The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Police probe claims of SAS involvement in Diana crash
Previously unpublished family photographs of the Queen as a young girl are to beseenbythe public for the first time.
A book released this week to mark the birth of Prince George contains three new pictures of the future Queen between the ages of two and four.
In each of the images, taken by her parents, the then- princess demonstrates that she had a love of horses from a young age.
One photograph taken by her father, the future King George VI, sees the young Princess Elizabeth sitting on a toy horse at Naseby Hall in Northamptonshire in 1928, with her mother by her side.
In the same year, she is pictured sitting in a wicker pram, holding the reins of a miniature toy horse and cart. Her mother took the third photograph in 1930, which shows Princess Elizabeth sitting on a Shetland pony called Peggy, which had been given to her as a fourth birthday present by her grandfather, King GeorgeV. ThefutureQueen had learned to ride at the age of three and a half. Police are examining new information which alleges that Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were murdered by a member of the British military.
Scotland Yard said it is “scoping” the information and “assessing its relevance and credibility”.
The claims were passed to the Metropolitan Police by the Royal Military Police (RMP), which was told of them by the former parents-in-law of a former soldier based on information that the ex- soldier had talked about in the past, said a military source.
Aletter given to the RMP is said to allege that the SAS was “behind Princess Diana’s death”, and referred to the princess’s “secret diary”, in which she allegedly made certain claims.
A statement issued by Scotland Yard said: “The MetropolitanPolice Service is scoping information that has recently been received in relation to the deaths and assessing its relevance and credibility.
“This is not a re-investigation and does not come under Operation Paget.”
A royal spokeswoman said there will be no comment on the matter from the Duke of Cambridge or Prince Harry, or from Clarence House.
Diana, Dodi and chauffeur Henri Paul died after their Mercedes crashed in a Paris tunnel on the morning of August 31, 1997.
Diana, mother of William and Harry, was 36 at the time of her death, while Dodi was 42.
The hearing into their deaths lasted more than 90 days with evidence from around 250 witnesses.
The inquests concluded on April 7, 2008, with a jury returning a verdict that the “People’s Princess” and her boyfriend were unlawfully killed.
After the hearing, the Metropolitan Police said it hadspent£8milliononservices arising from the inquest and the Operation Paget investigation from 2004 to 2006. Former Met Police Commissioner Lord Stevens’s Paget investigation was l aunched in 2004.
He published his report in December 2006, rejecting the murder claims voiced by some, including Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed.
Lord Stevens’s investigation found that Diana was not murdered by British spies nor by the Duke of Edinburgh and she was not pregnant nor engaged to boyfriend Dodi.
Operation Paget concluded, just like the French investigation in 1999, that Mr Paul was drunk and driving at excessive speed.
A spokesman for Mr Al Fayed said he had no comment to make, but said he will be “interested in seeing the outcome”.
Dai Davies, an ex-head of royal protection, said he was mystified by the claims.
He said the deaths were “an accident by any definition”, and that three separate inquiries “have come to the same independent conclusion”.