Dodi Fayed, the son of the Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, did buy Princess Diana an £11,600 engagement ring a few hours before the couple's death in the Paris crash in 1997, though he had no chance to give it to her, the inquest jury heard on Thursday.

The jury, sitting in the high court, was shown grainy CCTV footage from the Repossi jeweller's shop, across the square from the Ritz hotel in Paris, taken the afternoon before the crash. It showed Dodi Fayed, who was not accompanied by the princess, surrounded by sta-ff as he inspected rings before leaving with a brochure.

Later footage showed Claude Roulet, assistant to the president of the Ritz hotel, visiting the shop and taking an item in a bag to the couple's room in the hotel's Imperial suite.

The bag was deposited in the hotel strongroom before the couple went to Dodi's flat elsewhere in the city. A ring bearing the inscription "Dis-moi Oui" ("Tell me Yes") was recovered from the flat after the couple's death. A receipt dated August 30 1997, the day before the crash, listing a "bague de fiançaille" (engagement ring), was also recovered.

Key part

It has been a key part of Mohamed Fayed's case that the couple were about to get engaged, that the princess was pregnant and that they were murdered by British secret service agents on the instructions of the Duke of Edinburgh to prevent their marriage.

Mr Fayed says that the couple had met the jeweller Alberto Repossi at his Monte Carlo store to choose the ring during their holiday on the Fayed yacht in the Mediterranean.

He claims that the ring was then sized in Italy and sent to Paris. The jury was told that his father believes he was planning to present her with it on the night they died.