Gordon Brown said today that a rerun of the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales would waste more of MI6's time, in an apparent warning to Mohamed Al Fayed.

The Harrods owner was today meeting with his lawyers to discuss whether to continue his marathon legal battle to prove that the Princess and his son Dodi Fayed were murdered by the secret services, it emerged this morning.

But Mr Al Fayed came under pressure to give up the fight, as the Prime Minister joined the chorus of those saying it is time to move on from the tragedy.

Mr Brown told Sky News today: "I believe... that our security services, who have co-operated with the inquiry to the fullest, have or would continue to be diverted from the important work they do if we had to have another rerun of this.

"So I think it’s important we draw a line."

Mr Brown added his voice to those of the Princess's sons, Princes William and Harry, who said in a rare joint statement last night that they accepted the verdict of unlawful killing.

"I think the Princes, William and Harry, have spoken for the whole country when they say this is time to bring this to an end," said Mr Brown

The jury yesterday returned a verdict that the Princess was unlawfully killed by the gross negligence of a drunk chauffeur in a Paris road tunnel, while being pursued by paparazzi photographers. She might have lived if she had worn a seatbelt, the jury said.

The car was driven by Henri Paul, one of Mr Al Fayed's own security officers from the Ritz Hotel, but Mr Al Fayed has never accepted the evidence that Mr Paul was over the drink-drive limit.

The inquest sat for 91 days and heard 278 witnesses and statements at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of £9 million. The former head of MI6 and a number of serving MI6 officers were among those to give evidence.

The coroner gave free rein to Mr Al Fayed to air his theories that the August 1997 car crash was a murder plot engineered by the British and French authorities at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh, to silence the Princess and to prevent her dating Muslim men and campaigning against the use of landmines.

In his summing up, however, Lord Justice Scott Baker directed the jury to discount the allegations of murder, as not a shred of evidence had been brought to substantiate them.

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