Police in Western Australia have agreed to review how they interacted with Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, in the lead-up to her death a year ago by suicide. Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, told ABC radio on Wednesday morning that they had written to both the state coroner and the police requesting an investigation into how police handled a domestic violence dispute she was involved in before she took her life on her WA farm last April at age 41.
Giuffre, who is American but had lived in Australia for years, was involved in a dispute with a former partner. The state’s police commissioner, Col Blanch, confirmed in a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that the police had received a letter from Giuffre’s family and were conducting a review.
He said he did not yet know how police responded to Giuffre’s case, noting police “respond to over 100,000 family violence incidents every year”, but had requested the review to find out. “The coroner can also choose to do an investigation, as could the ombudsman,” he said.
Sky and Amanda Roberts said they were not questioning the circumstances surrounding her death or disputing that she died by suicide, but wanted to know if there were any “internal failures” before her death. “We’re really asking for a thorough review of the process [about] what happened when Virginia went to the police station on multiple occasions,” Amanda said.
“Where [are] those reports, and why did the police not continue to follow up? “There’s a lot of things that happened before Virginia ultimately made that decision.” Amanda said the coroner’s court had responded with condolences to their request for an investigation, but had not yet committed to a formal review.