Big Pictures boss Darryn Lyons has spoken of a bomb threat sent to the celebrity picture agency in the days following the death of Diana Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997.
Speaking yesterday via videolink from Australia, Lyons later told the inquest jury how he returned to his office in Clerkenwell Road, London, suspecting the premises had been broken into and a bomb planted there.
He reported the incident to police in the early hours of 5 September 1997.
Lyons also confirmed that on 1 September 1997 – the day after Princess Diana?s death – his general manager had received a phone call saying: ?You killed Diana, we are going to kill you, we are going to blow up your building.?
No bomb was found and police say that ticking noises which could be heard were the sounds of clocks in the Big Pictures office.
The coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker is considering whether there was anything ‘sinister’ about ‘the disturbance’ at the Big Pictures agency.
In 2002, formal manslaughter charges against nine photographers were dropped following a French investigation into the cause of the Paris car crash, which also killed Diana?s boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed.
A subsequent British inquiry, led by Lord Stevens, concluded that the crash was a ‘tragic accident’.
The full transcript of Lyon?s testimony is now available on the inquest website.
Lyons is a former photographer for The Geelong Advertiser newspaper in Australia.
He confirmed that pictures which photographers supplied to Big Pictures after the crash were handed to police.
Lyons was at his London home when he heard Diana had been involved in a car accident.
The inquest, at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, continues.
