From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamio. It's Monday, April twenty eight, twenty twenty five. The government knew Russia had designs on an Indonesian military base back in March before the federal election was called. Anthony Albanesi is shaping up to be a bigger spender than his predecessor, Bill Shorten. But the big difference is the PM doesn't appear to have a plan to pay for his cost of living cash splash. That exclusive analysis is live right
now at the Australian dot com dot au. Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Duffrey was in and out of hospital emergency departments in the final months of her life. The Australian is revealing today the forty one year old mother of three died by suicide at her Perth home on Friday. Today, our Queensland Bureau Chief Michael McKenna reflects on his last conversation with the woman who waged war against sex trafficking and abuse. A note before we begin this episode discusses
sexual abuse and suicide. Audrey Strauss had only been acting as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for a month when she made a stunning announcement.
Maxwell and Epstein had a method. Typically there, we befriend these young girls by asking them questions about their lives, pretending to be taking an interest in them.
That morning, the socialite Galline Maxwell had been arrested following a raid on her secluded New Hampshire mansion and charged with trafficking teenagers and girls for abuse by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell was among Epstein's closest associatest and helped him exploit girls who were as young as fourteen years old. Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify a friend and groom minor victims for abuse. In some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse herself.
It was July of twenty twenty and the world had rearranged itself around the coronavirus pandemic. On the other side of the world, one of Epstein's most prominent accuses received news of Maxwell's arrest.
Last night at eleven seventy m My lawyer calls me, sickred colleague, and she says, are you singing down for this?
Because Gilan's been arrested.
Wow.
I was elated. I was crying with tears of joy. My heart was raising miles, like a million miles a minute.
Virginia Giuffrey living a quiet suburban life in cans with her former husband Robert at the time. The next day, she was on the phone with the Australian's Queensland Bureau chief Michael McKenna, who was racing to meet a looming print deadline.
Thanks for doing this again, I really appreciate it. If you're here's some tapping, It's just me trying to tap some of the answers out so I can make sure I get deadline. I do a lot of work up in Cape York and North Queensland and was aware that Virginia was living in far North Queensland, and I was given her telephone number by a friend. I rang up that number and her husband Robert answered. I said who I was, and that I was interested in talking to
her about Maxwell's arrest and how she felt. And you know, some people respond differently when contacted by journalists, and in this case, Robert really gave it to me. He called me a few names, and he peppered it with a few expletives. It's not my first radio I'm being generalist for a long time, and look. I told him that I understood his passion and apologized for the intrusion and put the phone down. A few minutes later, my phone rang and it was Virginia on the phone, apologizing.
We had a bit of a chuckle.
I said that I understood, and that if I was in his shoes, I probably would have laden the assault with a few more expletives. I heard a laugh in the background. It was him, and then from that moment on we started having a pretty friendly conversation. They then later agreed to do the interview.
Virginia Drew Frey died by suicide at her home in Perth on Friday. She was forty one years old.
In a statement, Virginia Geuphra's family said she was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors. In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight. We know that she is with the angels. Western Australia Police say they're not treating her death as suspicious.
Giffrey alleged she was recruited by Maxwell following a chance meeting at Donald Trump's Mara a Lago club in the year two thousand, when she was sixteen years old and working as a locker room attendant. She described the encounter in the twenty twenty documentary Surviving Jeffrey Epstein.
She was like this really bright Mary Poppins kind of a figure, and then she goes, oh, you know what, I know this guy. There's an opportunity. Actually, if you want to become a real massage therapist, we can get she trained within the next few weeks. Jeffrey Giland told me that I need to quit my job with mar Lago because I'll be traveling with them as they're traveling massuse.
Giffrey claims she was also assaulted by the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who counted Epstein and Maxwell among his close personal friends. The UK Royal has always denied the allegations against him, settled with Juffrey out of court in twenty twenty two. Michael Virginia Guffrey had less than a day to process the news that Glenn Maxwell had been arrested and charged with a range of trafficking and conspiracy charges. What was her demeanor like when you spoke with her back in twenty twenty.
She was a little reluctant, and she was reluctant in one way. She had at various times.
Been in the middle of a global story, and she wasn't like a politician or an actor.
She didn't really know how to deal with it. It was all.
