Darryn Lyons details what he did with pictures of dying Diana

An Aussie photographer who ran a London paparazzi empire claimed in 2017 to still have pictures of Princess Diana dying in her car.

An Australian photographer who ran the London paparazzi empire BIG Pictures and was embroiled in the Princess Diana crash photo scandal claimed to still possess the pictures of her dying as late as 2017.

Darryn Lyons, who later returned to Australia as a nightclub and hotel owner – and became the mayor of Geelong in late 2013 — wrote in his own Geelong Advertiser column on August 12, 2017 he “had, and I still have, the photographs of Diana dying in the car”.

Since being sacked as Geelong mayor in 2016, the Geelong born and raised photographer has moved to Port Douglas, where he owns an art gallery. He also has a gallery in Sydney.

Lyons says in his 2008 book Mr Paparazzi that photographers tried to help Princess Diana, before they took pictures, conflicting with Prince Harry’s claims they did nothing to try and save his mother.

“The events are still shrouded in mystery but two of my affiliated freelancers, David Kerr and Fabrice Chassery, were actually there,” Lyons writes.

Prince Harry has made it clear he blames the paparazzi for his mother’s tragic death.

Princess Diana with Prince Harry on holiday in Majorca, Spain, in 1987. Picture: Getty

The photographers had lost the trail of Diana’s car when its driver Henri Paul jumped a red light immediately after leaving the Ritz hotel in Paris, he says.

Kerr estimated he was just two minutes behind the accident.

“While most of the other paparazzi kept trying to find the car, our men decided to head for home and happened upon the wreck of the car as it lay in the Alma tunnel,” Lyons says.

“They ran down and began helping administer first aid to Diana as they waited for emergency services to arrive. Once it became clear they could do nothing more to assist, Fabrice clicked into work mode and took some pictures of the biggest news story he would ever be a part of. I rang a few newspaper editors and offered them the tip of the year for a healthy fee.”

Lyons says he was offered huge sums of money for the photos but took them off the market when he found out Diana had died and was not just injured, as he originally believed.

A young Darryn Lyons as a British tabloid press pap king, in front of the company he owned, Big Pictures. Picture: Supplied

Darryn Lyons when he was a London paparazzi photographer. Picture: Supplied

“No deals were done. It was a huge decision. Ultimately, my decision served my BIG Pictures well … but that didn’t happen before, I was accused, very wrongly, as the man trying to profit from the tragedy. On top of that, there were death threats against me, and my staff were abused on the street,” he writes.

Lyons’ account of the role the paparazzi played in Princess Diana’s death differs from that of Prince Harry in his memoir Spare and recent TV interviews, where Harry says — based on photos he was shown of the crash scene — “those men who chased her, they never stopped shooting at her when she lay in the car, they were just shooting, shooting, shooting pictures”.

Lyons says in Mr Paparazzi that the photographers did nothing wrong and any reported delay in calling emergency services was because the photographer “kept hitting the wrong number”.

Lyons says he was sent the photos taken by Kerr and Chassery of Princess Diana in the car wreck by his agent, Laurent Sola, shortly after the crash.

“Should the paps have been following the Princess? It’s hard to answer that but one fact remains, she wanted her picture taken that night. My guys were tipped off; they knew which (Ritz hotel) exit the couple were going to be using at what time,” he claims.

The wreckage of Princess Diana's car in the Alma tunnel of Paris. Picture: AFP

Lyons did not respond this week to requests from the Herald Sun for comment on Prince Harry’s allegations that paparazzi photographers did not help his mother, or on whether he still possessed the photos of Princess Diana dying.

But he claims in his book that initially “none of the paps present were actually taking images; they were all trying to help”, adding one photographer took Princess Diana’s pulse and another covered up a clearly dead Dodi Al Fayed “with a car mat to preserve his dignity”.

It was only after police and emergency services had been called that “Fabrice hit a few frames”, Lyons writes.

“David, who had a Sure Shot camera attached to his belt, also took a couple of shots. Nobody had tried to get any pictures before professional help arrived; their focus had been on trying to assist,” he says.

Lyons writes that he was likely the first person outside Paris to learn about Princess Diana’s car crash, when Sola rang to tell him.

“He told me he had men at the scene and the pictures would be with me soon,” he says.

In the photos he received, he adds, Diana “looks serene … like an angel”.

In the period immediately following her death, Lyons claims he was at the centre of a kill plot — by “the establishment” or “nutters” — despite the fact he had “quietly and completely” withdrawn the pictures from sale.

“The event had offered me an unparalleled chance to make an awful lot of money very quickly but the financial aspect was never paramount in my mind,” he says.

“I’m a salesman and I love to close a deal but I’m glad I decided not to shift those pictures … type Darryn Lyons and Princess Diana into Google to see how embroiled I became anyway.”

Darryn Lyons was Geelong mayor but sacked by the state government in 2016. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Lyons says he was unfairly “cast as the villain” after Princess Diana’s death.

His “rock” at the time was then The Mirror editor Piers Morgan – “the only editor who phoned to offer support”, Lyons says.

He says he was also called to meet with Dodi Al Fayed’s father, Mohammed, in the tycoon’s Harrods top floor office, who asked him directly if he thought “those bastards killed my son”.

Lyons says he believed the bastards reference was to the royal family and M16.

“Is it right or wrong to chase people in order to get a picture? My answer is simple: the only person who did the wrong thing was (driver) Henri Paul, by drink-driving, jumping red lights and speeding,” Lyons says.

He claims in his book that Princess Diana “loved the attention” from paparazzi photographers, was “quite predictable” in her movements and knew him by name.

A pap picture of Princess Diana on holidays with Harry and William. Source: BIG Pictures

While most of his work photographing her was in London, he once papped her from “perched up on a mountain top” when she was staying in Majorca, he says.

He also papped a birthday celebration of Prince Harry and “got some fantastic shots of Prince William being spanked at a school sports day”.

Lyons says blaming the paparazzi for Diana’s death was “the perfect get out” but most people believed that was true.

“I am happy to tell it from another perspective.”

Originally published as Darryn Lyons details what he did with pictures of dying Diana