What Was Operation Paget? All About the 3-Year Inquiry Into Princess Diana's Death

Operation Paget was tasked with investigating the conspiracy theories surrounding Princess Diana’s tragic death

Countless conspiracy theories emerged after Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997 — and it was Operation Paget’s job to investigate them all.

The car accident that killed Princess Diana — along with her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul — occurred in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, when their vehicle crashed after being pursued by paparazzi. But alternative theories about Diana’s devastating death began to develop almost instantly, with the most prevalent rumor being that her death was not, in fact, an accident.

Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s father, was one of the most vocal supporters of that allegation. The Egyptian businessman, who owned the British department store Harrods and the Ritz Paris at the time, alleged that the British royal family orchestrated the death of his son and the People’s Princess. He claimed that Prince Philip, Diana’s former father-in-law, ordered British security services to assassinate the royal to stop her from marrying Dodi, who was Muslim.

To investigate this theory (and other allegations), Operation Paget was formed in January 2004 at the request of the royal coroner Michael Burgess. The group of investigators — which included over a dozen senior British Metropolitan Police officers — spent three years and millions of dollars to determine the cause of Princess Diana’s death, per the BBC. In the end, their findings concluded that the car accident that killed Diana, Dodi and Paul was the result of “grossly negligent driving” — and not a royal conspiracy.

Related: How Did Princess Diana Die? The True Story of Her Tragic Car Accident

“When you look at most incidents, accidents, you find there’s a chain of events, and if any one of those chain of events had been different, it might not have led to that happening,” David Douglas, a senior police officer and member of the Operation Paget team, explained on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, 25 years after the crash.

He added, “It’s my absolute total belief it was a terrible, tragic accident in which three people lost their lives and one other person had their life turned upside down."

Operation Paget was also instrumental in the depiction of Diana’s death the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown. The show’s executive producers worked to “delicately, thoughtfully” recreate her death by studying the nearly 900-page report, as well as other official investigations, books and documentaries, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“There's a huge amount of respect from us all, I hope that’s evident,” executive producer Suzanne Mackie said about their work on season 6 at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August 2023.

But how did Operation Paget determine the car crash that killed Diana was accidental? Here’s everything to know about the exhaustive British investigation into Princess Diana’s death and its findings.

What was Operation Paget?

Conducted by the British Metropolitan Police, Operation Paget was an official investigation into the conspiracy theories surrounding the 1997 death of Princess Diana. It was launched in January 2004, after French authorities concluded their own investigation, and led by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.

“Every single aspect of conspiracy theories and the like will be looked at by my team and the coroner,” Stevens said in 2004, per the BBC. “We have got to try and do everything we can to draw a line one way or another under this inquiry.”

Why was Operation Paget established?

Operation Paget was established as a result of Mohamed Al Fayed’s insistence that the deaths of his son, Dodi, and Princess Diana were not accidental.

“I believe in my heart 99.9% that it was not an accident,” Al Fayed told The Mirror in February 1998. “That car didn’t accidentally crash. There was a conspiracy. I will not rest until I have established exactly what happened.”

Al Fayed believed that Diana’s death was ordered by Prince Philip and carried out by Britain’s MI6 to prevent her from marrying his son, a Muslim. Because the claims alleged crimes committed on British soil — specifically, conspiracy to commit murder — the police inquest was legally necessary, according to the BBC.

What did Operation Paget involve?

Operation Paget expanded to not only investigate Al Fayed’s claims, but also any allegations that were made in the media, legal submissions and formal correspondence since the crash occurred in 1997. The extensive investigation involved a dozen experienced police officers, took nearly three years to complete and cost millions, according to The New York Times.

To help conduct their investigation, British authorities collected more than 600 pieces of evidence and re-examined the information uncovered by the French inquiries, The New York Times reported. They also enlisted the help of lasers, computer models and 3D technology to recreate the scene of the crash, according to the BBC, to provide an “enhanced understanding” of the accident.

Why was King Charles interviewed for Operation Paget?

British investigators interviewed more than 300 individuals for Operation Paget — including the future King Charles.

Charles was questioned by U.K. police in 2005 in relation to a note that Princess Diana had written in 1995. The note read: “My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury ... to make the path clear for him to marry.”

Diana also alleged in the note, which was made public by the Daily Mail in 2003, that Charles wanted to marry Tiggy Legge-Bourke, a nanny for Prince William and Prince Harry. Additionally, she claimed that Charles’ now-wife, Queen Camilla, “is nothing but a decoy.”

