BULLYING EFFECTS ON LIFE: Out of the wreckage, a school bullying victim's life rebuilt

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," Tom Tehan says matter of factly across the timber cafe table. "I was just trying to stop feeling. And Panadol is to stop pain, that's how it worked in my head."

The thing is, Tom downed several packets of Panadol in his attempt to numb his pain. He ended up needing his stomach pumped and spent three days in hospital when he should have been out enjoying the spring racing carnival with his girlfriend and friends.
Tom Tehan and his mother, Amanda Wallace. Photo: Jason South

Instead at 19 he was having a breakdown; the result he says of being bullied at school three years earlier.

It's rare to gain an insight into the long-term impact of school bullying. Now and then incidents pop up in the news. Sometimes they are even accompanied by a video shot on a student's mobile phone. Principals, parents and psychologists have their say. And then everyone moves on. Except not everyone can.

Tom couldn't. His years of school bullying culminated in receiving a letter containing a bullet and a death threat at his home. "Bang bang Tomas" the computer-printed note read, misspelling his name. "I just remember breaking down in tears," he says. "It was confirmation, after all the verbal and physical taunts and the times I was excluded, that I wasn't liked."

Though he was never identified by name, Tom's experience was one of those that made headlines in 2007: "Xavier student sent bullet in the mail". Now, more than a decade on, Tom wants to tell his story. It's a story about the car crash that can follow school bullying – and how one man emerged from the wreckage.

At 19, Tom had left Xavier for a new school, finished year 12 and started university. Summer was on the way and things appeared on track. But his bullying burden was always there in the background, unresolved. His stint in hospital brought things to the surface, but he soon suppressed them. He wanted to move on. After being discharged from hospital, Tom deferred his studies at Deakin University and started working in nightclubs.

He was smoking a bit of marijuana, which became a daily habit. He was going out. Lots. Spending more than he was earning. An unsolicited offer of a bank credit card was accepted and before he knew it, he had a $7,000 debt. His family intervened. His dad Peter's cousin offered him a job laying fibre optic cables in the Northern Territory. Arnhem Land. It was as remote and removed as 20-year-old Tom had ever been.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me at the time," he says. "I had no phone. I was up at 5am every day and working until 6pm. I got to experience Aboriginal communities and hear stories about their Dreamtime from elders."

Tom while working in Arnhem Land. Photo: Supplied

He returned to Melbourne clean: mentally, physically and financially. He was loving life again.
But looking back, Tom concedes Arnhem Land was a Band-Aid. Just as Carey Grammar was – the school he went to after Xavier, where he was part of the successful school hockey and athletics teams.

"I was still in emotional pain, but because I was happy, I could mask it," the now 28-year-old says.

Running for Carey Grammar. Photo: Supplied

He resumed smoking marijuana and working in bars and nightclubs. His nocturnal existence saw him graduate to ice, which gave him supreme confidence. He started to deal in ice to supplement his own habit and mixed with people who used guns to get what they wanted.

Being bullied had made Tom feel he wasn't tough enough to stand up for himself. Ice made him feel that he could handle himself – and that felt good. "I lost all my inhibitions. I could talk without being inside my own head, if that makes sense," he says.

Tom was on ice for years and, according to his mother, Amanda Wallace, he became psychotic. He had "Moses" tattooed on his right arm, painted his car a matt black using spray cans and wrote what he believed were inspirational sayings on the rear window in permanent gold pen.

His memories of this time are hazy – isolated fragments come back. He remembers talking to a neighbour whom he believed was God and apologising to a street tree for the harm humans had inflicted on Earth. In the early hours of January 17, 2014, he was driving down Burke Road, Malvern, on his way to see a friend.  He believed the best way to get there was to put his foot flat on the accelerator and close his eyes. Police estimate he was travelling at 122/kmh when he crashed into two power poles and several trees.

Tom's car after the 2014 accident. Photo: Supplied

How he survived the crash, no one knows. Tom suspects closing his eyes saved him because he became "like a rag doll" as he was ejected from the car, landing bruised and broken on the asphalt. He nearly lost his right leg. Every bone in his right foot was smashed up, he had a ruptured spleen and broken ribs. He spent three months in various hospitals, which in hindsight was like rehab. It got him off ice, which he hasn't touched since.

