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A former police chief says he questioned Prince Charles over a note Princess Diana wrote predicting her own death

A former police chief says he questioned Prince Charles over a note Princess Diana wrote predicting her own death
  • Former police chief Lord Stevens told the Daily Mail he questioned Prince Charles over Diana's death.

  • Stevens said he read the prince a note Diana wrote saying she believed Charles was planning a car accident.

  • The prince was interviewed as a witness, not a suspect, in the investigation, according to Stevens.

  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A former police chief said he once questioned Prince Charles over a note Princess Diana wrote that predicted she would die in a car accident.

Lord Stevens, the former head of Scotland Yard, told the Daily Mail's Stephen Wright and Richard Pendlebury that he interviewed the future king in 2005 at St James's Palace in London during a three-year investigation into Diana's death.

The Metropolitan Police investigation centered on an allegation from Mohamed Al-Fayed - whose son, Dodi Al-Fayed, died in the same car accident as Diana in August 1997 - of conspiracy to murder the couple. The findings of the investigation, published by the BBC in 2006, suggested that their deaths were not planned.

Stevens interviewed Charles as a witness and not a suspect in the investigation, the Daily Mail reports, and read him a note Diana had written to her butler Paul Burrell in October 1995, two years before her death. A handwriting expert confirmed the note was Diana's during the investigation, Stevens told the publication.

"This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous - my husband is planning 'an accident' in my car," Diana purportedly wrote in the note, obtained by the Daily Mail.

"Brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry Tiggy," the note continues, referencing rumors that Charles was having an affair with Prince William and Harry's nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke. "Camilla is nothing but a decoy so we are being used by the man in every sense of the word."

prince charles princess diana harry william
Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Prince Harry, and Prince William at Highgrove in July 1986. Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images

According to paraphrased portions of Stevens' interview with Charles on December 6, 2005, cited by the Daily Mail, Stevens asked Charles: "Why do you think the Princess wrote this note, Sir?"

The Daily Mail report says Charles responded: "'I did not know anything about [the note] until it was published in the media."

According to The Independent, Burrell made public that Diana had given him the note in his 2003 book, "A Royal Duty." The Daily Mail reports that Burrell gave the original note to police for the investigation, and "did not know what had prompted Diana to write the note."

During his interview with Stevens, Charles added that he hadn't discussed the letter with Diana and wasn't aware she felt that way, the Daily Mail reported.

The Daily Mail report says that during the conversation, "Charles was polite, engaged but unable, it seemed, to throw light upon what lay behind the note." Representatives for Clarence House did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

According to the Daily Mail, the note has been filed at the National Archives in Kew, London, and will not be made public until 2038.

Representatives for the Metropolitan Police did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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