By June Kelly BBC News Online home affairs correspondent

The dank autumn day did not seem a suitable setting for what had been billed "a celebrity trial".

Paul Burrell is famous by association.

He was butler to Diana, Princess of Wales both during her marriage and after.

He went into the Old Bailey with his arm wound tightly around his wife, Maria. They met when they were in Royal service.

Once he hovered in the background while the lenses were trained on his famous boss. Now he was the focus of the flashlights.

Important trial

In the courtroom every seat was taken. The Diana link had drawn journalists from all over the world.

Even writers from some of the glossy magazines were installed. It was just like an old style society trial with its promise of aristocratic witnesses.

The case is dominated by the figure of Diana

The case is being heard in Court One - the setting for all the most important trials at the Old Bailey down the years.

The majority of the cases heard in Court One involve murder.

The Burrell case is not about how someone died and yet it is dominated by a person no longer here.

Over and over again the name Diana appears on the charge sheet.

This is mainly because Paul Burrell is accused of stealing a large number of the Princess's CDs and cassettes.

Diana's voice

They are all listed individually - everything from Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor to The Eurythmics - and Diana had put her name on each individual one.

But on the first day of the trial there was also a feeling of hearing Diana's voice.

A letter which she had written to Prince William was read out in court - it was part of a collection of her correspondence found at her former butler's home.

In the stiff formality of the oak panelled room we listened to a loving letter from a mother to her eldest son.

The letter began: "My darling Wombat" - this was evidently the Princess's nickname for William.

It was meant to be private. Like so much of the princess's life it isn't private any more.