In The Alfred's intensive care unit. Photo: Supplied

When he was discharged, he went to his mother's house. He says that after the crash he had no desire to use drugs. But while ice was behind him, a week later he sniffed butane gas and released a guttural scream. It freaked him out enough agree to a phone conversation with a family friend, who suggested he try an addiction program. That call started his slow turnaround from the self-destruction he believes was triggered by the 2004 bullying at Xavier.
 
Having lost his licence for two years, Tom was driven to his first session by his mother. She didn't trust that he would go in, so she waited and watched him in her rear-vision mirror. He did. He went every day for three months. He eventually ran the Wednesday night meetings.
"It gave me confidence in myself because someone had entrusted me to do something," Tom says. "I'd lost trust from a lot of people in my life and that was a way to re-grow it and start again."
Slowly, he rebuilt his life. The love and loyalty from his parents and four siblings never wavered. Neither did the support from his Old Xaverians hockey team, who late last year honoured him with the club's Smithy Medal recognising his against-the-odds return to the sport. It's what got him through; it reminded him how lucky he was.

He has had 10 operations in the three years since the accident and remains in pain due to nerve damage. He sees a psychologist regularly and works in hospitality. He has twice spoken to school students about addiction, hoping his warts-and-all story will strike a chord and make someone think twice before taking a similar path.

What he has learnt from all of this is that everyone makes choices. "As much as I could put it all back on bullying, I made choices to do the things that I did," Tom says. "Whatever was driving me, I was still at the wheel."

Talking to students about addiction. Photo: Supplied

This year he will return to uni to study sport coaching at Victoria University. He is moving on but has undertaken not forget the lessons his past has taught him. These are lessons he wants to share and hopefully, in the process, reduce the social stigma around drug addiction.

"One article isn't going to change how society sees it," he says. "But it just might make one person see that completely normal people get into cycles of addiction."

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/out-of-the-wreckage-a-school-bullying-victims-life-rebuilt-20161228-gtj58v.html

Sister Campaign's For Bullying Victim - 14yr old Kodi Pearson Bullied at School & on Facebook

Tayla Pearson’s fight to tackle bullying that led to brother’s suicide

SEVENTEEN-year-old Tayla Pearson is on a mission to tackle the devastating scourge of bullying.

The aspiring Brisbane-based model’s world fell apart last year when her beloved younger brother Kodi, 14, took his life after suffering from bullying, both online and at school.

VIDEO MESSAGE from Tayla

“We were like best friends, we were always together,” Tayla told The Courier-Mail.
“The experience has changed me, it has made me think about all the little things people do to others. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all,” she said.
 Both Tayla, who completed Year 12 last year, and Kodi, who was in Year 9, attended St Thomas Moore College in Sunnybank.

Tayla Pearson holds a picture of her brother Kodi. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Tayla said her brother always came across as a happy student who didn’t have a care in the world, but she was one of the few people who knew about the bullying he experienced.

Tayla Pearson with her brother Kodi, who committed suicide last year. Picture: Supplied
She said that some days he would fake being sick to try to avoid school, but even when he missed class, the torment would follow him home online. “Not only was he receiving grief in school, he wasn’t able to escape from it at home either,” she said.

The Courier-Mail has been unable to reach the school for comment.

Tayla is now working with a number of schools, including Ipswich Grammar, to help teach teenagers about the tragic consequences of bullying.

She hopes that by sharing her experience and speaking candidly about the loss of her brother, other high school students will think twice before bullying.

Tayla is also using a national model search – the Australian Supermodel of the Year competition, to be held this month in Bali – as a platform to raise awareness about youth mental health.
“Having that exposure behind you means you have the opportunity to get the message out there more,” she said.

Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/tayla-pearsons-fight-to-tackle-bullying-that-led-to-brothers-suicide/news-story/15a8613491b10ea3e90edda1cc6ba9a7

Japense CEO Resigns over Employee Suicide due to Overwork, Company Charged With Death

'I accept responsibility': Japanese company boss resigns to take responsibility for young woman 'driven to suicide by overwork'

• Dentsu Inc. president Tadashi Ishii has quit following death of employee, 24
• Advertising agency boss resigned as prosecutors pressed charges against firm
• Want charges against unidentified worker who overworked Matsuri Takahashi
• 2000 Japanese people a year kill themselves due to work-related stress, the government said. 
  
  

The head of a top Japanese advertising agency has resigned just 24 hours after prosecutors pressed charges against his company for the suicide of an overworked employee.

* The first person to be officially ruled a suicide from overwork was also a Dentsu employee. 

* Ichiro Oshima, 24, didn't get a single day off for 17 months.
* She had averaged less than two hours of sleep a night.
* Still, Dentsu had argued in the 1997 court case that personal troubles were behind his 1991 suicide.
* Death linked to exhaustion is so common it's expressed as a special term, 'karoshi' which includes suicides from overwork. 

Dentsu Inc. president Tadashi Ishii told reporters he would take responsibility for the death of Matsuri Takahashi. The resignation came a day after prosecutors demanded charges be laid against an unidentified worker for driving the 24-year-old woman to kill herself last year, after clocking up massive overtime in the first months on the job.

Dentsu Inc. president Tadashi Ishii tell reportors he will resign over the suicide of a worker who had clocked massive overtime. (Kyodo News via Associated Press image)

Mr Ishii acknowledged overtime was still a major problem with more than 100 workers still doing more than 80 hours of extra work a month.

'This is something that should never have been allowed to happen,' he told reporters at his company's Tokyo headquarters on Thursday.

Ms Takahashi started working at Dentsu in April 2015. Her workload surged by October and she often returned home at five in the morning after working all day and night. She was clocking up 100 hours of overtime a month before she jumped from her workplace balcony in December 2015.

Matsuri Takahashi committed suicide in December 2015, just eight months after starting work at the Dentsu advertising agency which overworked her.

Labour regulators raided Dentsu last month after the company repeatedly promised to curtail overtime, suspected of being widespread.

It started turning off headquarters lights at 10 pm so workers would go home.

Dentsu acknowledged Takahashi's treatment was like harassment because her records showed monthly overtime within company regulations of 70 hours, with numbers like 69.9 hours, when she had actually been working far more hours.

 

Dentsu Inc. president Tadashi Ishii, pictured centre, bows with other senior executives during a media conference at the company's Tokyo headquarters (Kyodo News via AP)

 

She left a farewell email begging her mother to not blame herself. 

'You're the best mum in the world,' Ms Takahashi wrote. 

'But why do things have to be so hard?'

In September, the government ruled overwork had killed her.

                                   Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc. Tokyo's headquarters

The first person to be officially ruled a suicide from overwork was also a Dentsu employee. 

Ichiro Oshima, 24, didn't get a single day off for 17 months and had averaged less than two hours of sleep a night. 

Still, Dentsu had argued in the 1997 court case that personal troubles were behind his 1991 suicide. 

Death linked to exhaustion is so common it's expressed as a special term, 'karoshi' which includes suicides from overwork. 

About 2000 Japanese people a year kill themselves due to work-related stress, the government said. 

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4070530/Dentsu-chief-resign-employees-suicide-overwork.html

Townsville Hospital worker claims she was bullied

DOMANII CAMERON, 

Townsville Bulletin

November 22, 2016 1:00am

A TOWNSVILLE Hospital employee says she tried to commit suicide twice following ongoing workplace bullying and harassment.

Jodi Miller (pictured) said she wanted to share her story so to give others strength to come forward with their experiences. It comes after the Bulletin revealed numerous employees across the Townsville Hospital and Kirwan Health Campus had lodged bullying complaints. Since then, 15 employees have contacted the Bulletin to discuss their experiences.

Ms Miller has been seeing a psychologist for anxiety that she said was caused from chronic fatigue and workplace issues.

She said while she had been a victim of verbal abuse, failure to address workload issues and roster adjustments were what “tipped her over”. “I asked for my rosters to be adjusted between July and August 2015,” she said. “I was also working every weekend, there was no balance between work and my family life.”

