They were summoned, at random, from the West London electoral register to perform the citizen’s duty of jury service. They had no idea what they were in for. A drowning in the Thames, perhaps, or a hit-and-run road death.

Two hundred and twenty-seven letters went out, many of which hit immediate cast-iron excuses. Eighty people finally obeyed the order to attend the courthouse in Horseferry Road, Westminster, yesterday morning, only to find themselves shepherded on to coaches for a magical mystery tour that ended at Court 73 deep in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand.

Potential jurors do not, as a rule, know in advance which case they may be asked to sit upon in judgment; they are a pool of the good and the true, to be called upon as required.

They were herded in two batches into the courtroom, where they sat in rows of blue chairs at the back to be given the bad news by the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker. They had been called upon to decide the cause of death of the most celebrated West Londoner of recent times and her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the hearing, one of the biggest inquests in living memory, could eat up six months of their lives.

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To their undoubted surprise, the coroner told them: “Ladies and gentlemen, you have been summoned for jury service, not for any ordinary case, but to serve on a jury on the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed. It will probably have come as a shock to you and you will be wondering why you have not been given any advance notice.”

The coroner explained that the deaths in a Paris underpass more than ten years ago had created worldwide interest on an unprecedented scale. He did not want them to start reading books to get themselves up to speed on the case or looking things up on the internet. He told the potential jurors that, if chosen, they must decide the case only on the evidence they heard in court, and must banish from their minds anything they had previously heard or seen about the case. That, he conceded, would be difficult, given the tidal wave of speculation.

“You have to put out of your minds anything you have heard out of court,” the coroner told them. If chosen, they should not even read or watch the daily news reports of the hearings. “This is not an ordinary case,” he said.

The 80 were then presented with a questionnaire and invited to retire and fill it in over a cup of coffee. Given the sensitivity and the potential length of the hearing, the inquest is taking unusual pains to weed out either those who might be accused of having vested interests or those who may suddenly plead a long-booked holiday or medical appointment in the middle of what will at times certainly be a deeply tedious hearing.

Candidates were asked, in a list of ten questions, to declare whether they, their family or their friends had ever been employed by or associated with the Royal Family, the Fayed family or the Spencers. They also were told to declare any business or enterprise connected with Mr Al Fayed, including Harrods store, Fulham Football Club or the Ritz Hotel in Paris. In addition, they were asked to declare any links with the Metropolitan Police, MI5, MI6 or GCHQ. Mr Al Fayed continues to insist that Diana and his son were murdered in a plot masterminded by the Duke of Edinburgh and carried out by British security services.

After reading the questionnaires the coroner had whittled down his list of potential jurors to 25. He needs 11.

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