She was a bit of a nutter, flaky, a fantasist even. What to make of that story about her car being hit by a school bus and her saying she had four days to live? She’d obviously gone bonkers.

Virginia Giuffre was often derided online before she died. She was seen at best as a deeply troubled survivor of sexual abuse who was estranged from her husband, had lost custody of her three children and struggled to cope, even though she had escaped to Perth, Australia, to start a new life. At worst, when she posted a picture of her bruised face last month, she found herself called a money-hungry opportunist.

It took Giuffre’s death last week at the age of 41 to remind us