TRJ interview with Trevor McDonald Part V
Gary Stone
Picture of Trevor walking along country path with his Mom and
Stepdad
TRJ: I had set targets for myself when I came home. One of them was to
be back at work within 6 months, the other one was to play rugby within 12
months, I did both.
Pictures of Trevor and team
playing rugby
Stepdad: He looks like the masked crusader doesn't he, that used to
wrestle with his headgear on.
Mom: Yes.
TRJ: I'm still numb around my eye, half my nose and the top lip
here, not totally numb. It's sort of like the feeling that you've been to
the dentist so I am aware that err perhaps my table manners aren't up to
standard, and a bit of a bad back, but err nothing to complain about.
JD: 6 months after the crash Trevor returned to work hoping to
resume to normal life and praying that the horror would gradually become
history.. It was not to be. In Feb 1998 MAF went public with his claims and
his allegations against the British establishment. To Trevor, this version
of reality seemed absurd. Though in various private conversations with his
boss, he had been careful to avoid saying so.
TRJ: I didn't feel like I could say to him, no, you are talking
absolute bollocks sort of thing. I didn't really want, I didn't want to
say.... Every time he spoke, he'd get emotional, he'd get tears in his eyes,
um, I actually felt for the man, he'd lost his son, I felt for him. I sort
of sympathised with him, so I'd say well, it's a possibility and I think he
actually took that to mean I agreed with him err after a while.
JD: He said, as quoted in the article, Trevor remembers here the
Princess of Wales saying, where is Dodi, where is Dodi, that's what Trevor
told me.
TRJ: I never said that to him err, I had sort of memories that I'm not
sure if they were memories, but I never said those words to him, never.
JD: These half memories that you say you might have, do they have any
cohesion at all.
TRJ: Hearing a voice calling out Dodi's name once, I had another one of
possibly sitting in the vehicle at a set of traffic lights with a motor bike
by the side of the vehicle. And then another one of trying to fight someone
off. There was someone coming at me and trying to fight someone off sitting
in the Mercedes. None of them now I believe to be true memories. Maybe they
are, maybe they are not but I wouldn't put my name against them now. I have
accepted that I will never remember that journey.
Newsflash of TRJ arriving at the French court closely flanked by KW.
JD: Trevor had to face the media yet again when he went to give evidence
to the French inquiry into the crash. Everyone now wanted his story and it
was partly his own doing because he had succumbed to pressure from Mr Al
Fayed and also given an interview to the Daily Mirror. As reported, his
story gave tacit credence to his boss's fantastic allegations. Trevor felt
used.
TRJ: I'd just had enough of the whole thing. It was err, I just didn't
want anything to do with it.
JD: Trevor refused all payment for the Mirror article but the worlds
media was at his door offering fantastic sums of money. The onslaught was
handled by the family lawyer in Oswestry, Ian Lucas.
IL: We had literally people from California, um, enquiries from
Argentina, advert proposals from Japan, all pouring in literally over a
weekend.
JD: Willing to pay.
IL: Oh absolutely.
JD: What kind of money.
IL: We, up to, we had an offer for one million dollars.
TRJ: I was offered oh ridiculous amounts of money.
JD: Not tempted to take, a lot of people would have been. Take half a
million and then the National Enquirer, an American magazine, a million
dollars on top.
TRJ: No, it didn't feel right, I mean the whole thing didn't feel
right, I mean I felt, I already felt betrayed by work and felt used by work.
I think it was the right decision. This was where I started to err loose
trust in work and started to think about resigning.
Picture of the Flame de la Liberte in Paris and
the exit to the tunnel.
JD: Trevor now came under growing pressure to do just that from his
lawyers who feared that MAF was manipulating their client into a position
which could damage any legal claim he might have as a result of the crash.
As his Paris lawyer Christian Courtelle (SP?) was adamant, you must leave Al
Fayed.
CC: Constantly I had to fight against manipulation, influence and
trying to influence the case in a way that I did not want.
JD: Why do you think he wanted to manipulate Trevor.
CC: It's difficult to say, I think he mainly wanted him to
cooperate with his fantasies. He was trapped in a nightmare and he would
have been trapped in a much greater nightmare if we hadn't tried to have him
refrain from being influenced by Mr Fayed.
Picture of the town centre in
Oswestry.
IL: My worry was that he wouldn't be able to walk through Oswestry
with his head held high. I think he can do that now.
JD: And the reason he wouldn't have been able to do that.
IL: Because he, he would not have done the right thing and people
would have known that he had done the wrong thing.
Newsflash: Picture of Trevor dressed in smart
blue suite going to his lawyer
Commentary: Trevor Rees-Jones went to his lawyer's office in
Shropshire to make a statement. No questions were allowed
JD: Once again, Trevor did his best to draw a line under what had
happened, he made his one and only public statement, it was brief and to the
point.
Newsflash: TRJ: I've got no intentions of speaking
further on the subject publicly until after the court proceedings have
finished.
JD: KW had also come under pressure from his boss, doing one
interview on TV that he came bitterly to regret, but refusing to take part
in another following a meeting with the programmes producer.
KW: I wasn't particularly happy about doing it, I wanted to get on
with my life, and during that conversation, Mr Fayed came into the room and
said to them on the other side, Is this the bastard who fucked up.
