Paul Burrell, the butler and self-styled “rock” of Diana, Princess of Wales, was once a loyal servant of the Crown but “cashed in” on his experience, the coroner said at her inquest yesterday.

Lord Justice Scott Baker, in the second day of his summing up, said that Mr Burrell had exhibited shabby behaviour by making copies of correspondence between the Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh and had misled the jury deliberately.

“Even without what he said subsequently in the hotel room in New York “In a number of ways he had cashed in on his self-styled position of having been Diana’s ‘rock’. It was later pointed out to him in cross-examination by Mr Richard Keen, Queen’s Counsel , that he had become a rather porous rock.”

Lord Justice Scott Baker has criticised Mr Burrell and two other witnesses for lying to the inquests of the Princess and Dodi Fayed, who died after the car crash in Paris in August 1997. He referred to the evidence of Mr Burrell, in which he claimed the Queen had told him that there were “powers at work in this country of which we have no knowledge”. The coroner said that even if the quotation were accurate “it stretches one’s imagination to breaking point” to conclude that it was relevant to the crash.

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The coroner said that Mr Burrell had made copies of correspondence between the Princess and her father-in-law without the Duke’s permission and had claimed to have destroyed the copies. “All in all you may think Burrell’s behaviour is pretty shabby, but beyond the extent to which it reflects on his honesty or on whether other matters are true, you may think this has no impact on the means by which [the Princess and Mr Fayed] came by their deaths.”

The coroner also urged the jury to question the reliability of four other witnesses, including two people who claimed to be near the tunnel when the couple’s car crashed. He said that François Levistre, who claimed to have seen a bright flash from a motorcycle that was alongside the Mercedes, may fall into this category. Evidence from Brian Anderson, an American who claimed to have seen the crash from a taxi, should also be treated with caution. “There is a serious issue about whether his evidence is truthful, and indeed whether he was an eyewitness at all,” he said.

James Andanson, the photographer who has been named by conspiracy theorists as an assassin employed to kill the Princess, had a “reputation for tall stories”, the coroner said. Mr Andanson, who died in 2000, claimed to have taken photographs in the tunnel on the night of the accident. This was disputed by his widow, who said that he was in bed with her at the time.

The jury must also be wary of statements made by the “publicity machine” of Mohamed Al Fayed, the father of Dodi Fayed, the coroner said.

John Macnamara, a former head of security for Mr Al Fayed, claimed after the crash that he had found no evidence that Mr Paul had been drinking. The coroner said: “That unfortunately was less than the whole truth.” The former detective admitted to the inquests that he had lied in a television interview when he said that Mr Paul had drunk only pineapple juice.

The inquests continue.

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