Ms Miller said there was never enough people on during her night shift, leaving her feeling exhausted. Ms Miller said when her roster was adjusted, it wasn’t what she had requested.
“I took three months off with chronic fatigue and then returned to work again on July 13,” she said.

Ms Miller said she hadn’t been back an hour before she was requested to help with a patient who became aggressive and bit her on the arm.
“I finished the job and burst into tears,” she said.
“I went straight to the doctors and was told I had high blood pressure, which I have never had.”

Ms Miller said she applied for a work cover claim however it was denied. She said following an independent psychiatric investigation, it was determined that the bite on her forearm was not the main cause for her poor mental health and was told she couldn’t go back to work for three months.

“My issue is now sitting with Australian Workers’ Union lawyers to see if I can overturn the decision,” she said.

Ms Miller said she wanted to bring awareness to workplace bullying.
“I tried taking my own life twice, it tipped me over,” she said.

Townsville Hospital and Health Service chief operating officer Kieran Keyes said the matters raised by Ms Miller had been investigated and welcomed the opportunity to discuss them with her. “The health service has not received any grievances relating to workplace harassment or bullying from Ms Miller,” he said.

“A number of the matters raised by Ms Miller are protected by employee privacy and we remain committed to protecting the privacy of our staff.
“We work with staff to ensure rosters are assigned to ensure a balance between work and family commitments as well as the organisation’s operational requirements.”
Mr Keyes said there were nine patient handlers rostered on night shifts.

 
Source: http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/townsville-hospital-worker-claims-she-was-bullied/news-story/3f28856e65cf157743bd216df189a01e

Remembering The Victims of Workplace Bullying - Stuart McGregor's story

Bullying: Stuart McGregor's story

VIDEO INTERVIEW with Stuarts Mother

Alannah McGregor tells the story of how her son fell victim to workplace bullying so severe he eventually committed suicide.

IT'S been seven years, but the way Alannah McGregor sounds when she talks about two of her three children, it could have happened yesterday. Grief sounds like this; tight-chested but calm, with an unbearable sadness seeping through the words.

They were born four years apart, but Stuart, 20, and Angela McGregor, 16, were close. She was the youngest and he was the oldest - they did things together. She was his closest confidant. She defended him fiercely. And they died a month apart.

Workplace bullying did this, says Alannah and her husband, Ray McGregor.

Alannah McGregor and, inset, her children Stuart and Angela.

The case of 19-year-old Victorian woman Brodie Panlock, who took her own life after sustained bullying at work, has recently galvanised attention around this ugly but under-reported reality in our working lives.

But before Brodie, there was Stuart.

Stuart had always wanted to be a chef. He was three months away from turning 17 when he scored a highly sought-after apprenticeship as a chef in a kitchen in Bendigo, beating 70 others to the job.

But what should have been a dream job unaccountably turned ugly. Name-calling, verbal abuse and innuendo about his sexuality were common.

His apprentice paperwork was ignored and he was ridiculed. Once he was given a 10-kilogram bag of peas and told to count them. Another time, when Stuart asked about a soup recipe, the bully stood over him, berating him and telling him to ring the chief executive of the company to ask for it.

The main perpetrator was the manager of the kitchen, but following his lead, others would join in.

One day Stuart rang Alannah at lunch-time, excited. Word was going around that he was in line for an employee award, he told her proudly. But he returned from work that evening, furious. Workmates had broken into his car and stolen the knob off his gearstick, wrapped it and ''presented'' it to him as his ''award'' in front of everyone. Stuart had felt humiliated and belittled.

Eventually, Stuart admitted to his parents he hated work and that one person in particular was ''picking on him''. He did not go into details.

Without realising the seriousness of the situation, Alannah says her and her husband's initial reaction was that ''it's not right, but you're an apprentice, you're going to have to put up with it for a while''. It is advice she regrets deeply. Stuart shut down and would not talk about it again.

Later, Alannah heard another deeply alarming story.

Just before the end of Stuart's three-month probation period, he was invited on a camping trip. Initially excited, he then went quiet and made excuses not to go. Much later, it came out that the man who had been bullying Stuart had told him that he ''would have blood up your arse and grass on your knees'' if he went on the trip. Stuart was badly frightened by this.

