Kat Chapman

Pia Miller

Senior Constable Katarina Chapman (2015-2018)
Pia Miller
Episodes: 61256811

Date of Birth: 12th October 1986
Date of Death: 13th December 2017

Parents: Unnamed father (deceased) & Devera Chapman
Siblings: Leo (deceased) & Paulo Chapman

Occupation: Police Officer; Waitress

When Kat moved into the caravan park, she quickly gained the attention of Brax and Ash, but they decided to steer clear of her on discovering she was a police officer. Kat had been transferred to the local station for a fresh start after turning a blind eye to a colleague she was in a relationship with sending an innocent man to jail, where he was killed. One of her first duties was to arrest Brax, who was prime suspect for the murder of Dean Sanderson. She carried out the initial interview and passed on Ash’s theory that Sam Kennedy was the true culprit to the local police, who didn’t think it worth investigating. After Brax was charged, Kat began to suspect he was planning to leave town in breach of his bail conditions and began making spot checks on the house to make sure he was still there, despite Senior Sergeant Emerson warning her not to act without authorisation. She tried to get Ricky to admit what was going on but instead Ricky decoyed her while Brax slipped away. She met Nate and later had to question him about the bus crash caused by his vehicle; Nate became defensive but Kat assured him he had done nothing wrong. Kat found a security camera photo proving Brax had left town but Kyle used her past to try and pressure her into keeping quiet and Nate also stuck up for Brax. She eventually agreed to turn a blind eye, admitting she thought Brax was innocent but could do nothing to get the case reopened. She later found the stolen money hidden at Angelo’s which ensured his conviction.

She was convinced by John to read the riot act to Jett when he stole a surf club buggy but was unable to help him when the teens tried to stop a mural being cleaned off the surf club wall, since they weren’t breaking any laws and a talking to had no effect. She was a support to Phoebe when she was stalked by Ryan Kelly, sheltering her at the caravan park and helping her take out a restraining order, although she was unable to charge him. She steered Ryan away from the surf club when he seemed ready to approach Phoebe again. When Phoebe was kidnapped, Kat picked up on the fact Ryan had struck while Kyle was away; she found a security camera in her room and traced the signal, going with Kyle and Ash to rescue her. She was initially vague about Ryan’s fate until Kyle insisted Phoebe need to know, prompting Kat to tell her that he was in a secure psychiatric facility in another state.

Nate confided in her about his divorce from Sophie. She began having dinner with Nate and after their second date they slept together. However, she made a quick exit the next morning without having breakfast with him. Chris quickly picked up on it, but when he made a comment about it Kat threatened to arrest him for defamation if he said anything to anyone. She told Nate that she didn’t feel able to be a police officer in a town where everyone knew her business and broke things off. Despite this, they went back to his place for another liaison, but when Matt came home unexpectedly and she had to pretend she was booking Nate for speeding it confirmed her belief that nothing more could happen. She tried to chat to Nate at the hospital while attending a car accident but he brushed aside her mixed messages. Hannah, who Nate had confided in, dropped hints to Kat that people would accept her as she was. She proposed a friends with benefits arrangement with Nate and they went to a motel room together. She confided in him that she had joined the police because one of her brothers went off the rails and joined a gang after their father died, and the police helped him.

She took part in the colour run and bet Nate she could beat him. She won by offering to have a coffee with Chris if he faked an injury to slow Nate down: She then gave Chris a tiny coffee, swallowed hers in one gulp and went to a motel room with Nate. However, she felt humiliated at having to walk home the next morning in the clothes she had done the colour run in, resulting in awkward run-ins with Roo and Ash, and ended the arrangement. When Kyle proposed to Phoebe, Kat told her not to let him dictate the schedule. She then looked at an engagement ring in her caravan. Ash asked her for help in getting in to see Gunno but she was unable to do anything. She told Nate about what her previous partner did but backed away when he tried to kiss her. When she and Phoebe got drunk discussing their relationships, Kat went round to Nate’s but he took her home and told her he was fed up sneaking around. She then kissed him publicly at the Diner in front of Irene, Marilyn and Roo and told him she didn’t want to sneak around anymore.

