Michael Mansfield, the lawyer representing Mohammed Al-Fayed, alleged at Diana's inquest that former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon and his assistant Sir David Veness kept secret a note in which the Princess' fears that she would be killed were detailed.

In fact, Diana made the claims that "efforts would be made to get rid of her" by "some accident in her car such as a pre-prepared brake failure" in a 1995 meeting with her divorce lawyer, Lord Mishcon, who wrote them down and passed them to the police 18 days after her death in a car crash in Paris.

But, the two police officers told him to keep the information to himself. During a cross-examination at the inquest, Mansfield asked Sir David: "I want to suggest that you quite improperly sat on information that you should have handed over because you were aware that something improper had happened in Paris."

"You were sitting on this note because you knew full well, this possibility that the security services or agents of the British state, maverick or otherwise, had been involved and you didn't want that investigated."

However, David denied the decision not to inform anyone about the note was part of a "cover-up".

Lord Mishcon explained that he wished the note he had made two years before to be lodged for safe-keeping and kept under review at Scotland Yard.

He was concerned the note and its contents might cause pain and harm. "I reject completely any suggestion there was any involvement of any agency of the British Government," the 'Daily Mail' quoted Sir David as telling Mansfield.

The note's existence was eventually revealed in 2003 when Diana's butler Paul Burrell made public a letter in which she claimed that Prince Charles was planning to have her killed in an accident. - DDNEWS