The woman driving Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre’s car when it was involved in a crash with a bus has broken her silence after the 41-year-old claimed she only had days to live. Cheryl Sassela, 71, the caretaker at Ms Giuffre’s $1.3million (£630,000) Australian hobby farm was driving a white hatchback when it was hit by a bus travelling 70mph on March 24, the Daily Mail reported. Ms Giuffre told her followers on Instagram that she was suffering kidney failure as a result of the collision, suggesting that she had been given “four days to live”.
But police described the crash, on a rural road near Perth, as a “minor collision with a school bus”, and the bus driver also claimed that it had been “blown out of proportion”. In a new statement to Daily Mail Austalia, Ms Sassela has also broken her silence. She said: “I’m not covering for her. I’m not implicated in a cover up.” The 71-year-old suggested there had been a “misunderstanding” following the incident, adding: “I’m sure Virginia will release a statement soon to clear it all up.”
School bus driver Ross Munns previously said that Ms Giuffre’s Toyota Highlander had “basically pulled out in front of [him]” and that he hadn’t seen the 41-year-old in the vehicle.
“I made sure [Ms Sassela] was alright, and I went and did a police report,” he said. “She was elderly and I asked if she was ok, and she said, ‘Yes, I’m ok’.
“I asked if she lived here and she said, ‘No I’m a carer’, and I told her she needs to put her indicator on when you have to turn.
“That’s all the conversation was, and she asked how the kids were and I said, ‘fine’. It wasn’t a major crash.”
A police report later confirmed that a 41-year-old woman had been a passenger in the vehicle.
Ms Giuffre received a multi-million-dollar payout from Prince Andrew in 2022 after claiming to have been trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to sleep with him when she was just 17. He has vehemently denied the accusations.
She shared details of the incident in a post uploaded to Instagram on Sunday alongside a photo of her badly bruised face, which she later claimed was accidentally posted to her public account after being intended for her private Facebook page.
“I won’t bore anyone with the details but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn that no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can,” she wrote.
The Toyota’s tail light was reportedly damaged in the collision, with pieces of plastic left scattered on the grass verge at the scene.