Kat began to suspect Ash and Kyle were involved in something illegal but both Phoebe and Denny clammed up when she spoke to them. Kat warned Kyle not to put his family at risk. Ricky told her and Nate about Gunno threatened Brax and asked them for help getting in to warn him but Kat said she could only see him in an emergency. When she later saw Nate with Ricky, she quizzed him and he admitted to forging medical documents to get Ricky in to see Brax; Kat was angry, saying Nate had compromised her by telling her. They made up after he apologised and she later attended Ricky’s baby shower. Kat arrested Matt when photos showed he was involved in the theft of an ATM and tried to get him to tell her what had happened and name the others involved. When Leah found the stolen money, Kat charged Matt. Nate tried to get her to drop the case but Kat insisted she had to stay within the law and convinced Matt his best chance of evading jail was to co-operate and name his accomplices. She gave a character reference at his trial which saw him escape with a good behaviour bond.

She and Nate intervened when they saw Andy punch Oliver, a man who had been chatting up Hannah; Oliver declined to press charges. Kat was part of the search and rescue operation which failed to find Brax and a police driver when their vehicle was run off the road into a river, having to break the news to Ricky and Kyle, and again felt the pressure of everyone knowing her when she had to field questions from the townsfolk about the incident. She and Nate were asked by Zac to keep Leah busy while he prepared to propose to her. When Leah turned down the public proposal, Kat disagreed with Nate, who felt she should have accepted for Zac’s sake, and revealed her ex-boyfriend had pressured her into getting engaged.

They saved Billie’s life after a surfing accident but it resulted in Billie becoming obsessed with Nate. Kat shrugged off her attempts to imply she and Nate had a close relationship by revealing they’d had dinner together but warned Nate to put a stop to it. Kat learned she was up for promotion to senior constable but then someone plastered up posters around town of her head on a stripper’s body. Kat blamed Billie and told Nate it could affect her promotion chances.

Billie apologised to her but then accused Nate of trying to sexually assault her, with Kat being excluded from the case. When she let go of Nate’s hand after hearing he had supposedly sent an explicit text to Billie, he accused her of not supporting him. She told him her ex had physically and mentally abused her and defended his corner to Chris, who had witnessed the aftermath of the incident. This resulted in Chris helping the police expose Billie’s lies. She convinced Chris to stop spending time with Nate when he felt he needed to apologise.

She investigated the arson attack on Leah’s house and charged Billie when matches and gloves were found in her bag. She arranged to move into the farm with Hannah, Denny and Kat. She led the search for Billie when she disappeared from the hospital and found her on a cliff edge. She tried to pull Billie back from the edge and ended up falling over herself, being saved by Billie. Ash insisted Billie was innocent but Kat failed to act on it, even after Zac and Leah’s home was broken into while Billie was in custody. She competed with Nate for the best dish prize at the fundraiser for Zac and Leah and, after being pronounced the winner, got him to join the topless waiters.

She was furious when she learned Ricky had convinced Nate to treat Kyle’s stab wound on the quiet and he had ended up in hospital with an infection, blasting both of them. She was summoned to the Braxton house when drug dealer Damo Adams took Josh hostage and put down her gun to get him to let go of Josh. However, her attempts to talk him down were thwarted first by Josh trying to jump Damo and then by the arrival of more police; both Josh and Damo reached for the gun and in the confusion Kat was shot. She suffered a punctured lung and had to have emergency treatment in hospital. She was upset when Nate left her as soon as she was discharged to accompany Ricky to a meeting with Kyle’s specialist. She argued with Nate when he got into trouble for treating Kyle on the quiet and he told her they should take a break. Instead, she convinced him to go away with her after he was suspended from work.

When they returned, Kat admitted they hadn’t talked about anything important and they accepted it was over. On learning Denny was planning to go travelling, Kat decided to go with her. However, Nate convinced her to stay, telling her not to run away. She began to befriend Ricky but then Chris let slip that Nate and Ricky had slept together soon after the break-up. At Denny’s farewell dinner, she got drunk and revealed the liaison before throwing a drink over Ricky. She insisted on driving and going into work the next day despite being over the limit. Although she paid no attention to Ricky and Nate’s warnings, when she saw a woman booked for drink driving at a road station she announced she was feeling unwell and had to go home. Next day, she was out on patrol and, hearing an intruder in the bait shop, panicked and opened fire. It turned out to be Charlotte, who claimed she was sleep walking. Kat insisted on reporting the incident and admitted to Nate she wasn’t coping without him; they reunited.

