[diana] butler-sloss well out of order on this one

As Ian Hislop once said: "If this is justice, then I'm a banana."

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, pre-empting the jury inquiry, said on Monday she had not seen "a shred of evidence" to back up claims she had been murdered.

Now I'm no lawyer, unlike some of my learned fellow bloggers but this seems to me to be well out of order, offering an opinion before an investigation she'll be co-heading even gets underway.

Appeal court judge Janet Smith, on the other hand, said: "Mr Al Fayed has alleged that the Duke of Edinburgh and the security services conspired to kill the princess and Dodi Al Fayed. The allegation must be inquired into."

Damned right. Fayed knows exactly what went on in the emergency room and who was in there when Diana was taken in there. He knows why the delay in getting her to emergency, so that certain persons could be present and he probably knows why they had to be there in a non-medical capacity. And why they departed soon after.

It will be interesting to see if this comes out or not.