Waitress' suicide after relentless bullying

JUSTIN MCMANUS/The Age

IN COURT: Cafe owner, Marc Luis Da Cruz, top left, and former employees, Nicholas Smallwood, top right, Gabriel Toomen, bottom left and Rhys Macalpine, who all admitted workplace offences after a former colleague Brodie Panlock committed suicide following relentless bullying.

Relevant offers

Australia

Sex with chatroom girl may lead to jail Early finding expected in latest Azaria review Marion Sandford had secret life - brother Aussie police to quash 700 speeding fines Risotto king 'exploited underage girls' Obama is next, Queen's mooner says Kiwi accused in $3m cocaine case NZ women's disappearances linked Body found in Sydney tree identified Blue Mountains lashed by heavy hail

A young waitress who killed herself by jumping off the fourth floor of a building had been a victim of relentless bullying by co-workers at a Melbourne cafe, a court has been told.

Brodie Rae Constance Panlock, 19, was subjected to humiliating and relentless bullying by workmates at Cafe Vamp in Hawthorn, in Melbourne's east, before she threw herself from a multi-storey carpark in September 2006.

Former workmates Nicholas Smallwood, 26, now of Queensland, Rhys MacAlpine, 28, of Kooyong, and Gabriel Toomey, 23, of Abbotsford have 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 have pleaded guilty to two charges, including failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment.

Tearful family and friends of Ms Panlock heard distressing details in court of Ms Panlock's 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, reducing her to tears.

He said they had also engaged in indirect bullying, such as calling her fat and ugly, spitting on her, gossiping, exclusion and failing to intervene when she was being bullied.

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

Magistrate Peter Lauritsen was told that Ms Panlock had tried to commit suicide in May 2006 by ingesting rat poison with beer after being rejected by Smallwood, with whom she'd had an intimate relationship.

Mr Livermore said that after that incident Smallwood put rat poison in her bag, and MacAlpine urged her to take it, while her tormentors had taunted her about her attempted suicide.

The three men no longer work at the cafe.

At a coroner's hearing in 2008, Meghan Chester, a former barista at Cafe Vamp, said Ms Panlock had no confidence in her beauty or worth.

"I have worked in the hospitality industry for 10 years, but I have never seen anything like what those ... males did to Brodie," Ms Chester said in a statement.

In the statement read to the court, Ms Chester said the accused men wouldn't engage in the same level of bullying with other members of staff but "they took it to another level" with Ms Panlock.

In victim impact statements read to the court, Ms Panlock's father said he was devastated that he had not been able to protect his daughter from the treatment she suffered in her workplace.

Da Cruz said he had wanted to tell her parents about the bullying, but Ms Panlock asked him not to.

He said the young woman told him: "I'm an adult and I don't want them to know."

Mr Lauritsen will hand down his sentences on Monday.

- AAP