Eventually the bullying culture came to light after another apprentice complained. Stuart initially denied it; perhaps he still thought he could manage the situation, or probably he was concerned about losing his job, a concern that proved well-founded.

The McGregors say there was an initial internal investigation, which proved unsatisfactory to them. They approached the Equal Opportunity Commission and WorkCover stepped in.

While the allegations were being investigated, Stuart found it impossible to work directly under his alleged perpetrator. Put on WorkCover payments, he never returned to full-time work in his chosen profession again.

Alannah says she was told the bully faced disciplinary action, but remained there while WorkCover concluded their investigations.

In the meantime, Stuart's mental health deteriorated sharply. His chronic depression worsened and as the investigation progressed, he began self-harming. Stuart also began smoking marijuana heavily, negatively affecting the family.

Workcover finished its investigation. Stuart's claims were substantiated, Alannah says, but inspectors were unsure whether there was enough evidence to take to court. But they would make their decision soon.

Meanwhile, unknown to those around her, a quiet despair had entered the life of Angela, the McGregors' youngest daughter. (The McGregors have a second daughter, Stacey, who is now 25.)

Alannah and Ray did not realise it but Stuart had confided in Angela the most distressing details of his bullying, which the family have asked The Age not to publish.

Angela was a lively, ''loud and funny'' girl who was very popular. ''Very grown up for her age, but I guess underneath she was probably depressed and I just realised that myself,'' Alannah says.

Fiercely loyal, Angela regularly defended her increasingly unwell brother against the cruel gibes at school and the local sporting club. ''People just make fun of mental illness,'' Alannah says.

But Angela, too, had been the subject of schoolyard bullying after speaking out over an incident she witnessed in the schoolyard. From her brother's experience, Angela believed no one would help her.

Alannah feels this, on top of her sensitive daughter's great distress at her brother's treatment and the belief certain details of the bullying would be aired against Stuart's wishes, culminated in a terrible decision to take her own life. She was 16. A month later, Stuart was also dead.

''He fought so hard to stay alive,'' Alannah says. ''But he probably blamed himself for his sister's death. I imagine he couldn't live with himself after that.''

IT MAY be some small consolation that in its own modest way, Stuart's case helped contribute to legislative changes that would have an impact on another case involving the death of a vulnerable young worker - Brodie Panlock.

The circumstances are now widely known: how 19-year-old Brodie was subjected to an ''unbearable level of humiliation'' in her work at Cafe Vamp in Hawthorn that led to her suicide in 2006. Last month, Nicholas Smallwood, 26, Rhys MacAlpine, 28, and Gabriel Toomey, 23, were convicted and fined a total of $85,000, while cafe owner Marc Da Cruz, 43, and his company Map Foundation were convicted and fined a total of $250,000 on charges that included failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment. The cafe has since been sold to new owners.

Following an independent review conducted by then-barrister and now Court of Appeal president Justice Chris Maxwell in 2004, the Occupational Health and Safety Act was amended to recognise the importance of psychological health at work.

This change was considered an important tool in helping to more effectively prosecute bullying at work, a WorkSafe spokesman told The Age.

Alannah understands that Stuart's story made its way into the extensive consultation at the time.

One imagines that when something as cataclysmic as a death - whether it is a suicide or an accident - occurs in the workplace, an employer's first action would be to sit down with the bereaved family and talk. In fact the opposite can be true, according to a report published last July which sought to investigate the approaches used to deal with workplace deaths. In a consultation paper prepared for Uniting Care Victoria's Creative Ministries Network (CMN) and funded by the Legal Services Board of Victoria, researcher Derek Brookes found concerns over legal liability meant some employers refused to meet bereaved families.

In many cases, grieving families would be immensely comforted by an apology. Yet the adversarial legal system, concerned with attributing blame and apportioning damages, struggles to accommodate such action.