When her old school friend Pete Ashfield came to town looking for a location for a photo shoot, Kat introduced Nate and Ricky to him. When Pete’s models pulled out, Kat volunteered herself and Nate, but had to pull out herself when she was called to the station, so Ricky took her place. She admitted to Phoebe that she was worried about Nate and Ricky being close. She planned a romantic surprise for Nate at the beach house but was brought up short when she got a phone call saying her brother Leo had been killed in an accident at a building site. After attending the funeral, she rushed into returning to work but ended up upset when Andy yelled at her about how his brother could die after Josh was attacked. She asked Nate to move in with her, but realised he still had feelings for Ricky. She angrily ordered him out, then consumed all the alcohol in the house. She alienated Ash by hitting the vodka, then passed out drunk. She turned up at the aftermath of John and Marilyn’s vow renewal with a box of Nate’s things and launched a drunken rant at him and Ricky, having to be dragged away by Ash and Phoebe. She later apologised to Nate but also told him to stay away from her.

She investigated when a brick was thrown through Charlotte’s window. She saw Charlotte with Trystan Powell, who was then found beaten up, but Charlotte claimed he had just had a go at her about having a relationship with a student. She brought Leo’s car home and Ash offered to help her restore it. She investigated when Charlotte’s flat was vandalised and suspected Olivia. She then heard about Hunter being briefly kidnapped and dumped in the bush. When she heard Charlotte had run someone over, she was shocked to discover that it was Trystan and, when she heard he was hit head on, suspected Charlotte had done it deliberately. She learned Trystan was an associate of Gunno, who Charlotte had had contact with. However, both Charlotte and Gunno claimed they had merely dated fifteen years earlier. Kat continued digging and made no secret of the fact she was determined to bring Charlotte down but then Charlotte drugged her drink while she was in Angelo’s; she woke to find her gun and handcuffs had been taken. She went to hospital but tests only showed high alcohol content and Superintendent Joyce suspended her for two weeks.

Despite this, Kat continued her investigation privately, breaking into Charlotte’s flat and finding Denny’s itinerary on her laptop. She mentioned Denny’s name to Charlotte and soon after was attacked in her home by two thugs, who knocked her out and left her next to an oven with the gas on. She was saved by Ash and told Emerson she suspected Charlotte, especially after hearing she had spoken to Gunno just before the attack. On returning to duty, she was told to stay away from the investigation. She spoke to Oscar after he had been saved by Billie and her interest was drawn to a bag Billie had found in the woods. She suspected it was Denny’s and her concern grew when the body of a young woman was uncovered by a storm. When the safe from the Diner was found nearby, she suspected Denny had found out Charlotte had stolen it and been killed by her, sharing her theory with Ash. She brought Charlotte in for questioning and put her in the lock-up despite the body not having been officially identified; she was ordered by Emerson to release her. When the ID came through, she told first Phoebe and then Denny’s family. She went to Charlotte and gave her an opportunity to confess but Charlotte continued to play innocent.

Kat stumbled across Irene, who had crashed her car while drunk, but pretended to believe Billie’s story that she had been driving and convinced Billie to get back in touch with Ash. However, she then had to arrest Billie when she had an anonymous tip-off about her handcuffs being in Billie’s bag. She also had to step in when Ash attacked Charlotte to try and get her to confess to setting Billie up. She and Emerson got the DNA evidence proving Charlotte had killed Denny. She went to Zac and Leah’s wedding reception looking for her and announced the news to everyone.

