The inquests of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed reached a watershed yesterday when, after almost six months, they called their 252nd – and probably final – witness.

Lord Justice Scott Baker, the coroner, now has little short of two weeks to make sense of a tsunami of evidence, much of which he will doubtless regard as frivolous, unreliable or irrelevant, before his planned summing-up to the jury on March 31.

By the time the jury delivers its verdict the hearings will have cost the taxpayer an estimated £10 million, and Mohamed Al Fayed will have shelled out much the same for a legal team that includes three QCs and an army of juniors and solicitors to argue his conspiracy theory.

The coroner has kept the inquest as open as possible, allowing it to wander down byways that seemed at times far removed from the fatal crash on August 31, 1997. What it all amounts to is for the jury to decide. They could be out for ten minutes or ten days.

An attempt to make the Duke of Edinburgh the 253rd witness failed in the High Court yesterday. Sir Igor Judge, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, sitting with Mr Justice Walker and Mr Justice Cross, refused a request by Mr Al Fayed’s lawyers for a judicial review of the coroner’s decision not to call Prince Philip or to submit written questions to the Queen.

The big question now is whether the inquests have heard any evidence that was not presented to the French inquiry or uncovered by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington in his 800-page report. Both concluded that the crash was a tragic accident caused by a driver who had been drinking.

Who said what

All the evidence lies in the files of MI6, and I am prevented by a steel wall from getting it The Duke of Edinburgh runs the country behind the scenes; he is the actual head of the Royal Family. He is a racist; he grew up with the Nazis
Mohamed Al Fayed

A problem for the jury is that if you tell lies on some occasions, how can they tell if you are telling the truth on others?
Lord Justice Scott Baker to John Macnamara, Mr Al Fayed’s head of security

You seduced Diana all day and f***ed me all night
Kelly Fisher, a former girlfriend, in a taped call to Dodi Fayed

Why have you not sued these people for killing your son? You have unlimited funds
Richard Horwell, QC, for the Metropolitan Police, to Mohamed Al Fayed

There has been an avalanche of evidence to prove that the Princess was not pregnant
Ian Burnett, QC, for the coroner

It’s been a very confusing day
Paul Burrell, after claiming that correspondence that he had earlier said was in his possession had been destroyed

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