Grieving Lady Butler- Sloss pays tribute to ‘free spirit’ son

ELIZABETH ButlerSloss, who was chosen to chair the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, is mourning her own son.

Film producer William ButlerSloss has died of stomach cancer at the age of 50.

‘He was a brave, free spirit,’ Baroness Butler- Sloss tells me. ‘He made a successful career as a producer of commercials in Los Angeles.

‘As a mother, I am extremely proud of him and his wife, Vicky, and their children, Arum and Roibhilin.’

A cousin of Eighties heart-throb Nigel Havers, Eton- educated William helped turn Nick Hornby’s best-selling novel Fever Pitch into a West End show.

As a fledgling theatre producer, he joked that he was disappointing his mother, saying: ‘If I don’t do the washing- up, all hell breaks loose, but that’s the modern judiciary for you.’

At that time Lady ButlerSloss was a High Court judge. She went on to become the first female Lord Justice of Appeal and, until 2004, was the most senior female judge in the United Kingdom.

Dame Elizabeth, 84, and her husband, Joseph, 91, live in East Devon and have two other children Frances, 58, and Robert, 55. Dame Elizabeth announced she was stepping down from the Diana inquest in 2007, saying that she felt she lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury.

William’s widow, Victoria Harwood, is an actress who appeared in Eighties television comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

She now wears his wedding ring as well as her own.

‘My angel has flown,’ she told friends online. ‘ RIP my darling.’