Diana jury considers verdict

Coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker sent the panel of six women and five men, sitting at the High Court in London, out to consider their verdicts.

An unprecedented six-month inquest at the High Court in London has heard the evidence of around 250 witnesses in the UK and by video link from France, the US, Nigeria, Kenya and Australia.

Diana and Dodi were killed alongside driver Henri Paul when the Mercedes they were travelling in crashed into a pillar in the Alma underpass in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

They were pursued by paparazzi after leaving the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel where they had spent the evening, but accounts differ over whether the photographers were around them at the moment of the crash.

There is widespread evidence that Mr Paul - the hotel's acting head of security - was three times the French drink-drive limit and speeding at the time.

Seconds before striking the 13th pillar of the underpass the Mercedes also had a glancing contact with a white Fiat Uno as it passed, the court heard. The other car has never been conclusively traced.

The six-woman and five-man jury must now decide whether the smash was manslaughter, an accident or unexplained.

But, on the orders of the coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker, they can not return a verdict which supports any of the murder conspiracy theories which have surrounded the tragedy for 10 years.

He ruled this week that there was "not a shred of evidence" to back them.