Diana family 'shocked and sickened' by CBS photos

The family of Britain's Princess Diana said yesterday it was "shocked and sickened" by a US television network's decision to show pictures of her taken as she lay dying in a Paris road tunnel.

Even Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in to denounce the pictures.

CBS broke what Britain's own media had long considered the ultimate taboo on Wednesday by showing photocopies of pictures of the much-loved princess at the scene of her death at 37 in a 1997 car crash.

The copies came from a file held by French authorities, who seized the pictures from paparazzi photographers racing behind Diana's Mercedes, the TV show, "48 Hours Investigates", said.

"Lord Spencer and his family are shocked and sickened by CBS's actions," said a statement released on behalf of Diana's brother, Earl Charles Spencer.

Asked about the programme at his monthly news conference, Mr Blair said: "I think everyone finds it distasteful that there are pictures which can cause distress to the family."

Many photographers arrived quickly at the scene of the crash and similar pictures appeared on websites and in European magazines shortly after Diana's death. But mainstream English-language media have until now opted not to show them.

Buckingham Palace, which speaks on behalf of Diana's sons William and Harry, said it would not comment on the CBS pictures, but did not hide its displeasure.

"We've made our opinion very clear in the past on this sort of thing and we won't be commenting specifically," a spokesman said.

CBS defended the decision to show the photographs, saying they were "placed in a journalistic context - an examination of the medical treatment given to Princess Diana just after the crash - and are in no way graphic or exploitative."

The CBS programme looked at evidence gathered in the French investigation of the crash, but does not appear to have revealed many new details of a story that has been told and retold countless times in the last seven years.

A summary of the French evidence was published in 1999 and concluded that Diana died because her driver, Henri Paul, was drunk. Paul and Diana's lover Dodi al Fayed were also killed.