Diana driver was the one taking risks, claims paparazzo who took death crash pictures

Driver Henri Paul took "too many risks" while driving Diana, Princess of Wales, on the fatal journey in which she was killed, her inquest heard today.

Paparazzo Romuald Rat claimed the Mercedes carrying Diana "took off, like shot off" once it reached the Champs Elysées in a bid to lose the chasing pack of photographers.

Minutes later in the early hours of 31 August 1997, the car crashed in the Alma Tunnel in Paris, killing Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed and Mr Paul, the head of security at the Paris Ritz Hotel.

In a police statement Mr Rat, who had been following Diana all day and taking photographs, said: "I did not understand why the Mercedes suddenly drove so quickly since everything had gone so well during the day and a normal chauffeur knows that is not the way that you shake someone off.

"He took too many risks."

Police statements from several paparazzi who were on the scene that night are being read to the jury as they refuse to appear, either by videolink from Paris or in person at the London inquest.

Mr Paul had repeatedly come out of the back of the Ritz, before the couple departed, to talk to the photographers and "broadly speaking he was mocking us", Mr Rat claimed.

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Mr Rat said that at one point one of the photographers had said of Mr Paul: "I think he has been drinking." The driver was later found to be over the drink-drive limit.

However, Robert Weekes, representing Mr Paul's parents, said: "There is no suggestion that Mr Paul's voice was slurred, that he was unsteady on his feet or that his eyes were glazed.

"On the basis of Mr Rat's statement you would not be able to conclude that Henri Paul was drunk."

Mr Rat was among seven photographers arrested at the scene of the crash.

He admits to being a "leading pursuer" as the couple left the Ritz Hotel and probably one of the first on the scene.

He arrived, as the passenger on his colleague Stephane Darmon's blue Honda motorbike, to find smoke coming from the tunnel.

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He left the motorbike and ran to the Mercedes firing off around two photographs "as a reflex" as he went.

He said he lost the Mercedes as it sped off through Paris, only catching up with it in the tunnel.

The Mercedes had been too powerful for the paparazzi to keep pace, he claimed.

But Tom de la Mare, for the Ritz Hotel, told the inquest that Mr Rat's statements contained several inconsistencies, including a "downright lie".

French experts had found the Mercedes was under-powered and the motorbike might have been able to keep pace, the jury was told.

At first Mr Rat said he had been unable to keep up but in another statement he claims he was delayed in setting off from the Ritz.

If Mr Rat had been some distance behind the Mercedes, as he claims, he might have been caught up in a human cordon thrown up by passers-by after the crash, Mr de la Mare pointed out.

Mobile telephone records also showed he had been in contact with David Odekerken, a photographer from a rival agency. This was something that Mr Rat did not discuss with police.

Perhaps this showed they were "working in concert", Mr de la Mare said.

He told the court: "So we have the embroidery about the pursuit and the cover-up of Odekerken. Then we have - for want of a better word - downright lies that the he initially tells about what photographs he took on his arrival at the scene."

The jury was told that Mr Rat's original account wrongly claims he only started to take photographs after the arrival of Dr Frederic Mailliez, a passing medic who stopped to help.

The French authorities mounted an investigation against all but two of the photographers on potential charges of failing to render assistance and involuntary manslaughter.

The investigation focused on the driving of the paparazzi and whether they sought to help the injured.

The case against the paparazzi was dismissed in December 1999 when the judge was satisfied the driving of the photographers had not caused the crash.