One of the first people to arrive at the scene of the Paris crash in which Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed described yesterday how he heard her speaking as she lay dying inside the wrecked car.

Damian Dalby had spotted the wreckage of the Princess’s car as he and his brother, Sebastien Pennequin, travelled through the Pont de l’Alma underpass on August 31, 1997.

As he rushed over to try to help, Mr Dalby recalled that he had heard the Princess saying: “Oh my God, oh my God.”

Paparazzi had surrounded the vehicle and Mr Dalby said that he remembered one photographer at the scene who, after taking a picture, shouted: “She’s alive,” and tried to push other cameramen away as though he was trying to prevent them from taking pictures.

“There was smoke emanating from the vehicle,” he said.

“I wanted to stop the battery but I couldn’t. The car’s rear right-hand door was open, and a photographer was close by, but he did not stop me from doing my assistance job,” Mr Dalby added.

Ian Burnett, QC, counsel for the inquests, asked Mr Dalby: “Was it right the lady in the car was trying to speak?”

Mr Dalby replied: “Yes, she was saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God’.”

Another witness, Sebastien Masseron, recalled hearing one photographer who, far from trying to block his colleagues, was shouting to a fellow cameraman on a scooter at the tunnel exit: “Come back, come back, she’s alive.”

Another photographer who had previously claimed that the crash, which also killed the Princess’s boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, was a photo opportunity gone wrong, had his evidence challenged at the inquests yesterday.

Speaking by video link from Paris to the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Jacques Morel said that he had written a book – as yet unpublished – explaining how other paparazzi had planned to stop the Mercedes carrying the couple so that they could be interviewed and photographed. Mr Morel named James Andanson, another photographer, as the man who was responsible for the plan to halt the car.

He admitted that he had never actually met Mr Andanson, but claimed that he had seen secret and confidential documents that supported his theories.

He agreed under cross-examination that his book also alleged that Mr Paul was a paid informant of secret service agencies, and that closed circuit television footage showing the Mercedes’ route to the Alma underpass existed but had never been revealed.

Mr Morel claimed to have seen a line of between 10 and 12 photographers, and a man with a video camera, waiting for the couple to arrive just inside the tunnel before the crash happened.

Michael Mansfield, QC, representing Mohamed Al Fayed, who believes that the couple died as the result of a conspiracy masterminded by the Duke of Edinburgh, suggested to Mr Morel that the secret file that he claimed to have seen did not exist.

“How would you like to bet?” Mr Morel replied. “I can bet with you one million US dollars and if you bet with me I can send you the file within 24 hours.” Asked why he had not presented the file before the inquest, Mr Morel said that he was not in a position to do so.

Richard Horwell, QC, representing the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, asked Mr Morel if it was his intention to make a lot of money from his book.

“I just hope to recover the money I have lost during the last ten years. The rest is for the children in the Third World,” Mr Morel replied.

However, Mr Horwell challenged the statement, asking him: “The truth is, you will write and say anything to make money, won’t you?”

“I do not write anything; I say what I have heard and what I have seen,” Mr Morel replied.

The hearing continues on Monday.

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• 'Was it real?' The US bailout nightmare
• Iranian opposition plays the long game