UK newsDodi Fayed bought £11,000 engagement ring for Diana
· Visit to jeweller's hours before couple's fatal crash· Princess was never given purchase, inquest jury told
Dodi Fayed, the son of the Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, did buy Princess Diana an £11,600 engagement ring a few hours before the couple's death in the Paris crash in 1997, though he had no chance to give it to her, the inquest jury heard yesterday.
The jury, sitting in the high court, was shown grainy CCTV footage from the Repossi jeweller's shop, across the square from the Ritz hotel in Paris, taken the afternoon before the crash. It showed Dodi Fayed, who was not accompanied by the princess, surrounded by staff as he inspected rings before leaving with a brochure.
Later footage showed Claude Roulet, assistant to the president of the Ritz hotel, visiting the shop and taking an item in a bag to the couple's room in the hotel's Imperial suite. The bag was deposited in the hotel strongroom before the couple went to Dodi's flat elsewhere in the city.
A ring bearing the inscription "Dis-moi Oui" ("Tell me Yes") was recovered from the flat after the couple's death. A receipt dated August 30 1997, the day before the crash, listing a "bague de fiançaille" (engagement ring), was also recovered.
It has been a key part of Mohamed Fayed's case that the couple were about to get engaged, that the princess was pregnant and that they were murdered by British secret service agents on the instructions of the Duke of Edinburgh to prevent their marriage.
Mr Fayed says that the couple had met the jeweller Alberto Repossi at his Monte Carlo store to choose the ring during their holiday on the Fayed yacht in the Mediterranean. He claims that the ring was then sized in Italy and sent to Paris. There was no indication yesterday that Dodi Fayed had got round to giving Diana the ring but the jury was told that his father believes he was planning to present her with it on the night they died.
The inquest was told earlier this week that paparazzi photographers crowded around the Ritz hotel on hearing rumours that there was to be an announcement of the princess's engagement, or pregnancy.
Friends of the princess have denied that the couple were engaged or that Princess Diana was thinking of marriage to Dodi Fayed.
The inquest has also heard that the princess was taking the pill at the time of her death and doctors treating her following the crash detected no sign that she was pregnant.
The inquest into the couple's deaths has completed the third week of what is expected to be a hearing which will last up to six months.
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