This is where a modest project run by CMN may just blossom into a world-first. Restorative justice, a term most commonly linked with juvenile offenders, involves victims and perpetrators meeting to discuss the impact of the offenders' actions. It is not linked to legal action. As part of its grief counselling service, CMN had began to investigate the viability of using restorative justice principles to deal with work-related deaths, both accidental and by suicide. Last year, the service received $50,000 from the Legal Services Board of Victoria to establish a model for how restorative justice might fit in with Victoria's legal framework. CMN is now preparing to begin a test case and, if it is successful, will approach the Victorian government to fund a three-year pilot program, the first in the world.

CMN director the Reverend John Bottomley says that while legal remedies continue to be appropriate, those seeking ''healing and restoration'' should also be accommodated.

''Part of the restoration may be the reputation of the person who died, so they are not remembered only in terms of a traumatic death but what they achieved in their life,'' Bottomley says.

He concedes the main issue remains liability. Would an expression of sorrow affect the rights of a family to take legal action? Or the rights of the company? When should an apology be given? Could it be taken into account during a court case?

But Bottomley believes such principles can work with courts, WorkSafe and the coroner. Bottomley nominates the increasing use by WorkSafe of enforceable undertakings, where companies are directed to put money into a project identified by the family, as an example of ''restorative'' practices that already exist.

(WorkSafe says it supports the concept of restorative justice, as well as the wider use of victim impact statements as recently announced by Attorney-General Rob Hulls.)

''Restorative justice gives both parties an opportunity for the parties to actually deal with the deaths,'' Bottomley says. ''What the courts currently deal with now is a breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.''

IN THE aftermath of her children's deaths, Alannah McGregor made a courageous decision. She would puncture the terrible stigma that continues to exist around suicide and talk about what had happened. She spoke in local forums around Bendigo, but it was a chance conversation with trucking magnate Lindsay Fox at a company function with her husband, Ray, that helped her tell her story more widely.

Fox's family had also been affected by suicide, with the death of his son Michael in 1991. He threw his weight behind a project to educate people on the impact of bullying.

The result was Stuart's Story, a 10-minute video made in 2004 with the financial support of Linfox, distributed first in the company's workplaces and then more widely.

Alannah makes a special point of urging people who witness bullying to speak up. She also believes a restorative justice approach may have been helpful for Stuart, at least in the early days.

Stuart's father, Ray, has previously chosen not to speak publicly about the deaths of two of his children. But in an open letter provided to The Age he offers his deepest sympathy to the Panlocks, writing that he shares with Brodie's father, Damien Panlock, the agony of not being able protect his children.

''I would like to see that those who have died will not have died in vain, but leave a legacy that dignifies them by working towards changing the culture in our workplaces,'' Ray writes.

''Relying on the publicity of court cases will not make change as many believe it will. Some believe it will never happen in their workplace or that the snide remarks or behaviour is not really bullying and will not bring about the tragedy of suicide due to workplace bullying.

''It was very hard to get to that point in my life, but each day I work at it and hope that by speaking about it that there is hope for the future.''

For help or information visit beyondblue.org.au, call Suicide Helpline Victoria on 1300 651 251, or Lifeline on 131 114.

For more information on workplace bullying, go to worksafe.vic.gov.au

For work-related grief support, visit Uniting Care Victoria's Creative Ministries Network at cmn.unitingcare.org.au or phone 9827 8322.

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NEWS - Workplace Bully Victim's parents want to sue bullies after suicide of daughter

The parents of Brodie Panlock, the 19-year-old waitress who killed herself because of relentless workplace bullying, want to sue her tormenters.

Damien and Rae Panlock told Fairfax Radio on Monday that they want "real justice" after the four men were convicted and fined a total of $335,000 last week.

Former workmates Nicholas Smallwood, 26, now of Queensland, Rhys MacAlpine, 28, of Kooyong, and Gabriel Toomey, 23, of Melbourne, all pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of persons.

The cafe's owner Marc Luis Da Cruz and his one-man company MAP Foundation pleaded guilty to two charges, including failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment at Cafe Vamp in Hawthorn, in the city's inner east.

Brodie jumped from the fourth floor of a car park on September 20, 2006 and died in hospital three days later.

