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A Workplace Failed Natasha. The Consequences Were Fatal.

CONTENT ALERT This article discusses workplace bullying and suicide. If you feel like you’re going to act on suicidal thoughts, call 000 if you live in Australia.

Psychosocially safe workplaces, and genuinely mitigating the risk of harm caused by workplace bullying, still appear to be a long way off. That reality becomes painfully clear when we are once again talking about the loss of life through suicide linked to workplace bullying.

In April 2026, the Coroner’s Court handed down its findings into the death of Natasha Stojkoski, who ended her life in May 2021. The Coroner stated that, in the absence of evidence of other contributing factors:

“there is clear and cogent evidence to support the finding that her mental deterioration and thus, the significant precipitating factor contributing to her decision to take her own life, was her perception of bullying, perpetrated on her in her workplace and significantly, her employer’s failure to investigate her complaints of the same.”

Who Was Natasha?

Natasha was a mother of primary school-aged children, a wife, and a daughter.

She was also a long-term employee of The Good Guys, where she had worked for nine years without performance concerns.

In October 2018, Natasha sustained a physical injury at work while operating a WAV, when her body was crushed after colliding with an overhanging bulkhead.

That injury changed her work capacity. According to the Coroner’s findings, what followed was a workplace experience where Natasha believed she was being bullied by colleagues; an experience that ultimately preceded her death in May 2021, around two and a half years later.

The Link Between Workplace Bullying and Suicide Is Not New

The relationship between workplace bullying and suicidal ideation is not new research or emerging knowledge. That is part of what makes this outcome so deeply disturbing.

In Australia, the 2006 death of 19 year old waitress Brodie Panlock, who died following sustained bullying while working at a café in Hawthorn, firmly placed workplace bullying and suicide into public consciousness. Her employer and co-workers were later prosecuted and fined under occupational health and safety laws.

Research has continued to demonstrate the relationship between workplace bullying and suicidal ideation, including findings that:

  • employees who experience bullying are significantly more likely to report suicidal ideation than non-bullied workers; and
  • suicidal ideation can persist long after the bullying itself, with some individuals continuing to experience impacts years later.

The findings in Natasha’s case reflect that reality.

The Good Guys Failed Natasha

The Coroner’s findings describe multiple organisational failures in the way Natasha’s concerns were handled.

First and foremost, Natasha herself was failed. Despite repeatedly articulating her belief that she was being bullied, the systems intended to respond to those concerns did not do so adequately.

The findings also suggest that the store manager and HR representative were not properly supported by their employer. The systems and guidance available to them were inadequate to ensure Natasha’s concerns were appropriately escalated, investigated, or managed.

The Findings

Coroner Audrey Jamieson found that Natasha consistently and persistently reported concerns that she was being bullied at work.

The findings acknowledged that The Good Guys had policies and procedures relating to bullying, complaints, and investigations, and that managerial staff had received training.

The failure was not simply the absence of policies. It was the implementation of them.

Key findings included:

  • The Good Guys failed to initiate a fair and impartial investigation into Natasha’s complaints and instead appeared to favour the collective accounts of her colleagues. The Coroner stated:

“Natasha was let down by the Store Manager who commenced his investigation into Natasha’s complaint’s with the best of intentions – to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. But he was not able to conceptualise a need to escalate her complaints to HR as soon as he started to doubt her and was instead favouring the accounts of her team that this was all about her performance”.

  • The findings note that The Good Guys later updated its processes in 2020 to include clearer guidance requiring managers to contact HR regarding bullying complaints.
  • Responsibility for the actions, and inactions, of managers ultimately sits with the employer. This is consistent with work health and safety obligations across Australia.
  • The HR representative involved either did not respond appropriately, or did not know how to appropriately respond, despite being provided with the names of employees alleged to have been involved in the behaviour.

Critical Lessons for Employers

The findings also raise broader issues employers should carefully consider when responding to workplace bullying complaints.

One particularly concerning example involved Natasha being encouraged to directly confront the employees she believed were bullying her.

At the time, the manager described Natasha as:

“quite emotional, started breaking down, crying. He said she made it clear how uncomfortable she was feeling at work, losing sleep, feeling stressed out and so on.”

Despite this, Natasha was reportedly encouraged to have a direct conversation with the employees involved.

In circumstances where a worker is already presenting as distressed, overwhelmed, and psychologically impacted, this approach carries a significant risk of further harm. It is not difficult to see how forcing a vulnerable employee into direct confrontation may intensify, rather than resolve, the situation.

The Coroner’s findings also highlight that the broader sequence of events began with a physical workplace injury.

While the report does not specifically identify this as a missed intervention point, it does raise important questions about injury management, return-to-work support, and how workplaces respond when an employee’s work capacity changes.

Rather than being supported through those changes, Natasha appears to have become increasingly isolated because of what she could, or could not, do following her injury.

We Must Learn From This

At the beginning of the findings, the Coroner states that the purpose of the investigation is to identify what can be learned to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Natasha’s family no longer has the possibility of a future that includes her.

What remains is the responsibility for employers to learn from cases like this to take workplace bullying seriously, to respond appropriately when concerns are raised, and to recognise that psychosocial harm is not theoretical.

Sometimes, the consequences are irreversible.

References
– References in this article have been hyperlinked to their source.

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