One of the first people on the scene of the crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed told their inquests yesterday of the horror of what he found in the Paris underpass.

James Huth, a dental surgeon turned film-maker, had been watching television at his parents’ apartment close to the Alma tunnel when he heard a screech of tyres and three distinct “shocks”. He was at the scene within two minutes.

Speaking over a video-link from Paris, he described how he found the crashed Mercedes with its doors still closed, but photographers already taking pictures. Two men were trying to open the car doors; one man, described as being of a North African appearance, was fighting with a photographer and trying to grab his camera. “The man was screaming that he didn’t have the right to take pictures,” he said.

Mr Huth told the jury that he saw three people in the car and that he was unaware until he heard later news reports that the Princess had been a passenger, because she had slumped into the footwell of the rear seats.

“The airbags were out, and the driver’s [Henri Paul’s] head was inside one of them. The front passenger [Trevor Rees-Jones] was panicking, and his jaw was hanging low. I tried to calm him down in French and told him that help was coming,” he said.

Mr Huth said he had implored those trying to open the car doors not to move the occupants; his training had taught him that to move anyone with spinal injuries could kill them. “I told them I was a doctor and that they must not move the bodies,” he said.

Mr Huth ran out of the tunnel and borrowed a phone from the driver of a Jaguar to call the emergency services.

Cross-examined by Richard Keen, QC, representing the parents of Mr Paul, and one of the Fayed legal team, Mr Huth admitted that his memory of whether there had been another car in the tunnel at the time had become foggy. In his original statement to French police, which he was invited to reread yesterday, he said that there might have been another car parked some distance away at the tunnel exit, which subsequently drove off. Ten years on, he was much less certain. Other witnesses have suggested the presence of a second vehicle, and of a motorcycle, but Mr Huth had no recollection of either.

He gave his original statement in confidence to French police on September 19, 1997, a little over two weeks after the accident. He was surprised, he told the hearing at the High Court in London, to find two men on his doorstep the next day, claiming to be French journalists, who were clearly aware of what he had told police.

He thought it unusual that the car had crashed where it did. “Most accidents occur when vehicles are leaving the tunnel. If the Mercedes braked suddenly, the only reason would be that there was something in its way.”

The hearing continues.

Contempt warning to media

— The media has been told that approaching witnesses could be in contempt of court

— An American reporter approached a witness in France who was due to give evidence

— A statement was released by the Judicial Communications Office on behalf of the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker

— It said: “The enormous international public interest in no way excuses any interference with the fair conduct of these inquests”

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