Prince Philip apologized in a letter to one of the women injured in a car accident he was involved in weeks ago. She suffered a broken arm after her vehicle and his collided on Jan. 17 close to the Sandringham Estate, about 115 miles northeast of London.
“I would like you to know how very sorry I am for my part in the accident,” the Duke of Edinburgh said in a Jan. 21 letter to Emma Fairweather posted by the British tabloid newspaper The Sunday Mirror. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that Philip sent apology letters to Fairweather as well as the other woman in the car.
Norfolk Police said the female driver of the other car suffered cuts and the passenger, Fairweather, injured her arm. Philip was driving at the time of the crash, but was uninjured, a palace spokesperson said shortly after the accident.
Philip, 97, seemed to suggest in the letter that he had difficulty seeing the car because of the sun “shining low over the main road.”
He said that he was “shaken” following the crash and initially did not know Fairweather had broken her arm.
“I am deeply sorry about this injury. I wish you a speedy recovery from a very distressing experience,” he wrote, signing the letter “yours sincerely Philip.”
Fairweather told The Sunday Mirror that she pleased when Philip reached out to her to say sorry.
“I thought it was very nice that he signed off as ‘Philip' and not the formal title. I was pleasantly surprised because of the personalized nature,” she told the outlet.
Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, was seen driving just two days after the accident.
CORRECTION (Jan. 26, 2019, 11:53 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misidentified the woman involved in the car accident. Her name is Emma Fairweather, not Emma Fairbrother.