Pont de l’Alma

I work right beside the Pont de l’Alma where Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul died in that infamous car crash. It’s a very ordinary underpass, and probably disappoints the tourists who still come to see the accident site. It’s also much too dangerous to walk into the underpass, so most visitors leave their mark on a superbly tacky and incongruous sculpture across the road. (The sculpture is a brassy looking ‘eternal flame’ meant to symbolise American-French friendship, and probably deserves a post of its own.)

Sometimes, when walking past observing the cars whizzing down the ramp, I wonder about the tens of thousands of vehicles that have emerged at the other side, and the one that didn’t. But anyway, aside from presenting the occasional minor moral conundrum of whether to give directions to tourists who ask where Diana died (I always do – it’s vulgar and morbid, I know, but they’re so helpless and lost, and are always cheered up to be told where the three people died.), the bridge and underpass is unremarkable.

But yesterday at lunch time the traffic was funnelled into one lane and a line of camera vans and police trucks was parked along the road nearby. About half a dozen police were standing in the middle of the underpass entrance, and various serious and important looking people were walking around. I assumed it was a well-connected documentary crew, or possibly some sort of follow up to the french investigation of the crash.

But today’s Guardian tells me that no less a person than Sir John Stevens was there doing his own investigating into Diana’s death. Also present was the coroner leading the British inquest. Stephens said afterwards that the tunnel was “narrower than I expected, and the gradient steeper”. I found it reassuring that a man in such an elevated role still thinks it’s essential to do some groundwork himself.

Bizaarely, the Guardian’s angle on it all was to quote a victims of crime group who think the whole investigation is a waste of money. I can’t help thinking that if the inquest was not being taken so seriously by the head of the Metropolitan police, the Guardian would be clamouring for a proper investigation to lay bare the ‘cover up’. But instead it implies that Stevens and co were off on a PR stunt/jolly and leaves unchallenged the assertion by Clive Elliott of the Victims of Crime Trust that “If there is to be any priority, it should be given to those still suffering from the effects of crime.”

Em, no. The priority of the police is investigating crime, not compensating its victims. I’m very glad we live in relatively luxurious times when the focus – for example, in rape cases – is shifting more to protecting and advocating for victims of crime. But the first and clearest priority of law enforcement agencies, and the government in general, is preventing and detecting crime.

These days, NGOs are just as media savvy as other players, and the plug for a resource centre for victims of crime comes wrapped in a soundbite that makes a spurious claim to know a dead person’s mind and the predictable comparison of apples and oranges so beloved of single interest groups;

“I am sure Princess Diana was the sort of person who would agree with that sentiment (the statement that victims should be the police’s priority). We have been trying to raise £1m for a resource centre for victims. If Sir John gave us half the money being spent on this inquiry it would keep the centre going for 10 years.”

No again. Diana herself let loose a hundred later conspiracy theories by documenting her own private fears that an attempt would be made on her life. I don’t claim to read the minds of the dead either, but I suspect she might have preferred a thorough investigation into her own suspicious death to the setting up of a resource centre. But of course the comparison is completely bogus. Though writers of press releases like to suggest that ministers gleefully decide to spend money on cruise missiles at the expense of paediatric intensive care units, I think we all know that Stevens cannot choose to shut down a public inquiry and hand the cash over to victim support. It’s a fatuous point and a cheap shot that adds nothing to our understanding of the investigation or its context.

Of course it’s true that much more money is being spent to investigate Diana’s death than any other criminal investigation. And it’s probably true that the outcome of the investigation will be inconclusive. But it’s still essential that the police fully investigate a death which is of enormous public interest – and I mean public interest in the strict sense, not the satisfaction of prurient curiosity.