I can’t stop thinking about Brodie Panlock.
Brodie was 19 when she took her life following unrelenting bullying at the Melbourne café where she worked as a waitress.
This is what the men at her workplace did to her:
This is one of the four men who did this to Brodie. His name is Nicholas Smallwood. What a man is Nicholas Smallwood, so bold and brave to torment a teenage girl.
A former barista at Café Vamp said Brodie “had no confidence in her beauty or worth…I have never seen anything like what those…males did to Brodie,” Meghan Chester said.
And no one – not one person – intervened to help her.
This excessive cruelty – by grown men – led Brodie to jump from a building. Adult men bullying a teenage girl who turns up to work everyday to serve coffee and do her job. Ground down so she thinks she’s worthless.
How does something like this happen in Australia, in the 21st century? What is this, Lord of the freakin’ Flies?
Thinking of you Brodie, and your family who have lost you. Wish we could have done something to help you.
If you are reading this and are a victim of bullying, please don’t hide it. Get help. It’s against the law.
And if you have been bullied, I’d like to hear about it. Please post a comment about your experience. What happened? Did you get help? If it stopped how did it stop? Do you have advice for others who have been targetted by bullies?
14 Responses
I was bullied all through highschool. It was torture. The poor darling. My heart goes out to her and her family.
Any suicide attempt needs to be taken seriously. ANY suicide attempt. Even if it’s not enough to land someone in hospital – if the intent is to cause self injury is behind the attempt, it needs to be taken seriously.
Talking about bullying – I just blogged on my own blog about something I encountered this evening.
Oh some people really are revolting. I am enraged.
http://diet-coke-missy.blogspot.com/2010/02/angry-rant.html
I know that the bullying by males in the workplace for me has affected me in such a distinct way that I really thought (with 2 degrees and as an ex-model) I had nothing to offer.
I’m still feeling the effects of it.
In fact, I have to work from home as I fear it happening all over again.
Brodie – let us not let your death be in vain – let us use this tragic opportunity to shine light on a very real horror in our nation!
This is important to highlight, but what an incredibly sad story. Hard to believe this actually happened, putting rat poison in someone’s bag? For their sick and twisted efforts they’ll get to live with her death for the rest of their lives.
As I read the list of things done to Brodie I kept thinking…how could they do this?
Brodie’s father’s statement affected me a lot: “As a father, one of my main duties to my family was to protect my wife and children – I feel very upset I couldn’t protect Brodie from what she went through.”
In my opinion the poor man didn’t have any opportunity to protect his daughter. The news.com article spoke of the bullying being systematic, humiliating and relentless. Relentless means pitiless; unremitting. It was like there was no end to her trauma. [How can any man protect a daughter against that?] You would have hoped that he could have relied on her co-workers to do that in his absence. Surely it is not too much to ask that men and women alike can protect and respect each other in the work place? (despite our differences).
And to mock someone for a previous suicide attempt. My goodness do they understand anything about the inner turmoil she must have been in?
It seems they didn’t care.
I do hope others will see this tragedy and change their ways. It’s terrible to consider that her life is a sobering example of the horrific problem of bullying. Let’s hope another life isn’t lost like Brodie’s was.
Firstly – RIP Brodie you little angel – LOVE YOU!!
After years of seeing this sort of disrespectful and disgraceful behaviour, I no longer seek to have any kind of relationship with Australian males. In the workplace, unfortunately, I have no choice (however, being fairly senior in the organisation I thankfully do not have to take orders from them as this poor sweet lass did) but on a personal level I try to stay away from them and would now never countenance an intimate relationship with one, simply because of the contemptous pack-mentality attitude they show towards most females. Thankfully my physical appearance doesn’t appeal to them so I don’t have the problem of brushing them off. I do not say that there are not sections in other parts of the world that are not like this also, but in Australia it does seem that a critical majority of the males have some characteristics of these scum in this story.
Just read this today:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26692049-952,00.html
This is what her parents said:
“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.”
I agree with them completely.
i have been the subject of quite a bit of bullying at school and at work – and it is devestating. I was a paralytically shy child and young adult, with no sense of self worth. This seemed to bring out the worst in those around me. Being unable to understand at the time, what i had done (which was of course nothing) i could not understand what it was in me that made the others treat me so terribly. I began to think i deserved this kind of attention.
The experiences have made me a bit of an odd person, and funnily enough i recognise that it was my willingness to see the best in others that resulted in me finding myself in this situation again and again. I have come to the conclusion that people will attack those they perceive as different or weak and that groups collude with this behaviour very easily.
One of the benefits of having gone through all of this is that i don’t have a very strong need to be part of the pack – peer pressure has minimal effect on me. So i can stand up for the things that i see as unjust and for others. I believe people don’t do this enough for fear that they will be excluded/marginalised. We have more power to stop these things than we realise – it doesn’t take much. It’s a pity it doesn’t happen nearly often enough.
What a sickening tragedy.
As an Australian male, once a bully myself, I’ve been noticing how much the history of human oppression seems to be the story of selfish men.
In the next post, Helena commented that we need better education. Unfortunately I can’t see how education gives us much hope. It was of course those highly educated young men who started that pro-rape group on Facebook.
What I think we’re up against is sheer self-interest. I reckon that men (and women) act like this because they genuinely believe it makes them powerful.
For me, the only ‘solution’ has been a spiritual one, in which my own profound self-interest is exposed.
I am in tears over what poor Brodie went through at the hands of these low lives, everyone who knows these ‘men’ should be ashamed to associate with them. What is also really upsetting is that other people who worked there would have known what was going on, but obviously didn’t feel strong enough to help her. I hope Brodie’s family remember her as their little ray of sunshine and the good times that I am sure they shared with her.