Two days later, Charlotte was found dead, having been shot and dumped in the rock pool. Working on the case brought Kat into contact with Dylan Carter, the violent ex who had abused her, and she struggled to remain professional. She told Dylan she’d seen Ash attacking Charlotte, resulting in him being questioned. She also helped question Zac, Hunter and Irene, but told Dylan that neither Irene nor Hunter fitted the profile of the killer. She confided in Ash about her history with Dylan and when Dylan arrested Ash, Kat cleared him by tracking down CCTV footage showing him at an out of town service station shortly before the murder. She managed to trace Charlotte’s second phone and found out she’d called Kyle. An investigation showed that Charlotte had asked Kyle to meet her and he had the phone but they were unable to prove where he had met her. She got hold of CCTV footage of the bait shop which showed Zac following Charlotte, meaning he was the next one brought in for questioning. Kat initially seemed shocked when Dylan charged Zac despite finding no physical evidence and refused to join Dylan when he tried to hold a celebration, going to visit Leah instead. However, when she was promoted to senior constable she let Dylan take her out to celebrate. She turned down an offer of dinner to spend time with Hannah prior to her double mastectomy but admitted to Phoebe that she was developing feelings for him again.

When she learned Ash and Andy had been turned down by the bank when they tried to set up a garage, she offered them $50,000 that Leo had left her. She defended Dylan when Morag criticised his handling of the case. Soon after, Dylan kissed her on the beach and even though she pushed him away it was witnessed by Leah, who had a go at her for supporting Dylan over Zac. Zac was then proved innocent but Kat was too busy doing reports in Emerson’s absence to help reinvestigate the murder. Dylan helped her out with the reports and she responded by having sex with him at the station before helping interview Matt, the next chief suspect. She brought him back in when she learned he had threatened Charlotte. She ended up holed up in a hotel room with Dylan, who told her he still owned some land they’d bought together and suggested they could still build a home there. She comforted Ash after his break-up with Phoebe and admitted she was back with Dylan.

She was called to a robbery at the golf club and was shocked to find Kyle there. She suspected that his girlfriend, Isla Schultz, was the real culprit but Kyle refused to implicate her, even when Kat got Ricky to talk to him. When she learned that Ash had accused Dylan of being behind the garage being vandalised, she tore a strip off him. Phoebe and Hannah tried to stage an intervention by taking her out to Angelo’s to discuss her relationship but she told them to stay out of it, then went back to the station and had sex with Dylan in a cell. Next morning, Ash confronted her about the relationship at the station in front of Emerson. He referred the matter to Superintendent Joyce, who took Kat off the murder case. She tried to help Maddy and Matt when they were cyber-bullied but had to admit that although they could issue warnings to the perpetrators there was no chance of a conviction.

Hannah questioned whether she was sure Dylan had changed and she was shocked to find his computer was full of photos of her taken off the internet, with everyone else in them blacked out. Dylan told her he was planning to do a collage for her birthday. She got drunk at Ricky and Nate’s joint stag and hen do, prompting Ash to take her home, where she kissed him before passing out. Although she had forgotten about it the next morning, she told him she thought he was right about Dylan. She told Dylan she’d got a taxi back from the party only to learn Phoebe had already told him the truth. As she was about to leave for the wedding, Dylan appeared and ordered her to come in to the station. There, he got her to collate evidence with him before inviting himself along to the reception with her. Kat contacted Morag for help and got the identity of Dylan’s henchman, Warren “Womma” Ronaldo. She and Ash convinced Womma to admit that Dylan had got rid of evidence against him in exchange for the garage vandalism. Afterwards, she went to search Dylan’s room for evidence but he discovered her and asked why she was working against him. Kat insisted it was over between them, prompting Dylan to hit her. She went along with Dylan’s initial attempt to blame and then forgive her, but Ash convinced her to make a complaint to the new sergeant, Philip McCarthy. However, Dylan denied it and with his connections he was able to stay on the case while being investigated.

Kat quizzed Leah about Dylan’s conduct when investigating Zac and got the judge who denied Zac bail to give a statement saying Dylan had blackmailed him. She reported it to Joyce and McCarthy, resulting in Dylan being suspended. When Dylan came to the farm, she pushed him over when he touched her shoulder and ordered him away, before kissing Ash, although they both tried to forget about it afterwards. She was lured to Ash’s house by a message from Dylan, who took the two of them and Billie hostage and accused them of ruining his life. Kat managed to talk him down by reminding him that he was responding to the death of his son Anton and they shouldn’t be remembered like that. Dylan was arrested and Ash and Kat kissed again.

