Lee Sansum - Protecting Diana: A Bodyguards Story

Diversion Books

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Copyright 2022 Lee Sansum and Howard Linskey

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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First Diversion Books edition August 2022

Trade Paperback ISBN: 9781635767919

eBook ISBN: 9781635768206

First published as The Bodyguard in Great Britain in 2022 by Seven Dials, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

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Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available on file.

All photos reprinted by permission of Seven Dials, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

To Kate, my beautiful soul mate. You saved me and changed my life, just as you have changed many other lives for the better. I survived the difficult times to come back to you. This book is dedicated to you and my wonderful children: Chamane, Janine, Damon, Theodore, Sebastian and Blake.

For all my brothers and sisters, past and present, who have stood shoulder to shoulder to fight the good fight: thank you. Without you, I would not be here to enjoy my wonderful life or ever to have the opportunity to set down my story in this book.

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.

Genesis 28:15

contents

T revor was the lucky one. Everyone said that, and I suppose they were right. Trevor Rees - Jones was the sole survivor of the most notorious car crash in history: a horrific accident in Paris, on August 31, 1997, that claimed the lives of the driver, Henri Paul; our bosss son, Dodi Fayed; and the most famous woman in the world, Princess Diana. It sent shock waves around the world, causing a huge outpouring of grief for the Peoples Princess, and it changed my life, too, completely.

It could have been me in that car instead of my friend, if my name had been on the roster to be their bodyguard that weekend. I might have been killed or horribly injured like poor Trevor. The shock of the accident, the loss of Dodi and the death of a woman I had got to know, like and admire led me to take stock of my situation. For the first time, I started to really question what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had worked for Dodis father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, for several years, was Dianas bodyguard in St. Tropez just a month earlier and had already signed up to join Diana and Dodi in America, where we had been told they were planning to resettle. Diana had been happy on that holiday but I had seen her in tears, too, when she learned of the murder of her friend Gianni Versace. She confided in me her own fears that she might one day be assassinated.

It was my job to protect Diana, to keep her from harm and shield her from the constant hounding of the paparazzi who would soon be blamed, in part, for her death. The role of elite bodyguard was one I had grown into gradually and was an unlikely position for a northern working-class lad, and former football hooligan no less, to find himself in. I was thirty-five years old and had reached this point slowly and steadily, thanks to expertise picked up in the military police, during undercover work in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles and through intensive martial arts trainingI eventually became an eighth dan and there arent many of us around. Later, I would go on to open the most successful martial arts school of its kind in the UK. This thriving business was eventually wrecked by the economic crash, forcing me to earn a living once more by risking my life, this time in the war zones of Somalia and Libya, where I was nearly killed on a number of occasions.

But if there was a single turning point in my life, when events caused me to divert from one path and choose a very different one, it was that crash in Paris, when the world was forced to come to terms with the loss of a much-loved princess and my own future was thrown into doubt, my plans for America ended.

As I waited to meet my old mate Trevor again, for the first time since the crash, I knew he would still be in a bad way. He wanted to see Dodis grave so he could pay his respects and I hoped this meant that he was getting better. He had spent ten days in a coma following the crash, while we anxiously awaited news of his condition, not knowing if he was going to pull through. Every bone in Trevors face was broken by the impact. Surgeons had to rebuild it from old photos, using 150 pieces of titanium. They took part of the back of his skull to rebuild his cheekbones. His nose and jaw were so badly damaged that his face was completely flat. You can see that in the X-rays. His surgeon said he had never seen anyone survive such terrible injuries.

So, yes, as the sole survivor of the crash, Trevor Rees-Jones was luckybut he didnt look it when I saw him that day. The poor bloke was a mess and the sight that greeted me when he got out of the car was a shocking one. I filled up with tears, which I had to hide because I didnt want him to know how bad he looked, though I suspect he already realized. He was hunched over and had probably lost three stones in weight. His face was in such a state that you would not have known it was Trevor. The guy could hardly speak and was slurring his words. It didnt help that he was probably on strong meds for the pain and to help with his recovery. I cant remember what I said to him. I probably fell back on the usual dark, squaddie humor that always seemed to help when a situation was truly terrible, though that wouldnt have lasted long. He was here for a reason and I was there to help my mate get to Dodis grave. I knew this was a big moment for him. I had brought a golf buggy round to the front of the Al-Fayed house. I helped Trevor into it and drove him out to the grave, which was in a beautiful part of the grounds. Straight away, I realized that every bump was going right through him, causing Trevor more pain, so I had to drive very slowly.

When we finally got to the graveside, there were people working on the site, finishing the mausoleum that Mohamed Al-Fayed had built to memorialize his son. I asked them to leave so I could bring Trevor to the graveside. It was obvious he would not be able to get out of the golf buggy without my help, so I bent low, put my hands under him and lifted that big man up and out of there like he was a kid, then I helped him to walk slowly to the grave.

I knew Trevor was a tough bloke who could take it, but he was clearly in a lot of pain and I questioned the wisdom of doing this because it was obviously taking a lot out of a seriously injured man.

Trevor, I said, are you sure?

But he insisted on going through with it.

I am doing this, he said firmly. He was twenty-nine at the time of the accident and had been strong and fit. Now he was in such a bad way that it was like helping an old man. I had to support him the whole time and I was very aware that when we got there, things might become even worse if the grief hit him.

We finally made it and stood together silently at the graveside for a while, both of us thinking our own thoughts. The marble gravestone had the single word Dodi carved on it. Sometimes the light would shine down and make it look like Dodi was two words not one: Do and Di appearing to be in different shades. I wasnt the only member of the security team to have noticed that.