AIDES SCARED TO TELL PHILIP: STOP DRIVING
THE Queen and the Royal Family’s senior advisers are too frightened to tell Prince Philip to give up driving at the age of 97, sources have said.
Aides and his family have long been concerned about his erratic driving but have been waved away by the irascible Duke of Edinburgh, unable to suggest he should think about taking a back seat.
Philip, 98 in June, ordered a new £68,000 Land Rover Freelander to replace the car that overturned after colliding with a Kia carrying two women and a nine-month-old boy at Babingley near Norfolk royal residence Sandringham on Thursday.
The Duke was photographed driving the car on Saturday, failing to wear a seatbelt. He was subsequently warned by police to belt up after they were shown photographs.
Advice
The Queen, who has rarely worn a seatbelt, was photographed travelling to church at Wolferton on the Sandringham estate yesterday, in the back of her maroon Bentley without one.
Yesterday she smiled at wellwishers while the Duke stayed away and no mention was made of the crash during the service.
Royal sources have said it never entered Philip’s head to give up driving after the crash, which occurred after he pulled out from a side road on to the main A149. He had to pass a police eye test before resuming driving.
Ken Wharfe, former police bodyguard to Princess Diana – who would almost certainly have survived the 1997 car crash if she had been wearing a seatbelt – said the problem is that Philip and other senior Royals would never listen to advice.
“He is a man of his own mind and he will do what he wants,” he said.
“Nobody in an advanced royal support position is going to tell the Royal Family what they should do. You would very quickly become very unpopular and continuing in your job would become very difficult.” Senior aides have said the Queen shies away from telling her family what to do and Philip has always been the boss.
Mr Wharfe added: “Personally, I don’t think the Duke should be driving. He has enough support with bodyguards, valets and chauffeurs.”
The Duke was alone when the crash happened. He had to be pulled out of the Land Rover through the smashed windscreen after it rolled over on the driver’s side. A police back-up car was following and once they had established he and those in the other car were not seriously injured, they whisked the Duke away about 10 minutes later.
“The accident wouldn’t have happened if there had been a police officer in the car with him because there would have been another pair of eyes and ears to check that it was OK to pull out,” said Mr Wharfe.
Philip, whom witnesses said blamed the low sunlight for daz-
zling him, checked that the occupants of the other car were all right, then asked his staff to contact them later.
The driver of the other car, a 28-year-old woman who suffered cuts and bruises, does not want to speak publicly.
But her friend Emma Fairweather, 46, who suffered a broken wrist, has complained she has only heard from a police family liaison officer passing on a message from the Queen and Philip. Normally after a crash, the two drivers would exchange details if not too badly injured but it appears Philip, uninjured but severely shaken, did not wait around for such niceties.
He and royal aides had to wait for police to get permission to pass on details.
But a senior member of the royal household has been trying to contact the two women since Saturday without immediate success. It is believed video of the crash, filmed by cameras on the Duke’s car, is being analysed by police who must decide if he will be charged with careless driving.
The security cameras, fitted to royal cars, are thought to be able to record and transmit live images to personal protection officers.
Philip could be summoned to King’s Lynn magistrates court on a charge of driving without due care or attention and possibly face a £5,000 fine, disqualification or up to nine penalty points on his licence.
The anti-monarchy group Republic is to complain to the Home Secretary about what it claimed was police leniency.
Graham Smith, Republic’s chief executive, said: “The police have a duty to protect the whole community without prejudice.”