Standing on the steps of the High Court, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner said "very hurtful" allegations had been made.

Lord Stevens said the verdicts reflected "exactly" what he said in his report into Diana and Dodi Fayed's deaths.

Lord Stevens led the Met's three-and-a-half-year Operation Paget inquiry, which looked into allegations that there was a conspiracy to murder Diana and Mr Fayed.

In an apparent reference to Dodi Fayed's father, Mohamed al Fayed, the former top policeman expressed a hope that the jury's "clear" verdict would be accepted by everyone involved.

Lord Stevens said: "For my part, I'm rather pleased in terms of the Paget team that this is a justification of the report that we did.

"I want to emphasise that the report and the inquiry was all about looking at the conspiracy theories, which of course we hopefully laid to rest, and then secondly assisting the coroner in the court.

"There have been a number of allegations which have been unfortunate. Those allegations have been very hurtful to those people who had a job to do, and very hurtful also to those people who had to give evidence. I just hope that this can bring closure to what has been a traumatic event for a lot of people."

Scotland Yard Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the investigations into the crash in the Alma underpass in Paris in August 1997 had been "extensive and thorough".

Standing alongside Lord Stevens, he said: "I think we now have to soberly reflect upon a clear verdict, and wish and hope that this now brings some sort of closure to this matter so that people can go back to grieving in private and remembering in private."