On the night of the explosion at the hospital fundraiser, she was left at the station to bag up the evidence in the Charlotte case, which was being closed down. In the process, she came across part of a watch strap and realised who the real killer was: Josh. He admitted he had killed Charlotte, albeit accidentally, but asked Kat not to arrest him, since Evelyn needed his support after Oscar was killed in the explosion. When she learned Hannah had been killed too, Kat agreed to give him time but warned him that eventually she would come after him. She tried to take a statement from Tank when he was found injured near the scene of the explosion, and when rumours began to circulate at Oscar and Hannah’s wake that Tank had caused the explosion, admitted that they were waiting to question him. She had to stop Zac from attacking him and charged him despite discrepancies in his story but then Andy confessed that he had started the fight and caused the explosion. She charged him, dropping the charges against Tank, and shared the news with Alf, Leah and Roo.

She and Ash discussed becoming a couple but decided they had to talk to Phoebe before anything happened. They planned to tell her over dinner but she cancelled on them, so instead they nearly got intimate on the living room floor before Phoebe walked in on them. After her initial shocked reaction, Phoebe told Kat she was fine with it and Kat went round to Ash’s house and slept with him for the first time. She helped search for Bella Loneragan when she briefly went missing. She invited Ash over to cook him a Chilean meal but they ended up being joined by Phoebe and Dom, with Kat reassuring Phoebe during the awkward meal that followed. She was summoned by Chris and Olivia when they received a photo and video message showing Irene had been kidnapped and traced the shack where Irene had been held via Olivia’s GPS but found it empty. She did however find DNA results showing that the kidnapper, Mick Jennings, was Irene’s son and had to share the information with her when she was found.

She asked Josh how Evie was; he insisted she still needed his support but then McCarthy told Kat the case was being reopened. She confided in Ash and decided she needed to arrest Josh, but while she raced around town looking for him Ash and Andy attempted to hide him. She was horrified when Andy confessed instead of Josh and tried to get Josh to tell the truth, before blaming Ash for compromising her. When Hunter stabbed Andy, she asked Zac to get him to co-operate and quickly bailed him. McCarthy then brought her with him to arrest Josh for giving Andy a false alibi. She used the stabbing to try and get him to confess to everything but Evelyn talked him out of it, then warned Kat that if she put more pressure on the Barretts she’d let everyone know she’d covered for them. Andy criticised her for laying all the blame for her actions on Ash and she made up with him. When Josh confessed, she considered turning herself in for keeping quiet but Josh and Ash told her not to. She was annoyed when Ash used the garage to pay Andy’s bail but quickly forgave him. She allowed Matt, Evelyn and Andy to all visit Josh before his sentencing only to fail to prevent Josh and Andy doing a runner from the courthouse.

She was instructed to investigate the garage for car rebirthing but a search found nothing. However, she became suspicious when Justin invested in the garage out of nowhere. Ash admitted that Andy had been behind the rebirthing and had left the money behind, which Justin had pretended to invest. She investigated a burglary at John and Marilyn’s but felt increasingly corrupt and compromised keeping quiet about what Ash had told her so resigned. She then started suffering panic attacks and had the indignity of being looked after by Nate before breaking up with Ash.

Kat went for a job as a criminology tutor but even though the interview went well she lost out when McCarthy told Professor Calabra about her dealings with Ash. She blamed Ash but accepted he was just trying to look out for when he defended her to McCarthy. She tried to talk him and Justin out of going to look for the plane crash victims on their own. Fed up with Ash, she and Phoebe asked Chris to find them some dates that were the opposite of him and Justin so he set them up with a pair of accountants, Derek Babcock and Brian Dyson. The date initially went well but when they took the pair home they tried to get them to play strip poker and were quickly shown the door.

