Diana’s bodyguard believed that the Secret Service caused her crash
Princess Diana’s former bodyguard is convinced British Secret Service agents accidentally murdered the royal family and then launched a frantic cover-up to pretend they had never been to the scene of her horror crash.
RadarOnline.com can reveal martial arts expert Lee Sansum – dubbed ‘Rambo’ by Diana, and who died in 2025 at the age of 63 – went to his grave convinced that MI6 had secretly sent a surveillance unit to keep an eye on her.
He believed they were speeding alongside her black Mercedes S280 before it fatally crashed into a tunnel in Paris 25 years ago, killing the mother-of-two along with her companion Dodi Fayed and his driver Henri Paul.
Lee died believing the crew could have caused Paul to crash “unintentionally” and thinking there could have been officers who refused to come forward to give evidence, which could explain the web of mysteries and conspiracy theories that still shrouds Diana’s fatal crash.
He also thought the story about Paul driving drunk was concocted by shadowy forces to turn him into a Lee Harvey Oswald-like patsy before the crash.
The ex-army man and other guards drew straws to decide who would go with Diana on the night of her crash, with his friend Trevor Rees-Jones losing the draw and getting into the car – before ending up with catastrophic injuries and no memory of the crash after surviving.
In an exclusive interview from his home before his death, Burnley-born Sansum said: “My opinion is based on my experience of being involved in surveillance before Diana. We were under government surveillance. That was expected. It’s ridiculous to think that the Princess was abroad without anyone looking to see where they were – that’s quite ridiculous.
“It is possible that our security forces were there in the tunnel. They may have been on the high-powered bicycles that were never found.
“I believe they were there at the time. I think they were there, and someone said, ‘Right, we can’t tell we’ve been here,’ and that set off a catalog of events that the public doesn’t understand.”
He added: “I think the coincidences (and the conspiracy theories) were the result of an attempt to cover up the fact that our secret services were present at the time of the crash.”
Lee emphasized that he did not think security agents killed Diana, as many conspiracy theorists believe.
But he continued: “Whether it was a driver clipping someone or something like that – I do believe there were people on the ground at that time.
“A witness riding in a car ahead of the Mercedes in Paris that evening told the inquest that he saw a high-powered motorcycle overtake the car just seconds before the crash. Another witness driving in the opposite direction saw a second motorcycle swerve to avoid smoke and wreckage and then drive out of the tunnel without stopping. The riders of those bikes have never been found, and that is no coincidence.
“I believe that security officers, possibly British or a combined British/French team, who were following Diana, either accidentally caused the crash or were near the car when it happened.”
He theorized: ‘If it had been known that MI6 agents were close to the Mercedes at the critical moment, many people would have blamed them for it, and this would have been a huge scandal.
‘I don’t believe for a moment that MI6 arranged for Diana to be murdered. There was no reason to do that, and a car crash isn’t a reliable way to guarantee a target’s death anyway.
“Trevor was in that car. He survived and eventually recovered. “I don’t think they were trying to kill Diana, but I do believe they were there, and that would have been enough to implicate them in her death.”
He suggested: ‘Perhaps they inadvertently caused Henri Paul to take evasive action. Perhaps they merely followed Diana’s car into the tunnel and watched in horror as the driver lost control of the car.
“In any case, if they had been there, it would have been crucial to conceal their presence at the site of the crash that killed the most famous woman in the world and the mother of the future king.
“It would have been the only priority from then on and would explain why another explanation for the crash was desperately needed: the theory that Henri Paul was drunk… the whole thing stunk, but a scapegoat was needed.”
Sansum added that he believed “there is more evidence” that will never be revealed by the officers he believed fled the tunnel.
He claimed officers who first raided driver Paul’s apartment after the impact found only “a few bottles of liquor”.
Sansum claimed that a second visit revealed “enough to fill a full bar” and highlighted a conspiracy theory that the driver’s blood was switched with samples doused with alcohol to shift the blame for Diana’s death to the driver.
He pondered, “If it was just an accident, how can we explain some of the strange things that happened that night, or explain the actions taken by the authorities afterward, which provide almost overwhelming evidence of some kind of cover-up?
“Is it possible that members of our security forces were involved in the accident or at least witnessed it, but their presence has been completely erased from the official version of events?
“If you think it is impossible that Princess Diana was under the surveillance of our security services at the time, let me ask this question: can you imagine a scenario in which the Prime Minister contacts the head of MI6 and asks him where Princess Diana is and he replies that he does not know?”
He claimed: “Diana was the mother of the heir to the throne. They would have been watching her the whole time. Imagine if she was targeted by terrorists, kidnapped by criminals, or simply compromised by being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people?
“The authorities absolutely would not have allowed that. Diana was being watched for her own protection, but also so that everyone knew where she was at all times, which was certainly a matter of national security.”
Lee said he and his colleague Martin spotted a “14 Company Special Reconnaissance Unit man” near Al-Fayed’s home in Oxted before the team headed to St Tropez with Diana and her rumored fiancé Dodi for her infamous boat trip with the playboy.
Sansum claimed: “I didn’t believe Martin at first. I even said, ‘There’s absolutely no DET guy here.’ Martin was adamant: ‘I’m telling you, I lived three doors down in Hereford.’
‘We went back and saw the guy again, and Martin confirmed it was the guy he knew from his days in the SAS.
‘We were generally followed by MI5, and this was the first time we had seen a Special Forces man near Oxted.’
Sansum also claimed that Diana, 36, told him of her fears that she would be murdered like her gunned down boyfriend Gianni Versace during her last ray of sunshine in St. Tropez.
But he added that he couldn’t put his arms around her because he knew their every move was being watched.
Sansum said, “When Versace was killed, she was in tears, crying on the boat, asking me, ‘Are they going to kill me?’ It didn’t shock me that she said that. It seemed like a reasonable question to ask in that situation: she had healthy paranoia.”
Following Diana’s death, Sansum said he also feels he has been placed under surveillance by a similar team that he suspects could have caused the royal family’s blow.
Speaking about his time in Britain after the horrors in Paris, he added: ‘Whether it was just two men in a black car, I don’t know. But if you were in the middle of a British security operation at that level, they would know where every one of us was.”
Sansum, who served as an officer in the Royal Military Police, was one of Diana’s bodyguards shortly before she died in 1997 and accompanied her on a family holiday to the French resort of Saint-Tropez that year.
The former bodyguard’s wife announced the tragic news of his death in a post on Facebook in May last year, revealing he had died of a sudden heart attack.
Alongside a series of photos showing the couple’s years together, she wrote: ‘Since meeting in 1998, Lee Sansum has been my soulmate, hero and most amazing man in my world.
“So I am devastated to share that he is no longer with us. He suffered a fatal heart attack at home on Saturday morning.
“His tremendous presence will be as missed around the world as it is in our household, although his capacity for love and the life skills he shared have left a legacy that will never be lost.”
“He is forever loved and will always be with us. I love you more than ever, ‘My Lovely Lee.'” she concluded.
Dad-of-six Sansum had black belts in karate, jiu-jitsu and kickboxing – earning him the nickname ‘Rambo’ by Diana.
He was also a security guard for A-listers including Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.
