For him, Diana inquest is just the ticket
Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 2:15 PM
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London, England
By Alexa Chopivsky, NBC News Correspondent
Tuesday was Day 68 at the London inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi al-Fayed.
So far the jury has heard from priests and pathologists, soothsayers and Scotland Yard, butlers, bartenders and best friends, videocam-toting tourists and toxicologists, ex-girlfriends and ambassadors, masseuses, forensic experts and eyewitnesses, journalists and jewelers, professors and pathologists, intelligence officers, doctors, bodyguards, ambulance drivers and financial analysts, onetime car dealership managers and Diana relatives, psychiatrists, the French Brigade Criminelle, and a British Member of Parliament. All connected – some in big ways, some small – to events surrounding "the crash."
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| Alexa Chopivsky / NBC News |
| John Loughrey shows off the face paint he wears everyday to the London inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed. |
Truly a colorful cast. But surely the most outstanding character at the Royal Courts of Justice – ground zero for the proceedings – is 52-year-old John Loughrey, who quit his job as a chef outside London so that he could "do this inquest."
"I’m probably one of Diana’s most loyal fans," he boasts, his face painted – as it is every day – with "Diana" and "Dodi" straddling his nose in blue. "Everybody knows me in the courtroom."
‘I want to know the truth’
Loughrey is the court entertainer, of sorts, playing his supporting role by sitting in the public gallery every day of the hearings.
During a break he nods familiarly to a lawyer representing the Metropolitan Police, whose 2006 investigation into the crash determined that the tragedy was the result of an alcohol-fueled accident and not, as some allege, foul play.
"I want to know the truth [about the crash] – which I think was an accident," Loughrey says. It is also why he came to the Royal Courts on Oct. 1, the day before the inquest opened, sleeping on the ground with his coat as a blanket. "I thought the tickets would be in great demand. I had worried about getting in. I was the only person here at 8 a.m. on the first day."
Every morning since, he gets on the court’s public ticket line at 6:45 a.m. The prize: Ticket Number 1.
He says that key players in the trial – from Mohamed al-Fayed to former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Condon to ex-Dodi girlfriend Kelly Fisher to Diana friend Rosa Monkton – have signed his Number 1 tickets, one for every day of the trial. He plans to sell them on eBay and donate all the profits to Prince Harry’s Well Child Charity when the inquest is done.
"Diana was a few steps forward than everyone else," says Loughrey. "She was big in charity, in helping poor people. She put her royal toe on the line to care for people."
At the end of the day he goes home to his sister, who paints his face – as she has done every night since October – with the two names that star in this inquest: Diana and Dodi. "It’s too early to do it in the morning, and I can’t do it myself," explains Loughrey, who says he gets only four hours of sleep.
"I have to sleep on my back or else it will smudge."
