How a game of cat and mouse ended with carnage in Paris

Even before Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed had strolled through the baroque central corridor of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, for what would prove to be their last dinner, the paparazzi were lurking in wait.

At 5.30pm on Saturday the first photographer pulled up outside the Ritz, casually dismounted from his BMW motorbike, and reached for his mobile phone. Diana and her companion, meanwhile, were stretching their legs after a short flight to Paris from Sardinia on Saturday afternoon.

The couple's one-week holiday was at an end and Diana, after spending most of August on the French Riviera, was heading back to Britain. There at least she could enjoy a bit of privacy away from the media feeding frenzy which had enveloped her all summer.

But Diana and Dodi's departure from Sardinia had not gone unnoticed. By the time the couple touched down at Paris's Le Bourget airport in the Fayed private jet, their presence was common knowledge among the small, ruthless, multilingual band of photographers who pursue her, very lucratively, for a living.

Around 7pm on Saturday Diana left the Ritz in a chauffeur-driven car to do some shopping in the Champs Elysées. The press were, reportedly, in pursuit. Returning to the hotel for dinner, the most photographed woman in the world and her millionaire boyfriend tried to dodge waiting cameramen.

The Ritz, bought by Mohamed Al Fayed in 1979 and refurbished in rich belle époque style, has a reputation for discretion. At the very beginning of their romance, Diana and Dodi stayed in the Imperial Suite. Le Patron, as the mercurial Mohamed Al Fayed is known affectionately by staff, picked up the bill. Downstairs, silver blue carpeting silences the footsteps of guests arriving and departing. The atmosphere is one of ordered calm. Gilt candelabras light the way into the lobby. An ornate staircase leads up past a classical mural depicting cherubs.

The cashier's desk, attended by uniformed staff in tail coats, bustles with subdued efficiency. At the revolving front door, another diligent employee, in a green uniform with a matching bellboy cap, nods discreetly to those leaving and points out directions.

But for Diana and Dodi, there was little prospect of anonymity as they made their way to the hotel's Michelin two-starred restaurant, the Espadon, for dinner. They ate scrambled eggs, a rather British choice, followed by filets of sole tempura, it is understood. Diana's mood at the end of a holiday in which her every gesture had been captured on camera can only be guessed at. But there is evidence to suggest the princess had already been angered by a violent dispute involving Italian paparazzi earlier in the day.

The princess had spent the week aboard the Jonikal, the Fayeds' luxury yacht. (Three weeks earlier, paparazzo Mario Brenna had made £3 million by capturing the first pictures of Diana kissing Dodi on board the yacht. These were sold on to three tabloids: the Sunday Mirror, followed by the Daily Mail and the Sun).

On Friday lunchtime a tender from the boat tied up by the five-star Hotel Cala di Volpe near Arzachena, along the Costa Smeralda. Two photographers appro-ached the vessel and shouted abuse. The skipper came ashore to tell them to control themselves and another paparazzo joined in on the side of the crew. He was pushed by one of the other cameramen, and responded by punching his fellow-photographer twice.

The row had blown up after the crew stopped the "paps" from snapping Diana as she swam with Dodi in a nearby inlet. There was nothing remarkable about this, just another ugly incident; yet another photo of Diana in a swimsuit. But after a month of relentless intrusion, Diana decided to cut her holiday short.

On Saturday night the perennial problem presented itself for Diana and her friend: how to leave the Ritz without being tailed by photographers? The couple had arrived separately - Dodi swirling into the hotel 10 minutes later after being dropped off by his personal chaffeur. How should they depart? On the other side of the Ritz's revolving door, the small crowd of hard-bitten paparazzi lolling round in their leathers were asking themselves a different question - how to ensure Diana did not cheat them of their picture by slipping out of the Ritz's tradesman's entrance? She had done so in the past. The game plan was that Diana and Dodi would spend the night in the Duke of Windsor's former mansion in the Bois de Boulogne. The journey back would usually take no longer than 25 minutes.

