Diana's driver 'headed straight for the bar' just hours before the fatal crash

The driver of the car in which Diana was killed was caught on camera heading straight for the bar at the Ritz Hotel on the night of the tragedy, a jury heard today.

CCTV footage viewed at the Princess's inquest today shows Henri Paul making his way to the bar at the Paris hotel shortly after 10pm.

Mr Paul, acting head of security at the hotel, went off duty at 7pm on the night of August 30.

But three hours later, when Dodi and Diana unexpectedly returned to the hotel followed by paparazzi, he was summoned to return.

It is unclear where he spent the intervening three hours but today the jury were shown images from cameras at the hotel showing Mr Paul returning in his Mini at 10.05pm.

Moments later he is seen walking straight into the hotel's Bar Vendome, where bodyguards Trevor Rees (formerly known as Rees Jones) and Kes Wingfield are already waiting.

The jury has already heard that Mr Paul ordered two Ricards - an aniseed spirit - that night after his return to the hotel.

What is not known is where he had been in the intervening hours and whether he had been drinking.

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Yesterday coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury: "He ordered two Ricards... in the Ritz following his return after 10pm.

"But had he had anything more to drink between 7pm and 10pm?

"In that period, he would perhaps have been entitled to assume that he would not be coming back to work that evening."

Diana and Dodi were driven away from the Ritz by Mr Paul at around 20 minutes past midnight on August 31.

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Minutes later, the Mercedes he was driving crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel, killing Dodi and Mr Paul and leaving Diana mortally injured.

Although trained in driving, Mr Paul was not a chauffeur.

It was during the three hours after his return to the hotel that night that the decision was taken for Mr Paul to drive the couple as part of a plan to evade the paparazzi.

The jury has heard already that blood tests showed Mr Paul was over the drink-drive limit when he crashed into a pillar in an underpass with the Princess and her lover Dodi Fayed in the back in the early hours of August 31 1997.

But Dodi's father, Ritz owner Mohamed al Fayed, insists Mr Paul was not drunk and that the samples were switched.