The car carrying Diana, princess of Wales, may have "bumped" another car as it entered the tunnel where it crashed in Paris a decade ago, witnesses said today.
Jean-Claude Catheline and his wife, Annick, told the inquest into the deaths of the princess and Dodi Fayed that they saw two dark cars travelling quickly side-by-side into the Pont de l'Alma Tunnel in Paris in the early hours of August 31st, 1997.
Speaking by videolink from the French capital they said they heard the sound of a collision as they walked on an embankment near the entrance to the underpass.
Moments later, Mr Catheline heard the sound of tyres screeching as the Mercedes carrying Diana and Dodi crashed.
He told the inquest sitting at the High Court in London: "As soon as the car disappeared from our view we heard what sounded like the bodywork bumping, I think that this noise was before the car entered the tunnel."
In an excerpt from his original police statement, read to the court, he said: "Almost immediately I heard a second noise, very, very loud, quite different from the first, it was a dull noise and followed by a second, identical noise."
PA