SPECULATION surrounding the death of the Princess of Wales has been reignited by her former butler - and now the Gazette can reveal that the real writer of his sensational new book is an Addingham man.

In the run-up to the publication of 'A Royal Duty', by ex-royal butler Paul Burrell next week, it has been disclosed that Diana had feared there was a plot to assassinate her by staging a car crash.

She expressed these fears in a letter to Mr Burrell - an event he has inexplicably kept secret up until now.

About a year after sending the letter, the Princess died, along with her boy friend, Dodi - the son of Harrod's owner Mohammed Al Fayed - when their car crashed in Paris in 1997.

Mr Al Fayed has since suggested that the crash was not an accident, but the result of a plot to get rid of Diana who had become an embarrassment to the British establishment and a barrier to the future King marrying his mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Mr Al Fayed has repeatedly called for an inquiry into the accident.

Last year Mr Burrell went on trial accused of stealing hundreds of items of her personal possessions but was dramatically cleared when the Queen revealed he had told her he was keeping the items for safekeeping.

Following the trial he sold his story, reputedly for £300,000, to Daily Mirror journalist Steve Dennis, a trusted friend.

Mr Dennis was born and brought up in Addingham. He is an ex-pupil of Ilkley Grammar School and started his career as a trainee reporter on the Ilkley Gazette, before moving on to the national press.

At the end of last year, the Royal 'scoop' earned Mr Dennis the prestigious Reporter of the Year Award at the What The Paper's Say annual dinner.

Now the Gazette has discovered that Mr Dennis can expect to receive a much more lucrative reward for ghost writing what has been described as 'The Book of the Century'.

We tracked down the reporter in America where he is preparing to begin a three-week book promotion tour of the United States and Europe with his friend and collaborator, Mr Burrell. The book is expected to bring in a profit of at least £500,000 when it is published.

But Mr Dennis refused to reveal the extent of his collaboration. All he would say was: "This is Paul Burrell's book and he is extremely proud of it - my involvement is not relevant."

However, the Gazette has discovered that Mr Dennis has not been so reticent in private about his contribution to the book, parts of which has been serialised by the Daily Mirror and splashed all over the other national newspapers this week.

A very good friend from Addingham, who did not want to be identified, told the Gazette that Mr Dennis saw his involvement as 'a chance to write history' and said that he would probably never get the opportunity to do something like it again.

The friend said that at the time Mr Dennis got involved with Mr Burrell, he had no idea how big the story was going to become.

Mr Dennis is a regular visitor to his former home, but has not been seen in the village since March. He has been living in a secret location with Mr Burrell for the past 10 months while the book has been produced, despite still being officially employed as the Mirror's northern correspondent.

The reporter refused to reveal his exact location and would not answer the most pressing question of all about the affair: why, if Paul Burrell felt the contents of the letter were so serious, had he not revealed its existence to the authorities immediately after Diana's death?