Topic: Henri Paul

Henri Paul (3 July 1956 – 31 August 1997) was the Deputy Head of Security at the Hôtel Ritz Paris. He was the driver at the time of the car accident at the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris that killed him along with Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion Dodi Fayed on 31 August 1997. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the only survivor of the crash. Subsequent official investigations conducted by French and British police concluded that the cause of the crash was Paul who was intoxicated with alcohol and driving recklessly at high speed.

Paul had worked for the Fayed family for 11 years. He received his private pilot's licence in June 1974 and was said to enjoy hiring aircraft to fly over to Lorient. On 28 August 1997, three days before the car accident he successfully passed his annual pilot's physical examination. The examination includes a certification which tests for any alcohol problems (including a blood and liver test). Henri Paul's parents claim that this test would have shown if Henri Paul had problems with alcoholism. The original document Certificat D'Aptitude Physique et Mentale was shown on Diana - Geheimnisse der Todesnacht German-Television ZDF in 1998.

The Operation Paget Inquiry, however, received Europe-wide standards for pilots' medicals that were in force in 1997 from the Civil Aviation Authority that suggest no specific medical test for alcoholism was undertaken and a self-certification of alcohol problems was required from individual pilots. Henri Paul made no certification of alcohol problems and none were externally apparent to the doctor who examined him. As part of security training, Paul was known to have been to Stuttgart, Germany, two times on specialist courses run by Mercedes-Benz on how to handle their cars; these included anti-terrorist and anti-kidnapping evasion techniques.