Inquest into the death of Roberta Curry
Deceased
Roberta Judy Curry
Demographics
28y, female
Date of death
2019-06-18
Finding date
2022-06-10
Cause of death
hypovolaemia due to spleen laceration due to blunt force trauma to the torso
AI-generated summary
Roberta Curry, 28, was killed by her former partner Lorenzo Deegan after repeated assaults, with a fatal blow causing splenic laceration. Critical failures included: police misclassifying her 000 calls as general disturbance instead of domestic violence, failing to access his criminal history or EMD location data, and dismissing her complaints; lack of communication between police, community corrections, and territory families meant her PPO remained unaware of her reports or his breaches; failed random breath testing attempts went unaddressed; and inadequate community corrections supervision during the high-risk early post-release period. Had police properly investigated and referred her to the Family Safety Framework, or had better information sharing occurred, her risk would likely have been identified and managed differently.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Specialties
Error types
Clinical conditions
Contributing factors
- police failure to correctly classify domestic violence 000 calls
- police failure to access offender criminal history and assess risk
- police failure to use EMD location data to locate offender
- police dismissive response to victim's repeated calls
- failure of police to refer victim to Family Safety Framework
- lack of communication between police and community corrections regarding victim's complaints
- lack of communication between territory families and community corrections regarding failed access visit
- inadequate community corrections supervision during high-risk post-release period
- community corrections failure to follow up on failed random breath testing attempts
- community corrections officer away during critical period in Darwin
- expired domestic violence order at time of release
- victim not notified of offender's release
- offender breaching conditions by possessing secret mobile phone and consuming alcohol
- approval of travel and residence at alcohol-fuelled party house
Coroner's recommendations
- Finalise Memorandum of Understanding between Police Force, Community Corrections and Territory Families concerning sharing of EMD data so police can access location data as soon as possible
- Community Corrections provide more comprehensive supervision to violent offenders in the first month of their release into the community
Full text
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