London’s police force is considering whether to investigate former royal butler Paul Burrell for alleged perjury, officials confirmed Wednesday.
Although the judge who led a six-month inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed decided against asking for a police investigation of Burrell, the force said an unidentified person had filed a complaint.
“In view of the complaint received, the Metropolitan Police Service has a duty to look at whether Paul Burrell should be considered for perjury,” said a spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
“In considering this matter, we will of course take note of the coroner’s decision not to refer this matter to us.”
Hours earlier, Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, announced that he was ending his long and costly campaign to prove his belief that his son and the princess were murdered by British secret agents.
The couple, along with their driver, died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
The inquest jury on Monday ruled that the Diana and Fayed were unlawfully killed through the reckless actions of their chauffeur and the paparazzi photographers who pursued them, and because their driver had been drinking.
Al Fayed said in an interview with ITV that he would not pursue the case further.
“Now with the verdict I accept it, but with reservations,” he said. “I’m leaving the rest for God to get my revenge.”
Burrell spent three days on the witness stand at the inquest. After returning to the United States, he was caught on a hidden camera saying he had not told the whole truth during his testimony at the inquest.
The coroner was scathing in his assessment of Burrell’s testimony.
“You heard him in the witness box, and even without what he said subsequently in the hotel room in New York, it was blindingly obvious, wasn’t it, that the evidence that he gave in this courtroom was not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” Baker told jurors.
