Diana chauffeur "driving like a maniac"

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - The chauffeur for Princess Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed on their final journey was driving "like a maniac" on the day they died, the inquest into their deaths was told on Tuesday.

"Henri Paul almost killed us. He drove way too fast and recklessly," said holistic healer Myriah Daniels who had flown back to Paris with Dodi and Diana after their holiday on a yacht in the Mediterranean in August, 1997.

"He was s--- for a driver and that is a fact," said Daniels, who was driven from Paris' Le Bourget airport by Paul. Paul was at the wheel of their limousine when Dodi and Diana died in a high-speed crash. Paul also died in the crash.

"I was in a Range Rover driven by Henri Paul," she said. "I should be dead. I was positive I would be killed in that drive."

"He was driving like a maniac through the traffic," she told the court.

The inquest, expected to last up to six months, opened in October after major British and French police investigations.

Both concluded Diana and Dodi died because Paul was drunk and driving too fast.

Daniels, who treated Princess Diana just days before she died, said Diana was definitely not pregnant at the time.