The final moments in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, were accompanied by the clicking of camera shutters, the inquests into the deaths of the Princess and Dodi Fayed were told yesterday.

In the morning a Parisian couple described seeing a white Fiat Uno, the mysterious car that has been suggested as the cause of the crash, swerving violently as it left the scene. In the afternoon the jury heard an account from a motorcyclist of the paparazzi chase of the Princess and Mr Fayed.

Stephane Darmon said that he was working as a motorcyclist with Gamma, a press agency. On Saturday, August 30, he was assigned the job of carrying Romuald Rat, a photographer with the agency. Mr Rat had been informed that the Princess and Mr Fayed were flying from Sardinia to Le Bourget airport. Speaking via a video link from Paris, Mr Darmon recalled how the Mercedes had lost the chasing pack as it left the airport, and the scene when the paparazzi reconvened outside the Ritz Hotel.

Henri Paul, the driver, “was playing a game with photographers”, Mr Darmon said. “Mr Paul was very jolly and said something like: Lady Di will be arriving in a quarter of an hour, in ten minutes, trying to create an atmosphere of pressure and anticipation.”

Q&A: the Diana inquest

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Multimedia

• Video: Diana CCTV footage

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BACKGROUND

• Separating fact from fiction in the great Diana conspiracy

• ‘Diana decision is yours alone’

• Inquest hears evidence Diana was on the Pill

• Jury duty with a Royal difference

• Was Diana’s death part of a secret plot?

Related Internet Links

• Coroner's inquest - Official Site

Related Links

• Photographers 'clambered on car'

• ‘Oh my God,’ said Diana as she lay dying

Mr Darmon said: “On a very personal note, I’ve got to say my father was an alcoholic. When I saw Mr Paul, he reminded me of my father, his eyes, the way he acted.”

He said that there was panic when photographers realised that the couple had left from the back of the hotel. Mr Darmon and Mr Rat caught up with the Mercedes at a set of traffic lights in Place de Concorde, as it made its way to the Alma tunnel. When the lights went green the Mercedes waited for a space in the traffic then “it took off like a plane”.

Mr Darmon believes that his bike was the first to reach the car in the Alma tunnel. He said that he pulled up beyond the wreckage. Mr Rat tried to open the door of the car and other men crowded round it. “They were taking photographs,” he said. “I couldn’t see the car any more because the light was so bright . . . I could hear the noise made by different cameras and flashlights; it was continuous,” Mr Darmon added.

Before Mr Darmon gave evidence, a Parisian couple had described seeing a white Fiat Uno leaving the tunnel, zigzagging from left to right at 12.30am. George and Sabine Dauzonne were driving down the slip road to join the expressway where it rises from the Alma tunnel in their Rolls-Royce at 12.30am on August 31. “I thought someone drunk was driving that car,” Mr Dauzonne said. “Then I realised he was doing something with the mirror.”

When the couple heard the news of the death of the Princess and Mr Fayed both concluded that the driver must have been looking behind him into the tunnel.

Although neither was able to recall the appearance of the driver with any certainty, Mr and Mrs Dauzonne said that two pictures of a man of Mediterranean appearance appeared to jog their memory.

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