Three serious security mistakes caused Princess Diana’s sad death — at least, that’s what her old bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, says.
It’s hard to believe that almost 30 years have gone by since Princess Diana’s sad passing. The world lost a legend, a caring person, and two young boys lost their mom. It’s impossible not to think about what she would be like today — how she would look, what role she would have taken on, and how she might have continued to make a difference in the world.
First meeting with Diana
Ken Wharfe, her former bodyguard who worked closely with her for six years, remembers her with great affection. Looking back on Diana’s influence, he complimented her ”great sense of humor” and said he felt ”really lucky” to have been part of her life.
Wharfe remembered that from the very first time he met Princess Diana, she showed just how relatable she really was.
”As I walked into the room, I was introduced, and Diana said, ‘I don’t envy you, Ken, looking after my kids. They can be a real handful,’” Wharfe told The Sun.
Right on cue, young William, who had been trying to play the piano, turned around and protested, “No, we’re not a real handful!” Just as he said that, Harry fell off a table.
Diana jumped up right away and said, ‘Come here, both of you!’ before she chased them out of the room. I hadn’t even spoken yet,” Wharfe remembered.
She came back a little while later, shaking her head.
“You see what I mean, Ken?” she asked.
That moment, he said, changed everything.
“All of a sudden, instead of talking to a royal, you were talking to a parent, a young mom, someone you could really connect with.”
And that, he mentioned, was Diana in a nutshell—full of fun, laughter, and sometimes, deep sadness.
A dangerous driver behind the wheel
Having been her personal protection officer from 1987 to 1993, Wharfe believes that the People’s Princess might still be alive today if some important choices had been made differently.
One of the biggest mistakes, according to Wharfe, was who was driving the car that tragic August night in 1997.
Diana was in the car with her boyfriend, Egyptian film producer Dodi Fayed, along with Ritz security chief Henri Paul, who was driving, and Dodi’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones—the only survivor of the crash.
Unfortunately, Paul had been drinking before he got in the car and was speeding dangerously when the vehicle crashed into the 13th pillar of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris. Wharfe believes that Diana might have lived if someone else had been driving.
“The one thing that could have saved Diana’s life that night would have been if they had replaced the chauffeur with Rees-Jones,” he said.
“But he couldn’t do that because he wasn’t able to talk to Dodi Fayed — Dodi was the one giving orders. And that’s really unfortunate, because if Rees-Jones had made the choice to get rid of Henri Paul, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.
A deadly attempt to outsmart the paparazzi
Diana and Dodi originally planned to go a short distance from the Ritz Hotel to an apartment close to the Champs-Elysées. Another big mistake that night was not having a proper plan and coordination — or really, the total lack of coordination — with the local police about the car ride.
Wharfe thinks the tragedy could have been completely avoided if Dodi and Diana’s security team had worked together with local police instead of shutting them out and seeing the press as “the enemy.”
To escape the press, they came up with a plan using decoy cars. A Range Rover was set up at the front entrance of the Ritz with Dodi’s regular driver inside, while Diana and Dodi quietly left through the back in a black armored Mercedes.
Henri Paul — who was four times over the legal drinking limit in France — had been called in from home to drive them. The high-speed chase that followed ended in a terrible crash, with the Mercedes going over 60 mph.
The absence of a security team
Maybe the most preventable mistake, according to Wharfe, was Diana’s choice to let go of her Scotland Yard security team. After breaking up with Prince Charles in 1992, she eventually decided to stop using her royal protection.
Wharfe remembers telling Diana to think it over just weeks before she cut ties with them. “She asked me, ‘You’ve always given me good advice. If there’s one piece of advice you’d give me, what would it be?’”
His answer was straightforward: “I urge you, I urge you, not to lose the Scotland Yard security because we have given you that freedom, we’ve broken rules to let you have the normal life you want, and there’s no reason why that shouldn’t keep going.”
Even though he warned her, Diana let go of her whole security team just four weeks later. Wharfe strongly thinks that if Queen Elizabeth had insisted she keep them, Diana would have said yes.
“You can’t make someone take security; they have to agree to it. But since it wasn’t offered, it was her way of saying she wanted a fresh start.”
Diana’s passing shocked the world, making headlines for weeks. Her funeral turned into a significant moment of sadness, but the haunting pictures of her crashed car are still remembered by many.
More than twenty years later, people are still discussing what might have saved Diana. But for Ken Wharfe, the reasons are obvious — three key choices determined her fate that night. Do you think he’s right?