Smash hit

His main concern was that “my life would become hell because of who she was” and they would usually only meet at Kensington Palace or at his home – among the few places where the media “could not get to us”.

Dr Khan recalled how Diana would attempt to avoid detection on dates elsewhere. On a visit to Ronnie Scott’s, a Soho jazz club, the princess had donned a black wig, he said.

On another occasion, when he and Diana went to a pub, she asked if she could order the drinks as she had never done so before. She chatted to the barman and very much enjoyed the experience, he said.

However in the end, he told her he did not want that sort of lifestyle, and suggested moving to Pakistan where the media would not bother them. The princess visited Pakistan and discussed a possible move with Jemima Khan, who was then married to cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

“Later I got the impression she did not consider living there a possibility,” Dr Khan said.

The surgeon said he had learnt after the event that around the end of 1996 or early 1997, Diana had asked Paul Burrell, her butler, to talk to a priest about the possibility of them getting married in secret.

“I thought it was a ridiculous idea,” Dr Khan said. “She just said everything would be all right. That was her answer to everything - it will turn out all right.”

Dr Khan said that, if they had got married, as far as he was concerned she would not have had to convert to Islam. She never said she would do so.

His only worry would have been if they had had a child, as it would have been difficult to decide which religion to bring the child up in, he explained.

Dr Khan said he did not know the Royal Family and did not know whether it would have been a problem to them if he and Diana had got married. However Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, might have objected, he suggested.

In his statement, he said Diana was concerned but "not paranoid" about her personal safety. She told him she had changed her car because the brakes of her Audi had been tampered with. She also suspected that one of her protection officers had been murdered and that her phone lines were being monitored.

However he never heard anything to suggest she was mentally unstable, he said.

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