JD: Who said that.
KW: Mr Fayed, he said, Is this the bastard who fucked up in Paris.
JD: In the summer of 1998, In their own time and as discrete as
possible, Trevor and Kes resigned, both of them hoping that the pressures on
them would now be at an end. But his former boss had other ideas. Putting
his conspiracy theories momentarily to one side, Mr Al Fayed, as Trevor's
lawyers had anticipated, now turned on the bodyguards.
JD: Fayed is quoted then as saying, I am not on good terms with them,
meaning you, the BG's. They are the people who caused the devastation
through their incompetence and unprofessional practices. They had rules and
they moved away from the rules, they let me down. What effect did that have.
TRJ: I mean he's wrong, I know he's wrong and I can live with that.
KW: I was furious and immediately spoke to Trevor on the phone. He
was the same, it was as if we had no voice, it was as if he could say
exactly what he wanted and people would believe that. That's why doing this
is at long last it's the only chance to say what really happened.
JD: Later, in a CNN programme he said of you (TRJ), His incompetence
and unintelligent approach, you know, he didn't ask them to put their
seatbelts on. I'm confidant that this boy has recovered now, and he knows
exactly what happened. And the interviewer asked MAF, why wouldn't he come
forward and say, Mr Fayed responds, because he's being influenced by other
persons.
TRJ: He only sees his own truth, he's not going to be happy until the
definitive version is the one he puts out and it's never going to be because
as far as I am concerned, it was just a simple car accident.
Picture of the place of Justice then on to Henri Paul,
the crash and the crowds outside the justice courts.
JD: After an inquiry lasting many months, the French authorities
dismissed the Al Fayed conspiracy theory out of hand. The cause was an
accident, the principal cause of which was the driver Henri Paul, who was
not only drunk, but three times over the limit. TRJ was an innocent victim
of the tragedy. The owner of Harrods has refused to accept the finding of
the court and as for this film he has chosen to make no comment.
IL: It was always open to Trevor to pursue a fairly strait forward
personal injury claim, um, against his then employers. He did not wish to
take any action from the outset that was going to be construed as
criticising or moving against Mr Al Fayed. He doesn't want to get into a
slanging match.
JD: Trevor sees himself as an ordinary individual that was thrust into
an appalling limelight because of what happened in this city. I fact he's a
remarkable person, he survived, he recovered and somehow managed to retain
his dignity and self-respect. He was forced into a confrontation with his
boss, Mr Al Fayed simply to protect his own reputation, now he wants nothing
more than to retreat into that decent anominity which he emerged
reluctantly.
TRJ: Of course there's if only's, just human nature. Why didn't I put
my foot down, why didn't I insist on this, why didn't I ... I feel
confident Mr Al Fayed that I did the best that anyone could have done given
the situation.Um, it was, yes I, if only's, you'd end up going mad if you
kept thinking along those lines. You know I've got to question myself all
the time, I've got to be happy with what I did, I can stand, I will stand by
what I did on that night.
JD: Until now TRJ has remained silent about the events leading up to
the crash, refusing to take money for his story, so what has made him go
public in print with his account of what happened before, during and after
that terrible night.
TRJ: Fayed and the Harrods organisation have accused me of
contributing to that disaster and I feel I have got every right to reply to
that and if I don't speak and give my version, the voids going to be filled
by someone making something up. But I know I am always going to be
remembered for the death of the most famous woman in the world.
Picture of blue night sky, the River Seine and the Eiffel Tower twinkling in
the background
The End
Well Thats it folks, hope you have enjoyed reading this, it has been done as
best we can so take as is.
Thanks Debbie and Geths
GODS...@home.com
I seems that you have done a very nice job. And
the price was right too. I suppose someday the
people with the microscopes will get in as they may
with anything and microanalyze down to the dot.
I've only tried to transcribe a few things and got
the impression that in practice nothing is perfect.
That reminds me that while living in Washington
D.C. in the late sixties I thought that I might take
up oil painting. I got a canvas or a piece of paper
and a photograph of my then congressman
Charles Gubser. I mathematically sketched out
the picture with lead pencil and I was getting
happier and happier with myself from the pencil
drawing. Then I started putting on the oil paint.
And was correcting here and correcting there and
suddenly, after about 15 hours, the painting suddenly
came alive. But the living expression was not what
was in the picture. A shadow here, and off area
there gave the image emotion and the emotion
was grotesque, anguished, on an on. Trying to
make the person look happy I could see why
Da Vinci is supposed to have taken 15 years with the
Mona Lisa, to get that bland, contented expression.
I don't know what happened to the painting. I hope
it disappearred from the face of the earth. I could
see why people paint landscapes and seascapes.
But, as in this case there is an other process
prevailing that the public needs to know why there
has been injury and death so that we can learn to
prevent it in the future we then need the artist to
help use view our imaginary hypothesis.
But I sympathesize with the want to be perfectionist
artist who cannot and somewhat suffers looking at
his/her own humanity.
Thank you Geth and family.
<a href="http://members.home.com/godsbrain">G.O.D.S.B.R.A.I.N.</a><br>
<br>
Gary Stone
Gary Stone <gary....@cwcom.net> wrote in message
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