Prince Philip is 'inconsiderate and insensitive', says crash victim
The woman injured in a car crash with Prince Philip has complained that the Prince is being treated very differently to her over the accident. She claims the alleged difference is because he is a Royal, and has called him “inconsiderate and insensitive” for not wearing a seatbelt at the weekend.
Emma Fairweather’s wrist was broken when the car that she was a passenger in crashed into the Duke of Edinburgh’s vehicle on Friday as he pulled out of a side road into its path.
The 97-year-old escaped unscathed, but Fairweather’s wrist has been left in a cast and the nine-month-old baby of her friend who was driving had to be rescued from the car.
She was a guest on This Morning on Monday, where she claimed that police had not taken a statement from her, medical staff had not fully checked her injuries, and she was even concerned that the Duke may not be insured – while he was pictured over the weekend back at the wheel and not wearing a seatbelt.
Fairweather said: “The support I was offered initially at the scene of the accident hasn’t been the reality for me. I’ve had no opportunity to discuss this with anybody.”
She added: “There needs to be a decision as to whether Prince Philip and I are from the same walk of life here or not. We either both receive the same treatment, or we don’t.
“I’m still waiting to give a statement to the police, which I am shocked by. I haven’t had a full medical check yet, my arm was checked at the time despite me telling the hospital I had other injuries.
“I just feel that his experience probably hasn’t been the same as mine.”
Fairweather said that it had taken a while to get insurance details from her friend, and that none had been provided by the royal family, even questioning whether they existed.
She said: “I’m very worried, I don’t know the truth of it but people keep saying to me that the Royal Family don’t have to have insurance, so I’m [potentially] injured by an uninsured driver and I don’t know the process.
“When I’ve contacted the family liaison officer from Norfolk Police to say I have a number of questions, he hasn’t been prepared to listen to those.”
She also said that she had been shocked to see that Prince Philip was driving again over the weekend and had been pictured without a seatbelt.
Asked how it made her feel, she said: “Upset, very upset, of course accidents happen, but there needs to then be a period of reflection on what could be done to prevent the same thing happening again. It’s highly insensitive and inconsiderate towards me and everyone involved.”
Fairweather also told This Morning that she had been surprised the Duke hadn’t checked whether she was alright at the scene, saying: ” I don’t think asking if you’re ok is accepting liability.
“Prince Philip said in the news ‘I was such a fool’ – it seems he’s prepared to admit some responsibility, just not to me, to everyone else.”
His explanation for not seeing the oncoming vehicle had been that he was dazzled by the sun.
But Fairweather said: “I don’t remember it being sunny that day. I would never want to say the Duke wasn’t being honest, but I do not recall that that day was sunny. That’s not the day I had, we’d been complaining that morning that it was miserable and overcast.”
Although she did add that she was usually a Royalist.
“Much debated topic in my household and my children are quite often put in their place if they’re not fully supportive of the Royal family,” she said.
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