Diana 'longed for baby girl'

Princess Diana desperately wanted a baby daughter with her surgeon lover Hasnat Khan and had even planned a name for her, one of her closest friends has revealed.

Diana told the confidante she wanted to call her baby Allegra after her friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith mentioned the name. "She thought it was a beautiful name," said the source.

And the princess even said she believed her "brown baby" would help improve relations between Muslims and Christians.

The fact that Diana, whose behaviour in the months after her divorce from Charles was at best erratic, was talking openly of "uniting the Muslim and western worlds" is bound to reignite conspiracy theories about her death.

The close source said: "The princess was desperately in love with Hasnat Khan. She was even talking about marrying him and having his baby. It was her dream.

"She believed that a beautiful brown baby girl as she would say could help unite the world. She even thought of a name for her, Allegra, after her friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith mentioned it. She heard the name and thought it was beautiful."