Overview
- Sixteen leading domestic violence researchers and practitioners have written to Western Australia’s coroner urging a public coronial inquest to examine the circumstances around Virginia Giuffre’s death.
- The experts say authorities may have misidentified Giuffre as the predominant aggressor and that such misidentification can lead to loss of child access, exclusion from the home, criminalisation and higher suicide risk.
- Giuffre’s family alleges police failed to properly investigate repeated domestic violence reports and an alleged assault in January 2025, and a family violence restraining order was issued in magistrates court during those proceedings.
- The Coroner’s Court of Western Australia says the matter is under active investigation and that any decision on an inquest will follow the completion of the police probe and consultation with next of kin.
- Signatories argue a public inquest could scrutinise police, courts and support services, establish what happened, and produce recommendations to prevent similar system failures for other victim‑survivors.