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Guest Character Profiles > Tia Martinez Erica Brown

Tia Martinez 2017, 2018
Parents: Jane
Siblings: Gus

When Kirsha Rebecchi moved from the country to Erinsborough with her family, she struggled to fit in at her new school. Her outgoing mum Dipi felt that her daughter should be pushed to be more sociable, and agreed that Kirsha could go to a sleepover at the home of Tia Martinez, the most popular girl in Kirsha's school year. However, when Kirsha failed to turn up at the Martinez house, Tia's mum Jane got in touch, and a search began for the missing girl, who eventually turned up in the back garden, asleep in the shed with her dog Clancy. A few months later, as Kirsha continued to struggle to fit in, Tia took advantage by using her to get all the answers to their homework. When Kirsha failed to respond to one of her requests, she confronted her at school the next day, and Kirsha lied that she'd been too busy to reply. When acting school principal Elly Conway then found herself accidentally sprayed with body scrub by Kirsha's older sister Yashvi, she was forced to take a shower on school premises. Tia saw her chance to get revenge on Elly - who was always reprimanding her about her inappropriate skirt length - by forcing Kirsha to steal Elly's clothes. The prank had serious repercussions, putting the school's funding at risk when Elly was caught running around the school wrapped only in a banner, by Lana Klein from the education department, and Yashvi, who was used to getting into trouble, took the blame for her little sister.

Later in 2017, Kirsha suffered an accident with some fireworks, which left her unable to hear, and when the 2018 school year began, she found herself the target of bullying from Tia and her friends. As the girls mocked Kirsha behind her back at Sonya's Nursery, Kirsha's friend Jimmy was desperate to help her, trying to find ways to raise some money to buy a watch that could help Kirsha to translate what people were saying to her. Tia told him that, as he lived at the penthouse at Lassiter's hotel, he had easy access to the small alcohol bottles from the minibars, and that her brother Gus would buy them from him. Meanwhile, on the first day of school, when Xanthe spotted the girls laughing at Kirsha, who'd had her period and had a stain on the back of her dress, she angrily reprimanded them, before reporting the incident to Elly. The girls received a week's worth of detentions, and Tia got her own back by putting some of the alcohol bottles in Xanthe's bag, before reporting her. As Xanthe also worked in housekeeping at the hotel, it didn't look good for her, but it wasn't until Jimmy confessed that he'd been stealing the bottles, that the whole truth came out and Tia was suspended. Kirsha, however, retreated into herself, keeping Tia's bullying a secret from her parents, but things only worsened when, on Tia's first day back at school, she put chewing gum in Kirsha's hair. Xanthe and Jimmy helped Kirsha, and continued to encourage her to tell her parents, but she refused, worried about the repercussions if she did. They decided to tell school counsellor Jack Callahan about what had been going on, and he tried some mediation, though Tia continued to deny any bullying, and Kirsha insisted that she was just being over-sensitive. Elly decided that she would have to involve Tia and Kirsha's parents, but before she could do that, Dipi spotted Tia following Kirsha at Lassiter's, throwing food at her. She chased her off, then went down to the school where she angrily confronted Elly, accusing her of being unable to take care of the children in the school. Dipi soon realised that she'd overreacted, and apologised to Elly, who explained that they were putting a plan in place to stop the bullying, and that Tia would be going into compulsory counselling to try and change her behaviour.

Episodes Featured
7649, 7663, 7763, 7769, 7774