No perjury probe into Princess Di's butler: police

AFP - Friday, May 9 09:24 pm

LONDON (AFP) - Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, will not be formally investigated for perjury after claims that he did not tell the whole truth at the coroner's inquest into her death, police said Friday.

Scotland Yard had received a complaint after Burrell was quoted by a British tabloid newspaper as saying that he told "red herrings" at the high-profile hearing into the princess's death, which ended last month.

But the force said Friday there was "insufficient admissible evidence to prove that an offence of perjury has occurred and therefore do not believe it to be appropriate to instigate a police investigation."

After Burrell's secretly recorded comments appeared in The Sun newspaper, the coroner, judge Scott Baker, summoned him to reappear at the London hearing to explain the discrepancies but he refused.

The coroner later described Burrell's behaviour to the jury as "pretty shabby".

The jury returned verdicts that Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed, were unlawfully killed by chauffeur Henri Paul and the paparazzi pursuing their car in Paris in August 1997.

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