Di 'did not have abortion'

A former royal coroner today revealed there are rumours that Princess Diana had an abortion after the Paris car crash.

Dr John Burton, one of only two people at her post-mortem examination, has kept silent for six years. But today he told the Evening Standard: "I know she was not pregnant and this latest theory was the last straw, the story which loosened my tongue."

Dr Burton, who attended the examination of the princess and Dodi Fayed at Fulham mortuary on 31 August, 1997, said: "She wasn't pregnant. I have seen inside her womb.

"The abortion theory was a new one on me. A British coroner recently told me about it and neither of us could believe it. The conspiracy theory suggested that the reason it had taken so long to take Diana's body from the crash site to the hospital was because she had had an abortion en route to cover up her pregnancy.

"But the truth is that she was involved in a terrible crash and had major surgery. The French authorities did an excellent job."

Coroners' Rules demand that post-mortem examinations include an internal inspection of the body's "generative organs".

Dr Burton said: "To say, as some have done, that at six weeks' pregnant she might have been showing outwardly signs of pregnancy is rubbish. The story crept out because it was being pumped up by people giving all sorts of conspiracy theories."

He added: "While I know she was not pregnant, 85 per cent of people will still believe she was. I feel so sorry for her sons that this is being brought up again. I kept my silence over this because I never wanted to inflict it upon them.

"I never wanted to go into the details of the post-mortem examination."

Speaking from his home in Richmond, he said a succession of "absurd" conspiracy theories had prompted him to break his silence. Among them was the suggestion that the French pathologist Professor Dominique Lecomte had colluded in disguising Diana's alleged pregnancy.

Dr Burton said: "It's rubbish to say she could ever have been part of a conspiracy."

But the story which most upset him was that an abortion had been carried out. He was also dismissive of suggestionsprompted by a handwritten note by Diana, that Prince Charles had been behind the crash.

Dr Burton said: "It is on record that Dodi Fayed and his father had a conversation shortly before Diana got into the car over which car to take. It was decided to swap drivers and cars. Prince Charles could not have known anything about that."

He warned that Dodi's father Mohamed Fayed was likely to try to interfere with the inquests into the deaths of Diana and his son. Mr Fayed has long maintained that the couple were murdered in a bid to prevent Diana giving birth to a child of Muslim origin.

Dr Burton's dramatic intervention comes as one of Diana's closest confidantes told how the princess was so desperate to have a baby daughter with her surgeon lover Hasnat Khan she had even planned a name.

Diana wanted to call her daughter Allegra and believed the baby would unite the western and Muslim worlds.

The inquests into the deaths of Diana and Dodi Fayed were formally opened and adjourned yesterday.

The new royal coroner, Michael Burgess, ordered Scotland Yard to launch an investigation into Diana's death which is expected to take at least a year.

It means Prince Charles could face questioning over the note in which Diana claims he wanted her dead. Princes William and Harry could also be seen by officers, while police may ask to examine Diana's diaries and other correspondence.