A woman passenger in the right-hand rear seat of a crashed Mercedes was crushed against the front seat with her hand raised, the inquests of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were told yesterday.

Grigori Rassinier, a French motorist who had been travelling in the opposite direction through the Alma tunnel at the time of the fatal accident in 1997, said in written evidence to the jury in London that he had also seen a motorcycle emerge from the smoke surrounding the accident and quickly leave the scene without stopping.

Witnessing the scene for only a few seconds before deciding that it would be safer to keep driving, he said that he saw the Mercedes juddering in the immediate aftermath of collision.

“The interior light of the crashed car was on. As a result I could see two heads in the back of the car. Immediately afterwards I heard a hooter followed by the sound of braking and then saw a motorcycle emerge from the smoke.” Thick smoke, he said, was billowing from the front of the crashed Mercedes.

“The motorcycle swerved as if it were avoiding the crashed car. It left very quickly after having executed the swerve; it seemed improbable that it stopped before setting off again. I think that the motorcycle simply had time to slow down or to brake very hard.”

Mr Rassinier said that he saw only one person on the motorcycle, dressed in beige. He believed it to have been following the Mercedes, but not so closely that it was involved in the accident.

Sarah Culpepper, strolling near the Alma tunnel during a weekend visit to Paris, said that she had seen a stationary car at the exit to the tunnel, and a smartly dressed middle-aged man emerge on foot from the tunnel and attempt to make a call on a mobile phone. She had heard the crash, and assumed that the man, who was not carrying a camera, was trying to call the emergency services. Cross-examined by Ian Croxford, QC, representing the Ritz Hotel, Paris, which is owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, Ms Culpepper admitted she could not hear the contents of the man’s telephone conversation, but she agreed he was acting in a calm and professional manner.

Another motorist said she was left “amazed” after noticing a stationary car near the entrance to the tunnel. Amel Samer, who drove through the underpass in the aftermath of the crash, recalled that she saw two men leave the scene, get into the vehicle and “disappear” in it. The men had been among an arc of about ten people – most of them taking photographs – standing around the wreckage of the Princess’s Mercedes.

Ms Samer said in a statement: “After passing the Alma bridge, I went into the underpass . . . I passed a stationary car on the other side of the road. I was puzzled by this as it was not a place that you would normally park a car.” She described it as a large dark vehicle - possibly a Mercedes or an Audi. “It amazed me because it was so strange to have a car stopped on the right lane of this fast track,” she told the court via video link in Paris.

Ms Samer noticed the two men after coming across the crashed Mercedes and stopping to call the emergency services. “It was when I was looking behind, when I was on the phone, that I noticed two men leaving the arc formed by the photographers to head towards the black car that I mentioned at the beginning . . . I saw them get into the car and disappear in it,” she added in a statement.

She was previously shown photographs of paparazzi arrested at the scene and afterwards, but did not identify any of them as the two men. One of the line-ups of the photographers, which was also shown to the jury last week, showed the first seven to be detained at the crash site. They were pictured side by side, numbered one to seven with large white cards bearing black numerals hanging around their necks.

Miss Samer recalled seeing “bluish” flashes as she entered the entrance to the tunnel. “I noticed two things at the same time. The hazard warning lights of the cars in front and some bluish flashes coming from the other side of the underpass towards the exit.”

The flashes came from the photographers’ cameras, she told the jury. Ms Samer described one of the two men as aged between 30 and 40, of average build with short brown hair, possibly wearing a pink shirt. He was not carrying a camera. The other, who had a camera with a long lens, was European, small, very thin with short brown hair and glasses, she said.

The hearing continues.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Why Witherspoon is highlighting domestic violence
• No, MP does not stand for Mostly Plastered
• Don’t bottle out of your champagne moment