuds and jealousies that festered in the family.

The muslim boyfriends

It may have been the most devastating call of her life: a stream of abuse from her mother about the men she had been dating.

It was to be the final falling-out between Princess Diana and Frances Shand Kydd - they did not make up before Diana died in August 1997.

Burrell claims today that the bitter phone call - "a torrent of abuse, swearing and upsetting innuendo" which he was invited to listen in on - was over her Muslim boyfriends, and took place six months before her death. Her boyfriends included heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Gulu Lalvani, both of them thought at the time to be Muslim.

They came before her relationship with Dodi Fayed. Burrell tells how he was summoned to listen to the phonecall and stood with the princess, the handset " sandwiched between their ears".

"I could hear the princess sobbing upstairs," he said. "I joined her, lending my ear as near to the phone as possible and listened to the conversation - albeit one-way.

"It was the slurring voice of Frances Shand Kydd. She was using the kind of language that you would never expect to hear a mother say to her daughter."

Healing the rift

Paul Burrell tells today how he desperately tried to mend the rift between Diana and her mother towards the end of her life. Diana would return her mother's letters unopened - recognising the thick writing which she decribed as "poker pen handwriting".

Burrell claims he phoned Mrs Shand Kydd at her remote Scottish island home and tried to mend fences between the two.

"I was unable to bring them back together," he said.

He does not detail the conversation, but says he believes the rift would have healed "in time".

His bridge-building bid was done entirely without the Princess's permission and was kept secret from her. She went to her grave without knowing of the secret talks Burrell had initiated.

The jealous sister

Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Diana's eldest sister, dated Prince Charles between 1977 and 1978. She was jealous at not being chosen as his future bride, Burrell claimed. On the day of the royal wedding, she turned to Diana and said: "This could all have been happening to me."

Lady Sarah was also accused by Burrell of turning on him in the witness box at his Old Bailey trial. The butler claims that as they went through Diana's belongings shortly after her death, she handed him a set of tiny silver cufflinks from one of the princess's dresses as a recognition of his unwavering "devotion" to her.

Burrell says: "It was so poignant that I will never forget it - but Lady Sarah did. Six years later she stood in court telling the world that I wasn't important enough to merit more than a pair of cufflinks to remember her by."

The silent sister

Diana maintained virtual silence towards her other sister Lady Jane Fellowes for nearly two years before her death, Burrell claims. She found it hard to forgive her for not taking her side properly during the "War of the Waleses" when her marriage to Prince Charles crumbled.

Although Lady Jane lived next door to Diana at Kensington Palace, the only time the two women met was when Lady Jane dropped off her children for skiing trips or to deliver Christmas presents.

An aggravating factor, Burrell says, was Diana's mistrust of her sister's husband Robert, who was at that time the Queen's private secretary. She saw him as part of a shadowy Establishment network pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The family's raid

Lady Sarah, Lady Jane, and their mother Frances Shand Kydd ransacked Diana's private apartments of carloads of belongings before any official inventory was made, Burrell claims.

The former butler says the family insisted on accompanying him when he opened up her private rooms, which he had previously sealed up with Scotch tape.

"They took out belts, shoes, jeans, handbags, sweaters and were trying them on to see if they would fit," he says. "Then they asked me to fetch the Princess's luggage and proceeded to pack up. They were clearly on a raid."

Lady Sarah made journeys home with the car so full she could not see through the rear view mirror, Burrell alleges. Later, he said, they destroyed all her cosmetics and toiletries and told him to dispose of her swimwear, lingerie and other "intimate garments". It was these, he says, that he was disposing of when he was challenged outside Kensington Palace.

The friends

Diana bucked the old saying by choosing her friends as her family. She looked for surrogate mothers and adoptive sisters, who to this day protect her memory jealously.

In place of her estranged mother, she turned to Lucia Flecha de Lima, wife of the Brazilian ambasador, and Lady Annabel Goldsmith.

They provided support along with three people who Burrell claims were her "adoptive sisters".

Rosa Monckton, wife of the Sunday Telegraph editor Dominic Lawson, remains closely associated with Diana's memory, heading the committee to build a memorial to her in Kensington Palace Gardens.

The other women she turned to were Susie Kassem and Mary Loveday, her personal doctor. Burrell claims he was her brother-figure.

'Acid Raine'

The princess tried to heal the long-standing family rift with her stepmother simply to annoy her own brother and sisters, Burrell alleges.

The Countess, who had earned herself the nickname "Acid Raine" among her stepchildren, was largely shunned by them after the death of their father, the eighth Earl Spencer.

But out of the blue, Diana made contact with her once more and would deliberately ensure that the pair were photographed having lunch together.

Burrell says: "It was to send a powerful message to her own family, who she thought were not supporting her in the way they should."

Diana, he claims, developed an admiration for the countess as a fellow "survivor" who had endured hostility from her adopted family.

The museum

The former butler reserves his greatest contempt for the museum set up by Earl Spencer in his sister's memory.

Accusing him of cashing in by opening her memorial to the public and charging £10.50, Burrell opens himself up to charges that he too is cashing in.

The museum has made Althorp one of Britain's biggest attractions and all its profits go to the Diana Memorial Fund. Each day of its summer opening it attracts more than 2,000 visitors.

This year Earl Spencer opened the museum in a blaze of publicity by accusing Diana's sons of ignoring her legacy by not visiting her island grave. Last year he made the same charge against Prince Charles.

Burrell says it was widely believed in royal circles that Diana should have had a public grave. "I wish she could be surrounded by people," he says.

The Earl

Paul Burrell today launches a fresh attack on Diana's brother Earl Spencer, calling him a stomach-churning "hypocrite" and accusing him of cashing in ruthlessly on his sister's memory.

The former butler tells how he watched Earl Spencer's speech at Diana's funeral with contempt and adds: "My stomach turned.

"I thought 'am I the only person here who thinks he's a hypocrite?'"

Burrell claims Spencer had hardly been close to his sister during his life.

But he reserves his vitriol for how the Earl acted after her death. He alleges that Spencer "dropped off " an unnamed girlfriend on his way to the funeral to be looked after by Burrell and his wife because he did not want to be seen in public with her.

And he says he was disgusted that Diana was buried at the Spencers' family home at Althorp in Northamptonshire adding: "I had no idea he was planning to take her home and charge the public to see her." He accused Spencer of seeking only to make money out of his family's most famous member.

"The Spencers found Diana unacceptable in life. But after her death they found her very acceptable at £10.50 a ticket," he says.

Burrell himself has never been to her grave after her burial.

But he has had his own, difficult relationship with the Earl, whom he claims was one of the "driving forces" of the prosecution which he claims was part of a "war" the Spencers were prosecuting against the Windsors.

"I knew with my case that I was being caught in the crossfire," he says.

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter