Diana driver 'did not appear drunk'

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Sebastien Trotte, a former barman at the Ritz hotel in Paris, said Mr Paul drank two 4cl measures of Ricard - aniseed spirit - while waiting with bodyguards in the hotel's Bar Vendome pending the departure of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed on what was to be their fatal final journey on the night of August 30-31, 1997.

Ian Burnett QC, counsel for the inquest, asked: "Did he appear to you to have had too much to drink?"

Mr Trotte, giving evidence through an interpreter by video link from Paris, replied: "No."

"Did he appear to you to be in any sense drunk?"

"No."

Mr Paul and the bodyguards "were all a bit nervous", the witness said.

"Mr Paul had been called back from his home and they were waiting for the signal for Princess Diana and Mr Fayed to leave," he told coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker and the London jury.