Diana's visit to lover's grave

Millions of TV viewers today watched Princess Diana reveal she had "disturbing dreams" following the sudden death of her bodyguard lover.

In the programme, shown in America, she said her dreams only stopped after she laid flowers in memory of her protection officer Barry Mannakee during a secret cemetery visit.

Diana also said she believed he was "bumped off ".

In the interview, sold to NBC by Diana's voice coach Peter Settelen, she confessed that she fell "deeply in love" with Mr Mannakee, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1987 aged 39.

Asked about him, Diana said: "I used to have really disturbing dreams about him. And he was very unhappy wherever he's gone to. I went and found out where he was buried. I went to put some flowers on his grave." She said she was upset to find that there was no grave but that his ashes had been scattered. "He was just chucked over the ground," she said. "That absolutely appalled me, but there we are, I wasn't in a position to do anything about it."

She laid the flowers in the cemetery itself, she said, adding: "And the day I did that, the day the dreams stopped. It's strange, wasn't it? It's like a sort of recognition."

Reflecting on the relationship, the princess added: "I should never have played with fire and I did. And I got very burned."

Reports that she had an affair with Mr Mannakee surfaced in 1998, a year after she died in a car crash in Paris.