Bodyguard: All I remember is Diana's voice
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
1:50PM GMT 23 Jan 2008
The sole survivor of the car crash in which Diana, Princess of Wales was killed has said his only memory of what happened is hearing the Princess call out for her boyfriend Dodi Fayed.
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Trevor Rees, who was Mr Fayed's personal bodyguard, said he heard a woman's voice "moaning" and saying "Dodi" as he lay semi-conscious in the wreckage of the crashed Mercedes, having suffered appalling facial injuries.
Trevor Rees (left) in the car before the crash
Mr Rees, who was known at the time as Trevor Rees-Jones, said the woman's voice was one of only two things he remembered after the car set off from the Ritz hotel in Paris in August 1997, though psychiatrists had advised him they could be "false memories".
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The other was a vague recollection of a motorbike alongside the car when it stopped at traffic lights during the journey.
Giving evidence at the inquest into the deaths of the Princess and Mr Fayed, Mr Rees confirmed the accuracy of a statement given to French investigators in which he said: "I have a memory of stopping at traffic lights and seeing a motorcycle on the right hand side of the car. I'm not sure about the other vehicles but I can remember this motorcycle very clearly.
"My memory then is of total confusion. I don't remember the pain but in my head there was a lot of confusion.
"I don't remember if someone was holding me or attempting to give me treatment.
"I remember having heard somebody moaning and the name Dodi was uttered but I don't know who said it. On the other hand if there was no-one else there apart from us, I conclude that it was Princess Diana as it was a female voice.
"These memories are vague and I myself doubt them but I'm mentioning them as these memories are coming back to me repeatedly."
Mr Rees, 39, was the front passenger in the Mercedes which was being driven by Henri Paul, the Ritz's head of security, when it slammed into a pillar in the Alma underpass at around 65mph.
Mr Paul and Mr Fayed were killed instantly. The Princess, who was in the back seat with Mr Fayed, died later in hospital and Mr Rees underwent months of hospital treatment, and had his face rebuilt by surgeons using family photographs for reference.
None of the occupants of the Mercedes was wearing a seatbelt, the inquest has been told. Mr Rees has always maintained that he cannot remember anything else about the fatal journey from the Ritz to the Alma tunnel.
He was shown lengthy extracts of CCTV footage taken inside the Ritz hotel on the night of the crash, which charted his movements during the Princess's final hours.
Mr Rees, whose face is still deeply scarred from his injuries, stared at the screen intently, watching the colour images of himself with the Princess and Mr Fayed, but time and time again, as Ian Burnett QC, counsel to the inquest, asked him if the pictures "jog your memory", he replied: "I'm afraid not, no."
Dodi Fayed's father Mohamed Fayed believes the couple were murdered by MI6 on the orders of Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and that Mr Rees is part of a cover-up. He has claimed in the past that Mr Rees, a former paratrooper, is lying about how much he can remember, and is "suppressing the truth".
Mr Rees said: "I am not part of a conspiracy to suppress the truth at all. All I have ever done is give the truth as I see it."
Mr Rees spoke so quietly during his evidence the Royal Courts of Justice in London that the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, frequently had to ask him to keep his voice up as the jury were having difficulty hearing what he was saying.
The jury has heard that Mr Paul was three times over the French drink-drive limit when he took the wheel – something which Mr Rees said he was unaware of at the time.
He told the jury he had been unhappy with a last-minute plan, concocted by Mr Fayed, to leave the hotel that night via a rear entrance, with Mr Paul driving, to avoid waiting press photographers, rather than using the two cars parked at the front of the hotel which the couple had been using earlier in the day.
"I wasn't happy as it meant Dodi would be splitting the security officers, but I went along with it," he said. "I advised Dodi that we could leave from the front of the hotel in two vehicles as the crowd and the press would be pushed back across the road at the front of the hotel.
"Initially I had been told that Dodi and Diana would travel without security and I said this would not happen, that I would travel in the vehicle with them."
Mr Rees also rubbished claims by Mohamed Fayed that the Princess and Dodi had chosen an engagement ring together during a visit to Monte Carlo a week before they died.
Asked by Mr Burnett whether the couple's alleged visit to the Repossi jewellery shop in Monte Carlo had happened, Mr Rees, who was with the couple