'I saw Diana open her eyes as she lay in the wreckage' witness tells inquest

Eric Li-Falandry said he spotted the barely conscious Princess lying on the floor of the mangled Mercedes and only realised she was still alive when her eyelids flickered.

He saw others tending to her injured bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones and described the distressing moment he saw the body of the driver, Henri Paul.

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"I looked in the back of the car and I saw a woman sitting on the floor with her back against the rear of the right hand door as someone was attending to her," he said.

"I then noticed her open her eyes, I said to myself that she was alive and I went on to the driver.

"I saw his white hand and I knew that he was dead. I couldn't see his face."

His account emerged as the hearing was told that rumours were circulating that Diana was poised to announce a pregnancy or an engagement to her lover Dodi Fayed on the night of her death.

Paparazzi gathering outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where the couple were dining on the night of August 30, 1997, had been told to expect an imminent announcement.

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Mr Li-Falandry, a 47-year-old hire car chauffeur from Bordeaux, arrived to find two vehicles with their hazard lights on blocking the carriageway.

In a statement read out to court, he said: "I stopped just out of curiosity. I then approached the expressway and ended up looking down on that route.

"I should point out that there were lots of people about. I could even hear people apparently arguing in the tunnel.

"Not knowing how long ago the accident had taken place, I decided to go down into the underpass to see if I could be of any help.

"I ran down towards the scene of the accident. When I got close to the crashed car, I noticed someone tending to the front right-hand passenger.

"He was taking his pulse, I think. I noticed a second person tending to the rear female passenger.

"As I only noticed her in the back of the vehicle I went around the vehicle ending up on the vehicle's right.

"As I made my way round, I went behind the photographers, one of whom was telling the others not to take photos of the interior. He repeated this several times.

"As I was about to help the person tending to the woman, I noticed the police arrive."

As ten photographers swarmed around the mangled Mercedes, Mr Li-Falandry returned to his car.

The hearing at the High Court in London also heard from a French photographer who told police that he had been at home in Paris when he received a call between 9pm and 9.30pm from his chief editor asking him to go to the Ritz hotel because an announcement of Diana's engagement or pregnancy was expected.

Thierry Orban said: "He told me that there were rumours of an announcement that Lady Diana was getting married or having a baby and asked me to go to the Ritz Hotel."

In a statement to police, Mr Thierry of Sygma picture agency said he did not go to the Ritz as he had friends for dinner but he later attended the crash scene.

He said he pursued the Princess's ambulance as it stopped just a short distance from the Pitie Salpetriere Hospital when her condition deteriorated sharply.

"The ambulance stopped, the driver got out and got into the back, that was when I took the only photograph of the ambulance which in any case was blurry. It was rocking as if they were doing cardiac massage.

"Then the ambulance carried on to the Pitie Salpetriere Hospital. From there I turned back."

The hearing continues.