Phoebe convinced Brody to give Kat a trial shift at Salt but she was embarrassed when McCarthy and some of her other old colleagues came in. When a drunken customer, Jeremy Granville, started harrassing her and Phoebe, Kat slammed his head against the bar and found herself arrested for assault. Although Jeremy retracted the complaint when threatened with counter-charges of sexual harrassment, Kat felt humiliated, even though Irene, Roo and Ash all told her she’d done the right thing. She was offered a job at a security firm and helped Ash restore a pram he’d bought for Billie. Her interest was piqued by Justin’s interest in Decker, who she found out was a federal police officer, and she recruited Ash to check out an address he had gone to. There, they found him with Hope and Raffy Morrison, shortly before Hope was abducted. Justin refused to explain anything but Kat gave Raffy and later Hope a place to stay at the farmhouse.

Olivia, Irene and Hunter went to her for advice about making a statement about Olivia’s abuse. When Olivia was uncomfortable talking to McCarthy, Kat felt she could reassure her and wanted to return to the police. McCarthy initially refused but after Ash promised that they weren’t together he agreed to a three month probationary period during which her associations would be scrutinised. She then helped Olivia make the statement after talking about her own experience with Dylan. She gave both Ash and Billie the cold shoulder when they tried to talk about Ash and Kat getting back together. Nate advised her to tell Ash about the probationary period, but when she went to the garage she witnessed a violent altercation between him and Burt “Simmo” Simmons. When she found out Simmo ran a chop shop and Ash refused to answer questions about him, Kat arrested him and threatened to charge him with hindering an investigation. They ended up doing a deal where he would help them catch Simmo but the sting went wrong and Simmo escaped.

She helped track Caroline Stewart down when she disappeared with son Bryce after being caught using marijuana. When Roo mentioned that Ash had given it to her, Kat confronted him. Ash insisted it was for medicinal purposes and he’d do it again if someone was in pain, after which Kat kissed him and they slept together. She initially insisted it couldn’t happen again but quickly decided they should see each other in secret until her probation was over. She went to the garage for a liaison only to have to hide when McCarthy turned up and was shocked when she saw Simmo apparently meeting Ash, chasing him off. Ash admitted that Simmo had photos of them together and was blackmailing him but insisted he’d sort it. Kat defended the Morgans to Raffy when Hope tried to turn her against them and was on duty when Hope accidentally overdosed in custody. When Simmo had Ash beaten up, Kat offered to tell McCarthy the truth but he insisted he could handle it. Kat helped arrest Simmo, who insisted she and Ash were behind the chop shop and that he had photos of them on his laptop. Kat alerted Ash as to the address and helped him work out the password to delete the photos. When Ash admitted to her that he’d had to threaten Simmo’s girlfriend Shenae to stop her seeing him, Kat realised their relationship was causing them both to do the wrong thing and they ended it. She tipped Evelyn off when the police got a lead on Josh and Andy but was angry to find her and Matt searching the shack where the brothers had been staying.

She was recruited to give a reading alongside Ash at VJ and Billie’s abortive wedding when Phoebe couldn’t make it back. Raffy came to her and started to ask her something about the Morgans. Phoebe shut her down quickly but Kat was curious enough to ask someone to look into the family. She then ended up yelling at Justin in Salt when he rejected Phoebe, before telling Evelyn that Josh and Andy had been arrested. She received a report that there was no record of Justin before 2009 and tried to interrogate him about it but was interrupted by Raffy, then tried to question Tori. Decker summoned her to the wharf and told her that her questions were putting everyone’s lives in danger, even if she only spoke to other police officers. Kat realised the Morgans were in witness protection but before Decker could tell her any more he was shot. Although she got him to hospital, he died of his injuries. Justin filled her in on the fact that his family were being pursued by a drug syndicate who had an agent in the force and she arranged protection from officers she trusted. She kept tight-lipped when Superintendant Ranae Turner arrived and helped Justin check out a USB stick that Mason had found. She handed a copy in to Turner, who claimed there was nothing relevant on it, then found an old photo of Turner indicating she had been involved in the murder of the Morgans’ parents. She and Justin prepared to take the stick to the commissioner in person but were shot at by Ranae. They escaped and Kat led a team to rescue Justin and arrest Ranae and her henchmen when he went back for the stick. Kat accompanied Justin to the city for the trial.