Outside the Ritz, a queue of black Mercedes S600s waited at the pavement in the Place Vendôme. But there was a last-minute change of plan which was to go disastrously wrong. Towards the end of the meal Dodi told his regular chauffeur to drive the car back to his mansion in the hope of luring away the photographers. He then asked the security chief at the Ritz to find a driver to take him and Diana back to the 16th arrondissement, in a bullet-proof hotel car used to ferry VIPs.

According to hotel sources, the driver usually worked as a security guard. He was not a professional driver. He may also have been overly nervous at his celebrity passengers. "He was a very quiet man, called Paul," said a fellow chaffeur called Jacques. "You need practice in driving like that, to be a professional driver."

Several decoy cars are understood to have been driven away to lure the photographers off. But the ruse failed. The "paps" were smarter than that. After half an hour, the couple left the rear of the Ritz around midnight.

They were snapped as they got into their car, an armour-proofed Mercedes. The French Ritz driver had had little practice with the car, which handled in a peculiarly heavy way. The broad square of the Place Vendôme is normally deserted by that time of night, the jewellery boutiques and antique shops for the super-rich long since closed for the evening. But as Diana and Dodi sped away, the photographers leapt on to their motorcycles and the buildings echoed to the screech of tyres.

Their route would have taken them along the perimeter walls of the Jardin des Tuileries before they entered the expanse of the Place de la Concorde, where the traffic flows four or five cars abreast. Here, the French chauffeur made his first attempt to dodge the pursuing paparazzi riding BMWs. But his attempts to outmanoeuvre the photographers failed. They, after all, were old hands at car chasing, and he was not.

The Mercedes then sped on towards the Seine and Dodi's home. The dual carriageway exit to the west, along the Cours de la Reine, funnels the vehicles into a narrower raceway with a low, central dividing wall. The natural temptation here is to accelerate. Because of this the speed limit is set between 35 and 50 mph. The Ritz driver did accelerate - according to some reports, as fast as 95mph.

With the paparazzi still in close pursuit, the Mercedes, carrying Diana, Dodi and their bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, made another attempt to accelerate away. Diana and Dodi were sitting in the back seat, without seatbelts. At least seven paparazzi on motorcycles were in hot pursuit.

As the car swung left and raced into the second underpass, below the Pont de l'Alma, the driver appears to have lost control of the vehicle. Skid marks, streaked with black paint were visible yesterday on the central dividing wall marking the point where the vehicle veered to one side. The huge Mercedes ricocheted off an opposite wall before slamming into the 13th pillar supporting the tunnel roof, and rolling over two or three times.

It was a catastrophic accident. Dodi, aged 42, died instantly. The French Ritz chaffeur was also killed on impact. Diana was still alive - just. But she was gravely injured and trapped in the tangle of metal and broken glass.

French emergency services took between five and seven minutes to arrive. Early reports suggested the princess was suffering from concussion, a broken arm and cuts to her thigh. In fact, those reports were wildly optimistic. The grim reality was that she had suffered massive chest injuries and internal bleeding. At no time did she recover consciousness.

The race to cut her free was proving difficult. The problem was the car's dense armour plating. After more than an hour Diana was finally lifted clear of the carnage of the Mercedes. Back in Britain, the Royal Family, on holiday at Balmoral, including the Prince of Wales, were woken and informed of the crash.

Mohamed Al Fayed flew by helicopter to Paris from his home in Surrey. He was told that his son was dead, and that Diana was gravely injured. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at home in his Sedgefield constituency, was woken and informed of the accident.

But the valiant efforts of the French surgeons to save Diana were in vain. The internal injuries which had caused huge blood loss and brought on the heart attack were too serious.

At around 3am Diana, Princess of Wales, was pronounced dead.

Her death prompted a flurry of telephone calls to the Royal Family, senior politicians, and diplomats. The French ambassador informed the Queen's private secretary that Diana had died. The Prince of Wales was then informed and broke the tragic news to princes William and Harry.

At 4.21am the Press Association put out a newsflash which said Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's plane has been delayed from taking off from the Philippines as he prepares to make a statement. The grimmer subtext was clear.

Twenty minutes later, there was another newsflash which swept away all doubt. "Diana, Princess of Wales, has died, according to British sources, the Press Association learned this morning."