The bodyguard of Diana, Princess of Wales, contributed to the accident that resulted in her death because of his hostility towards the paparazzi, her former protection officer claimed yesterday.

Ken Wharfe said that the car crash would not have happened if Trevor Rees-Jones, the only survivor, had worked with the press instead of treating them as the enemy. Mr Wharfe, who guarded the Princess from 1987 until 1993, was critical of Mr Rees-Jones’s “bizarre” actions before the crash, saying that a “cat and mouse game” was played with the media.

When the Princess was under his care, Mr Wharfe said that he used to manage the paparazzi so that photographs could be taken in an organised way and she would not be chased. “If they had managed it in that way then this would never have happened, of that I’m absolutely confident,” he said. “He seemed to be preoccupied with treating the media as the enemy.”

On the night of the accident, Mr Rees-Jones had tried to sneak the Princess and Dodi Fayed out of a back door of the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

Mr Wharfe said: “Another set of photographs lasting seconds would have considerably helped and would have allowed an open and dignified departure from the Ritz Hotel.

“There was never any need for this covert departure from the rear of the hotel. To play these sorts of games with the media is a game that’s sure to be lost.”

Mr Wharfe said that Mr Rees-Jones had alienated the media while the Princess and Mr Fayed were on holiday in the Mediterranean.

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