Diana chauffeur "staggering like a clown"

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Princess Diana's chauffeur was drunk and "staggering like a clown" just hours before the high-speed crash that killed her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed, the inquest into their deaths was told on Thursday.

Alain Willaumez, barman at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, said of chauffeur Henri Paul: "I saw him drunk."

He said Paul bumped into a colleague when walking out of the bar. "He was walking like a clown," he said by videolink from Paris.

Diana and Dodi were killed in August 1997 when their chauffeur-driven limousine crashed in a Paris road tunnel while being pursued by paparazzi.

Richard Kay, one of Diana's closest journalist confidants, told the inquest that the princess was planning to quit Britain.

She also intended to wind down her campaign to abolish landmines and concentrate on setting up an international network of hospices, the Daily Mail's former royal correspondent said.

Kay, who spoke to Diana for the last time just hours before she was killed, was asked if she wanted to leave Britain.

Kay said she told him "My destiny is to go abroad."