Really overwhelming to her, and she wasn't someone that really chased the limelight or anything like that. But she kept saying to me in off the record conversations that she had to be careful that she was going to do the interview, but what was most important to her was not to imperil the trial, given that Maxwell had just been arrested, and that's why she wasn't going to give a press conference or give interviews generally. But she was
very considered when she said, but this was different. This was a woman who had found me, who had groomed me, abused me, and then handed me over to Jeffrey Epstein. There was a real I noticed a real steal with her when she talked about that.
Virginia Giufray was never called to give evidence at Gallaine Maxwell's trial, where she was ultimately found guilty of five counts of sex trafficking.
Jeffrey Epstein's partner in crime, were sentenced today to twenty years in prison for sex trafficking minors. Epstein was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges back in twenty nineteen, but committed suicide in prison.
Certainly in the day after Maxwell's arrest in the United States, when I spoke to Virginia, she expected that she was going to give evidence at the trial, and she told me that she was willing and eager to give evidence at that trial. And her absence from the trial was quite extraordinary, given it was her story that really pushed the allegations against Epstein and Maxwell onto the front pages globally.
There's been speculation in the United States press that because she had a parallel civil case against Prince Andrew, which was later settled purportedly with a payout of fourteen point six million pounds he paid out to her without any admission of liability or guilt.
That was one of the reasons that there was a.
Parallel civil case, and Maxwell's lawyers could argue that there was a financial incentive for her to give evidence against her Equally, there was also speculation that there had been inconsistencies in her public accounts given to the media about what happened with Epstein and Maxwell and Prince Andrew, starting from when she was first recruited to work at Moreligo.
When we last spoke, she told me that if she was ultimately paid out or she did get any more compensation, that she really wanted to dedicate her life to helping victims of abuse, and that's what she hoped would be her legacy was to help people to set an example as to someone who was willing to get up and make the accusations against her alleged offender, and also to help provide platforms with support for those victims.
Coming up. How Virginia Dufray became a symbol of the me too movement. Virginia Dufrey kept a reasonably low profile after relocating to Perth with her husband and children a few years ago. She told the Australians Michael McKenna in twenty that she appreciated the power of the media in bringing perpetrators like Jeffrey Epstein and Glen Maxwell to justice, but she didn't necessarily seek it out.
And unfortunately I have more faith in the media at the moment than I view the Justice Department, because you guys are actually helping us tell the Justice Department how do the jobs? Like, guys, we cannot let these people keep getting off the hook.
In turn, the media has handled her story with relative care, but Jiffrey exploded back into the public sphere in February when she shared a post on Instagram that suggested she had days to live following a collision with a bus on a Perth Highway. Giffrey later backtracked, saying the post had been made in error, and Western Australian Police said
the crash wasn't as serious as Giffrey suggested. Around the same time, it emerged that the mother of three was facing a criminal charge in the West Australian courts for breaching a family violence restraining order. Michael Virginia Jefrey did some big interviews in her time, most notably with the BBC's Panorama program, in which she really doubled down on her allegations against Prince Andrew, and with the documentary Surviving
Jeffrey Epstein. In many ways, she was the face of what she called the fight against trafficking and sexual abuse. But she didn't really seek out the media after she spoke to you in twenty twenty, and the media mostly let her be. How do you report the public interest aspects of a story like this when the central figures life is so obviously in turmoil.
The first thing is to respect all involved, and that includes the alleged defender.
So you keep to the facts that.
Are known, and you respect the people involved insomuch as.
With a victim, is you have empathy for these people.
For victims, know that they've been through a lot, know that they are probably going through a lot in now, probably going through this process of being in the public eye and the possible ability of having to give a testimony. So I've done this quite a lot over my career, and it's really just to show respect, ask the questions and lay it out that you're going to in some cases test what they're going to say, and ask those
questions and report dutifully. We've seen in recent years that some of the media can take an advocacy role in reporting these sorts of cases. So it's really down to the journalists and the publication or the broadcaster to do their job. The way that they're supposed to do, and.
That is to keep to the facts.
Do not introduce evidence into the public arena during a trial, for instance, unless that evidence has been placed before the jury. There are rules, and some of them are legal and some of them are just obvious, and that involves not being an advocate the facts, asking the right questions and reporting without favor.
That's what the public expects.
Michael McKenna is the Australian's Queensland Bureau chief. You can watch the video of his interview with Virginia Dufrey and read the latest about her death at forty one at the Australian dot com dot au