Diana’s letters to Dodi revealed

Two intimate letters from Princess Diana to her lover Dodi Fayed were revealed on Friday at the High Court inquest into the couple's deaths. In a letter from Kensington Palace dated 6 August 1997, Diana thanks Dodi for a six-day holiday on the Fayed family yacht "with all the love in the world". She offers "a million heart-felt thanks at bringing such joy into this particular chick's life." She goes on: "Darling Dodi, heaven knows how I can thank you. I adored it all and every minute was full of laughter and happiness."

In a second letter, dated August 13 1997, the princess describes a gift to Dodi of a pair of cufflinks which belonged to her father - "the man I loved most in the world". She signed off with "fondest love".

Extracts from the letters were produced by Michael Mansfield, counsel for Dodi's father, Mohammed Fayed, during the cross-examination of Diana's confidante Rosa Monckton. In the witness stand on Thursday, Monckton had played down the couple's relationship, saying they were not about to get married and that Diana was not pregnant when she died. But during cross-examination on Friday the Princess's close friend broke down in tears when the barrister alleged that Diana may have hidden her true feelings about Dodi from her.

"She was treating this relationship with Dodi as a serious matter, wasn't she?" Mansfield said. "It doesn't suggest it was little more than a fling after a couple of days."

Although Diana "tended to speak and write in an extravagant way" Monckton said that the Princess had told her that the letters were not just written to make Dodi happy. "It was clearly more than that." ·