The night Princess Diana died on August 30, 1997, remains etched into the collective consciousness of the British people. However, the same cannot be said for Trevor Rees-Jones, the bodyguard who sat in front of her during the fatal crash. One of the last photos of the Princess of Wales shows her familiar blonde hair behind wide-eyed driver Henri Paul and Rees-Jones. Unlike Diana and Paul, Rees-Jones survived the catastrophic crash in the Pont d'Alma tunnel, less than five minutes after the photo was taken.
Rees-Jones, a former soldier who served in the parachute regiment and completed a tour of Northern Ireland, later worked for billionaire Mohammed Al-Fayed. In the summer of 1997, the relationship between Al-Fayed and Diana blossomed. Diana enjoyed holidaying with the Al-Fayeds in the south of France, partly due to the large private security team. On August 30, she headed to the Ritz Hotel in Paris, but the stay was marred by a group of 30 paparazzi.
To lose the photographers, Henri Paul, the Ritz's deputy security head, suggested the two cars leave from the front of the hotel while Paul drove Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed out the back in a limousine. Rees-Jones later told an inquest: “I wasn’t happy as it meant Dodi would be splitting the security officers, but I went along with it.” He insisted on travelling in the vehicle with them. With paparazzi in pursuit, the Mercedes S280 limo smashed into the tunnel's 13th pillar.
Rees-Jones suffered severe brain and chest trauma, spent 10 days in a coma, and broke every bone in his face. Surgeons used old photos as a reconstruction guide, piecing his face back together with 150 pieces of titanium. His mother Gill said: “His face looked like it had been hit by a frying pan in a Tom and Jerry cartoon — smashed back and flattened.”
After the wreckage was cleared and Diana laid to rest, attention turned to Rees-Jones. He said the last thing he remembered was climbing into the car at the Ritz, leaving a “missing” four minutes from his memory. In an interview three years later, he stated: “I’m the only person who can tell people for real, and I can’t remember. It will be so easy if I do remember. I can tell people and all this c**p will finish.”
A year after the crash, Rees-Jones stopped working for Al-Fayed, who believed British security services were behind the crash. The billionaire accused Rees-Jones of betraying him and put “intense” pressure on him to recover lost memories.
