Diana, Princess of Wales, would still be alive if she had accepted protection offered by the Metropolitan police, the force's former commissioner told the inquest into her death today.

Paul Condon also rejected claims he had covered up evidence that the princess was murdered as "abhorrent" and "disgusting".

"Let me be absolutely frank. If as my wish, she would have had police protection in Paris, then I'm absolutely convinced those three lives would not have been tragically lost," said Lord Condon, the head of the Metropolitan police from 1993 until his retirement in early 2000.

"Her problem with protection was, sadly, that she did not have police protection. I wish she had."

Diana died after a car crash in France that also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and driver, Henri Paul.

Michael Mansfield QC, who has been hired by Fayed's father, Mohamed, asked Condon why he had not immediately revealed a note of a meeting between Diana and her lawyer, Lord Mishcon, in which she said she feared her car would be sabotaged.

Mishcon, who has since died, gave the letter to Condon 18 days after the fatal crash but it was not passed on to the royal coroner until 2003, when a similar letter had been made public by Diana's former butler Paul Burrell, the inquest jury was told.

Mansfield suggested to Condon that he did not hand over the letter because "you were sitting on it knowing that something had gone wrong in Paris linked to the work of British state agencies".

The suggestion that he was part of a criminal conspiracy was "about the most serious allegation that could ever be made of someone in my position", Condon replied.

"I find the suggestion - though I respect your right to raise it - as totally abhorrent, offensive and would actually mean that I'm a murderer in essence, part of a murderous conspiracy," he said. "I am on oath, my whole life has been conducted to telling the truth on this sort of issue, and I can swear on oath to the jury that that is a blatant lie."

Richard Horwell QC, for Scotland Yard, pointed out that Mishcon never contacted the coroner himself about the note, and neither had anyone else who had been at the meeting or the members of Diana's family who knew about it.

Condon had earlier said he had been extremely concerned at Diana's decision to refuse Royal Protection officers in December 1993 and that officers had held numerous meetings in the next month with her to try to change her mind.

After one "critical" meeting he attended in mid-December, Condon said he had been involved in a serious accident that kept him from talking in person with the princess about the matter again.

"I have often thought back, if that had not been the sequence of events I might have demanded face-to-face meetings with her. But I honestly don't think it would have changed her mind," he told the high court.

After her refusal to use police protection, officers only accompanied Diana when she travelled with Prince William and Prince Harry.

In October 1994 Diana asked a deputy assistant commissioner in charge of royal protection whether there was a device in her car or if her phone calls were being monitored, suggesting police were involved, the inquest heard.

Mansfield asked Condon if he thought Diana did not trust the police.

"Clearly she had decided in her own mind, sadly, that the police, if they were on anyone's side, were not on her side," said Condon.

"That was wrong but I think it was a view that I think I would have found it very hard to change her mind about."

Later in the day the inquest heard from a former employee of Mohamed Fayed, who said that he left his job managing security for the Harrods owner's Paris villa after being put under pressure to exaggerate the extent of Diana's commitment to Dodi.

Reuben Murrell said he quit to protect his "integrity" after being asked to tell journalists that the couple had spent several hours inside the villa with an interior designer in the afternoon before they died, instead of just 28 minutes.

Murrell, who went on to sell his story for £40,000, also claimed that he was asked to "contain" the family of Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees Jones, the only survivor of the crash, as he recovered in hospital.

"As the situation progressed, I was under the impression that I was more there to contain them and try to control any adverse communications or outcomes in the situation of them becoming maybe 'anti' or wanting to take things in an adverse direction to that of the [Fayed] family," he said.