Her mother said another waitress at the cafe had warned the men to stop bullying Brodie but it went largely unheeded.

She said the family went to Brodie's grave on the weekend and sat next to it trying to comprehend the needless tragedy.

"I never will understand why people can be so cruel," Ms Panlock said.

Mr Panlock said the family would like to instigate civil action against the four men.

"It's been three-and-a-half years and if it takes another three-and-a-half years to get some real justice ... we can sit back and say we've done as much as we possibly can," Mr Panlock said.

Ms Panlock agreed with her husband.

"I'd like to take it further - we've been dealing with it over three years now ... and in three years nothing really happened - only now things are coming to the front," she said.

The couple are still devastated by their loss.

"They were relentless every day for six days a week. She had no respite, but she never showed it to me," Mr Panlock said.

Ms Panlock said she believed her daughter was about to open up about her treatment at the cafe, but Brodie cancelled a meeting with her because of work duties and then arranged to meet her the following Sunday.

But that rendezvous never occurred.

Ms Panlock pleaded for people, particularly in small businesses, to show compassion toward their workmates.

"Think before your actions in the workplace - if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything," she said.

"If Brodie had been working in a caring environment I wouldn't be here today."

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LEGAL - $335,000 Fine for Australian Bullies who tormented waitress to suicide fined - Brodie Panlock

• Work Colleagues fined total of $335,000
• Teenager spat on and called ugly at work by work colleagues
• Cafe owner did not prevent bullying to protect worker

FOUR men have been fined a total of $335,000 over the relentless bullying of a young waitress who killed herself.

Brodie Panlock, 19, was subjected to the humiliating bullying by her workmates at Cafe Vamp, in Melbourne, before she threw herself from a multi-storey car park in September 2006.

She had been spat on, called ugly and, on one occasion, had fish oil poured all over her hair and clothes.

One tormentor even told her to take rat poison.

Her parents have called for changes to the law so courts can jail workplace bullies.

Nicholas Smallwood, 26, Rhys MacAlpine, 28, and Gabriel Toomey, 23, all pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of persons.

Cafe Vamp's owner, Marc Luis Da Cruz, and his company, MAP Foundation, pleaded guilty to two charges, including failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment.

Magistrate Peter Lauritsen described their actions as "the most serious case of bullying", adding that he would have doubled the penalties if they had not pled guilty.

Smallwood was fined $45,000, MacAlpine $30,000 and Toomey $10,000.

Da Cruz, 43, was fined $30,000 and his company $220,000.

The court was told last week of the distressing details of her ordeal at Cafe Vamp, where she worked between June 2005 and September 2006.

Prosecutor Gary Livermore told a pre-sentence hearing on Friday that witnesses had seen Smallwood and MacAlpine pour fish oil into Ms Panlock's kitbag and then pour it over her hair and clothes.

He said that both men had called her fat and ugly and spat on her. 

Ms Panlock had tried to commit suicide in May 2006 by taking rat poison after being rejected by Smallwood, with whom she had had an intimate relationship.

Mr Livermore said that after that incident rat poison was put in her bag, and MacAlpine had told her to go and take it.

Da Cruz was aware of the bullying, he said, and on occasions told them to "take it out the back".

Smallwood, MacAlpine and Toomey no longer work at the cafe.

In addition to the fine Smallwood was told this morning that he had lost his job in Queensland.

Outside the court, Ms Panlock's mother Rae, who had been unaware of the bullying, described her daughter as a "beautiful girl who was full of compassion".

"She was my little ray of sunshine, a very pretty girl, and the things that they said about her ... what can you say, it just breaks your heart.

"As far as I'm concerned they drove her to the edge and they pushed her over - as far as I'm concerned they should be in jail."

Ms Panlock's father Damien said the law should be changed to include a custodial sentence.

"Change the law," he told reporters.

The acting executive director of WorkSafe Victoria, Stan Krpan, said the sentences sent a clear message to the community that workplace bullying should not be tolerated.

"The offending in this case was of the most serious nature, the most serious category of offending," Mr Krpan said.

"The culpability was high, the culture at this workplace was vicious and was not acceptable."

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263) or beyondblue. 

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