The interview with Prince Charles secretly took place on Dec. 6, 2005, at St. James’s Palace in London and was conducted by Stevens, the former head of Scotland Yard and the head of Operation Paget. During their meeting, Stevens read Charles Diana’s note — and asked him if he had discussed it with her or knew of her feelings. Charles declined having any knowledge of the note.

“At the end of the day he was incredibly cooperative because he had nothing to hide,” Stevens told the Daily Mail in 2021 about the interview.

What did Operation Paget conclude?

After nearly three years, Operation Paget concluded its inquiry and published an 871-page report with its findings. The report, which was made public on Dec. 14, 2006, ultimately concluded that Princess Diana’s death was an accident and there was no validity to the various conspiracy theories that had surfaced over the years.

“Our conclusion is that, on the evidence available at this time, there was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of the car,” Stevens said as he presented his findings, per The New York Times. “This was a tragic accident."

The report also debunked the rumors that Diana was pregnant at the time of the crash, that her calls were being monitored by Britain’s MI6 and that her house was bugged. It did confirm, however, that Henri Paul — the driver of the vehicle — was drunk and driving at an excessive speed, and that the seat belts in the vehicle were not used.  However, Stevens did not blame any of those factors as the sole cause of the deadly crash.

“A crash of this nature is similar to a major crash of an airliner,” he said, per The New York Times. “There is a long chain of events. Take out any link of that chain and this would not have happened.”

In October 2007, the evidence and findings from Operation Paget were used at the official coroner’s inquest into Princess Diana’s death. Six months later, in April 2008, the jury ruled that the deaths had been caused by “grossly negligent driving.” The jurors also cited the speed and erratic driving of both the Mercedes and the following vehicles, the driver Henri Paul’s intoxication and the fact that the deceased were not wearing seat belts as contributing factors.

What was the reaction to Operation Paget's findings?

Before the Operation Paget report was released to the public, Prince William and Prince Harry were briefed on its findings by Stevens. According to The Independent, William and Harry welcomed the report’s “conclusive findings” in their mother’s death.

“It was quite emotional,” Stevens later told The Daily Beast about his meeting with Diana’s two sons, echoing that they were satisfied with the report’s conclusions.

However, Al Fayed — whose claims of conspiracy helped launch Operation Paget — was displeased with the initial findings of the three-year investigation. Following the report’s publication, he dismissed it as “garbage” and a “cover-up,” according to The Independent.

“I’m certain 100 percent that a leading member of the royal family has planned that and that the whole plot was executed on his order with the help of members of MI6,” he told reporters after the report was published in December 2006, per The New York Times.

But after the completion of the coroner’s inquest in 2008, where 11 jurors found Dodi and Diana’s deaths to be the result of “negligent driving,” Fayed shared he was “disappointed” — but ultimately accepted the verdict.

“I’ve had enough,” he told Britain’s ITV News at Ten. “I’m leaving this to God to get my revenge.”

How did Operation Paget inform The Crown showrunners?

The sixth and final season of the award-winning Netflix series The Crown depicts Princess Diana’s death — and took careful consideration with how they would portray the tragic event.

Netflix confirmed in October 2022 that the “exact moment of the crash impact will not be shown,”  and in August 2023 the show’s executive producers, Andy Harries and Suzanne Mackie, spoke more about the approach they took with Diana’s death.

“There were very careful, long conversations about how we were going to do it,” Mackie said at the Edinburgh TV Festival. “The audience will judge it in the end, but I think it’s been delicately, thoughtfully recreated."

Related: What Happens to Princess Diana in The Crown Season 6? A Look at the Real-Life Events

Part of that thoughtful recreation involved gathering information from the investigations that were conducted after Princess Diana’s death, including Operation Paget. Though The Crown does not address any of the conspiracy theories that developed following the Paris car crash, it does adhere to Operation Paget’s findings that the accident was a result of negligent driving, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We very much followed the given facts,” Christian Schwochow, who directed two episodes of season 6, told the Los Angeles Times.

The Crown’s research team also referred to Operation Paget to understand more about Diana and Dodi’s romance in the weeks leading up to the accident and how the events unfolded that summer.

“We needed to understand not only the timeline of the events that summer but also Dodi and Diana’s emotional states and the evolving nature of their short relationship,” Annie Sulzberger, head of research on the series, told the outlet.

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