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LONDON - The coroner in charge of the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed 10 years ago is to withdraw from the hearings, less than a year after she was first appointed.
Baroness Butler-Sloss will be succeeded by Lord Justice Scott Baker, a senior Court of Appeal judge, who will take over the inquests in June.
He will be the fourth coroner to have had charge of the cases.
In July last year, the then royal coroner Michael Burgess quit, blaming a "heavy and constant" workload. The previous royal coroner, Dr John Burton, died in 2002.
In December, former judge Butler-Sloss backed down on holding the inquests' preliminary hearings in private. And she suffered a significant setback last month when Dodi's father Mohamed al Fayed won a judicial review against her decision to sit alone on the high-profile case and not to appoint a jury.
Yesterday she said: "These inquests now require a jury, and I do not have the degree of experience of jury cases that I feel is necessary and appropriate for presiding over inquests of this level of public interest."
- INDEPENDENT
