The body of a British woman was found in a Melbourne gentlemen’s club 12 hours after she died, but none of the men she had been with the previous night were found at the scene.
Manchester-raised Stacey Tierney was found at 11:50am on December 19 inside the exclusive Dreams Gentlemen’s Club, where she had been working as a lap dancer. The 29-year-old had been living in Australia for the last three years, where her relatives believed she was training as a nurse.
The strip club was supposed to be closed the night before Tierney was found, but reports in the Australian press suggest that the woman had been partying with a group of men inside the premises. It is believed that the men left the scene after she died, without calling for help or alerting the authorities.
Tierney’s family complain that they have been given next to no information, with her cousin Colleen Bourke saying: “We have not been told anything by the authorities in Australia about this latest information.
“We have only read it in the Australian press and we have no idea whether it is true. We have been shocked by the articles and, on the face of it, it looks like it should be a murder investigation.
“We are still trying to get in touch with the police because we have still not been given any official information about how she died,” she said.
Local police have yet to reveal any details connected with the young woman’s death, but have confirmed that the case will require a post-mortem. A spokesman for Melbourne ambulance services confirmed that they had been called to the scene after a report of a medical problem, but no further information could be provided for privacy reasons.
According to the Australian tabloid Herald Sun, Tierney had stripped at other strip clubs in the Gold Coast before moving to Melbourne. Her latest employer, Dreams, claims to offer “pleasure at it's best [sic],” with “parades” of exotic dancers, private shows, and $50 lap dances.
“I personally hope someone is charged for this,” said a friend of Tierney, who went by the name Ashley.
“I’d like to see them punished. I told her not to work there. I thought it was a bit dodgy."
Other friends claimed that Tierney, who was to celebrate her 30th birthday this month, was “streetwise,” and, although she “liked to have a drink,” she did not take drugs.