{"id":593091,"date":"2026-04-08T09:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593091\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:07:14","slug":"coroner-hears-of-police-failings-following-1976-disappearance-of-veronica-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593091\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner hears of police failings following 1976 disappearance of Veronica Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veronica Catherine Green was last seen alive on February 13, 1976, and her body has never been found.<\/p>\n

More than 50 years on, police today said the most likely explanation was that she was killed, possibly by her abusive husband.<\/p>\n

But Ms Green’s family is not so sure.<\/p>\n

One thing all sides agree on is that Victoria Police’s initial investigation into the mother-of-two’s disappearance was totally inadequate.<\/p>\n

Today, the Coroner’s Court of Victoria heard about the litany of police failings.<\/p>\n

Detective Sergeant Allan Wood, who took on the investigation in 2007, said the initial police investigation was “deficient”.<\/p>\n

After Ms Green was reported missing by her husband, Bill Green, officers failed to interview him or search the family’s house in Ardeer, west of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“Without a doubt, by today’s standards, that’s an obvious omission,” Sergeant Wood said.<\/p>\n

\"Brimbank<\/p>\n

Detective Sergeant Allan Wood has been involved in the Veronica Green case for nearly 20 years. (AAP: James Ross)<\/p>\n

Mr Green, who was violent towards his wife and allegedly committed sexual abuse against girls at a local athletics club, was not questioned in the following three decades.<\/p>\n

He died in 2006.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Wood said there were reports Ms Green had confronted her husband and threatened to tell police about his alleged sex offending.<\/p>\n

“I think the most likely outcome is that Veronica met with foul play,” he said.<\/p>\n

Jess Syrjanen, a lawyer assisting the coroner, said Mr Green “may have had motive” to kill his wife, but the evidence did not reach a standard of proof to allow a court to find he was responsible.<\/p>\n

Ms Green’s daughter, Penny, told reporters she struggled to comprehend that her father killed their mother.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Veronica’s daughter Penny (centre) says she continues to hold out hope that her mother left of her own accord and is still alive. (AAP: James Ross)<\/p>\n

She continues to hold out hope that her mother may still be out there. If Ms Green were still alive, she would be 89.<\/p>\n

“For 50 years, I honestly believed she left of her own accord,” Penny said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always believed that Mum is out there. And I feel like she possibly thought that we didn’t want her, that we didn’t love her.<\/p>\n

“We did love our mum, and we’ve missed her.”<\/p>\n

Renewed search for answers in 2020 returned no results<\/p>\n

Sergeant Wood said there was no evidence to suggest that Ms Green was alive after February 1976, having conducted extensive “proof of life” checks.<\/p>\n

“Veronica simply would not have left the girls,” Sergeant Wood said.<\/p>\n

He also discounted an alternative theory that she took her own life, even though she had made a previous suicide attempt.<\/p>\n

In 2020, police searched Ms Green’s home in Ardeer and dug up the backyard<\/a>, but it failed to turn up any results. Searches of DNA databases were also unsuccessful, Sergeant Wood said.<\/p>\n

\"Excavator<\/p>\n

An excavation of Ms Green’s former backyard in 2020 turned up no answers. (AAP: James Ross)<\/p>\n

Victoria Police Inspector Anthony Combridge also acknowledged failings of the initial police investigation.<\/p>\n

If a similar case occurred today, there would be a “substantial investigative response” involving police searches and interviews, he said.<\/p>\n

The inspector said Victoria Police’s policies around searching for missing people had vastly improved in the past 25 years. Inspector Combridge said things would be even better if Victoria Police had a centralised missing persons register, a system widely adopted in other states.<\/p>\n

About 20,000 people were reported missing each year, and nearly all were located safely, he said.<\/p>\n

Police now report cases to the state coroner if a person is missing for half a year, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Family left waiting decades for closure<\/p>\n

Outside court, Ms Green’s daughter, Penny, said she was angry police failed to follow up reported sightings of their mother in the decades after she vanished.<\/p>\n

The family remained desperate for closure, but accepted they might never get it.<\/p>\n

“It’s very, very disappointing to have to wait 50 years,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I hope that she was out there. I hope that she lived a good life and she found happiness.”<\/p>\n

Coroner Ingrid Giles said Ms Green’s family had been “let down” by the system. She will deliver findings at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veronica Catherine Green was last seen alive on February 13, 1976, and her body has never been found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,12501,30765,37795,16872,44,289569,1158,289568,660],"class_list":["post-593091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cold-case","tag-coroner","tag-inquest","tag-missing-person","tag-news","tag-penny-green","tag-police","tag-veronica-green","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}