Why have we waited so long for this hearing?
Dr John Burton, the Coroner of the Queen's Household, ruled soon after the death that an inquest – which, under British law, must take place when a citizen dies abroad, suddenly or unnaturally – must await the outcome of inquiries by the French authorities, which took two years. Then Mr Burton's successor, Michael Burgess, commissioned a British police inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, which took three more years.
There were further delays when Michael Burgess stepped down as coroner, citing an excessive workload. He was replaced by one of Britain's top judges, Baroness Butler Sloss, but she too resigned, in April 2007, after a higher court overturned her ruling that the inquest would sit without a jury and in private.
