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[TonyGosling]

http://express.lineone.net/news_detail.html?sku=276

Daily Express - 04/08/06

THE investigation into the death of Princess Diana was facing fresh chaos last night after the search to replace the Royal Coroner drew a blank.

To the embarrassment of the Royal Family and Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, no senior judge has yet emerged to take on the highly sensitive role.

It is now 14 days since the inquiry was thrown into confusion when Michael Burgess quit as head of the inquest into the deaths of Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed.

The long-awaited hearing, with a mass of new evidence presented by Lord Stevens, will decide whether Diana and Dodi were murdered.

The delay is a cruel blow to Dodi’s grieving father, Mohamed Al Fayed.

Uncertainty over the inquest is causing great concern to the Harrods tycoon whose own investigators have unearthed a mass of evidence to support his allegations of foul play.

A legal expert said last night: "In one way, it is hardly surprising that no one wants to step into Michael Burgess’s shoes. The Diana inquest is seen as a poisoned chalice.

"Everyone connected to Diana and Dodi would have been entitled to think that a successor to Michael Burgess would be announced at the same time as his resignation."

Mr Burgess, 60, stood down from the Diana inquest on June 21 citing pressure of work – he is the coroner for Surrey. He was expected to be replaced by a High Court judge but no one has accepted the challenge.

One of the most thorny issues surrounding the inquest remains unresolved: Should it have a jury and who should sit on it? Mr Burgess believed that, as the law stands, it would have to be made up of Buckingham Palace aides.

But lawyers for Mr Fayed argued that Diana was stripped of her legal status as a royal as part of the £17million divorce settlement agreed with Prince Charles in 1996. One legal source said: "Michael Burgess was damned either way. If there had been a royal jury or no jury, the cry would go up ‘Establishment cover up’."

Diana, 36, and Dodi, 41, were killed when their Mercedes crashed into a concrete pillar in the Pont de L’Alma tunnel in Paris in August 1997.

The French blamed driver Henri Paul, saying he was under the influence of drink and drugs and was driving too fast.

The Paris investigation was condemned by Mr Fayed who is convinced that the British Establishment engineered the fatal crash.