My children were on the school bus and Virginia Giuffre’s story doesn’t add up
Andrea Hamblin, Perth 03 April 2025
Parents have defended a school bus driver accused of crashing into Virginia Giuffre at 70mph, which she alleges caused life-threatening kidney failure.
Ms Giuffre, a Jeffrey Epstein victim who has accused the Duke of York of sexually assaulting her as a teenager, said earlier this week she had just days to live after she was hit by a bus in Western Australia.
However parents of the children involved have backed the driver’s claim that the collision was minor, with the bus travelling at a lower speed that could not have caused the bruising to Ms Giuffre’s face seen in a photo she posted on social media.
Speaking to The Telegraph, they said Ms Giuffre’s statements were “lies” and that the “whole story is sick”.
Emmie-Rose Wright, said her children — aged five, eight and nine – reported that the crash only caused slight damage to the rear brake light of the Toyota Highlander Ms Giuffre was travelling in.
“They [the children] got off the bus and said that they had had a small crash,” she said. “There’s no damage to the bus and none of the kids are injured.”
She said the 29 children on the bus had not been “distraught” over the incident, as Ms Giuffre’s family has suggested.
“They weren’t worried or traumatised at all…they thought that she had stopped in front of them unnecessarily.”
Ms Wright described Ross Munns, the bus driver, as an “upstanding member of the community”, saying she “wholeheartedly” believed he would not speed or leave an injured person without medical help.
“If an occupant of a vehicle had been injured, there’s no way he would have left and not called the ambulance,” Ms Wright said.
On Thursday, the school bus was seen at the site of the crash, and appeared to be without any visible damage, with no debris left on the road.
Ms Wright and another parent, Hayley Miller, said the bus was intact when their children alighted about 15 minutes after the crash occurred.
Ms Miller said she was “disgusted” that Ms Giuffre would share a photograph of a bruised and grazed face alongside unfounded allegations against the driver they trust with their children’s lives.
“The whole story is sick and I don’t know what’s true and what is not but I do know [the injuries] are not from the bus incident,” she said.
“It’s lies. I don’t know what she is trying to get from all of it… but I do feel bad for her and I hope she gets help.”
Mr Munns has said he was travelling at a speed under 45mph when he was forced to brake on a rural road for a slow-moving car carrying Ms Giuffre, which was being driven by a 71-year-old “carer”.
“The driver basically pulled out in front of me. I made sure she was alright,” Mr Munns said.
At first he did not realise there was a passenger involved, but the driver phoned the next day to say someone in the car had a “black eye”.
Mr Munns was in disbelief when he saw a photograph of Ms Giuffre with bruises and grazes down one side of her face.
“There is no way you could get that injury [from the crash],” he said.
When the incident happened on March 24, Mr Munns was driving the bus along his usual route through the farming community of Neergabby.
He said police had “laughed” when they were tasked with photographing his undamaged bus for evidence after Ms Giuffre went public with the allegation.
cont…