Two senior policemen were yesterday accused of suppressing evidence that Princess Diana believed she would be assassinated.

For six years, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon and his assistant Sir David Veness kept secret a note in which the princess's fears were detailed.

She made the claims in a 1995 meeting with her divorce lawyer, Lord Mishcon, who wrote them down and passed them to the police 18 days after she died in a car crash.

The inquest into the crash yesterday heard that the officers concluded the note wasn't "relevant at that time".

However, they told Lord Mishcon to keep the information to himself. Sir Paul - now Lord Condon - kept the note under "the utmost secrecy" in his office.

During a tense cross-examination by Michael Mansfield, QC, representing Mohamed Al Fayed, Sir David vehemently denied the decision not to inform anyone was part of a "cover-up".

The barrister said: "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."

Sir David replied: "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.

Full article here.