She investigated an arson outside the garage and had to arrest Ash for insurance fraud when his insurers accused him of starting the fire just after upping his policy, although she also cleared him by finding evidence he had gone through a toll up the coast around the time it was started. She asked Ash to get back together but he said she would always put her job first. She investigated another arson attack on Brody’s van and charged some locals who had vandalised the Diner but found no link to the fires. She then found out there had been another fire at the caravan park and realised the fires were being lit at random, receiving confirmation they had all been lit deliberately.

When she learned of a bushfire near the music festival, she rang Phoebe to warn her. She also found out Ranae was free again, having been left under house arrest guarded by two officers on her pay roll. She made it to the hospital to re-arrest Ranae after she had tried to kill Justin. McCarthy told her to look into the arson, since the culprit was probably a local, while Ash asked her to get back with him. She arrested Mick when he ignored an instruction to stay away from Irene. She went to the hospital to support Billie when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and VJ contacted her when Billie died on the beach. Ash initially pushed her away when she tried to support him but they later kissed. She gave Justin advice on seeking custody of Ava.

She was suspicious of Hunter on hearing he had left the festival upset and interviewed him but let him go when GPS evidence pointed elsewhere. She began looking into the accelerant, which was stocked at the surf club and bait shop. and learned that fingerprint evidence from an attempt to start a fire near the bait shop and some of the other fires pointed to John. She arrived at the house to find him being taken away in an ambulance and learned that he had a brain tumour that could cause behavioural changes, sharing her theory with Alf. This resulted in Ash finding out and Kat having to rush to the hospital where he was confronting John, meaning she had to break the news to John and Marilyn prematurely. After John had had the tumour removed, she charged him.

She and Ash slept together and reunited when she helped him sort out Billie’s affairs. She learned his brother Luke had no death certificate and was listed as missing after falling off a bridge in a drunken encounter. When she saw a photo of him, she realised she’d seen him at Billie’s funeral and tracked down his address, where he was living under the name Patrick Stanwood. She questioned him over faking his death but began to sympathise when she learned he’d suffered depression because of his experiences in the army. She began looking for a place to live since they were having to move out of the farm house, rejecting the two places she was offered because she was looking for somewhere better. When she found out Patrick was in town, she convinced Ash to meet him. She reluctantly allowed Patrick to move into the farm but was worried about his PTSD, especially when he attacked Ash on being woken suddenly. She then caught him sleepwalking and only just managed to snap him out of it when he advanced on her. She tried to counsel him and looked into his service record, while he moved out to the caravan park.

She tried to pull Brody over for a routine spot check only for him to speed off. She chased after him and searched the car, also giving him a drug test, but ended up releasing him without charge. She reluctantly supported Ash applying for custody of Luc. He asked her to move in with him at the Diner flat but both she and Patrick had difficulty with Luc crying all the time. Despite this, she was concerned when she came home to find Patrick doing nothing while Luc was crying. She intervened when Patrick tried to drag Luc away from Ash while having flashbacks and took Luc to spend the night at the beach house. She took Patrick in to make a statement after he accidentally ran over Ava Gilbert and tried to cope with his fragile mental state when it was revealed he’d accidentally killed a girl while serving in Afghanistan. She helped track him down when he disappeared and before leaving for a rehab clinic he suggested she wasn’t happy playing mum to Luc.

She helped Tori and Raffy arrange a surprise farewell for Justin and Phoebe by inviting Phoebe for a drink at Salt, then got asked to investigate a vandalism at a pawn shop. After tracking down Scarlett Snow, who had been car-jacked by the culprit, she realised it was Brody and arrested him, after which Tori admitted he was on drugs. She became heavily involved in the case even when she was meant to be spending time with Ash, interviewing Lena Ascot who Justin identified as Brody’s dealer, although she refused to say anything. She preferred to stay on the case instead of looking after Luc and identified Will Zannis as Lena’s supplier, although her attempt to arrest him saw her nearly run over. McCarthy told her he’d recommend her for detective if she cracked the case although Ash thought she should prioritise their family. She missed Luc’s first check-up to pursue the case and learned Brody knew Zannis, later investigating Brody over a robbery at Scarlett’s..

She began to feel more comfortable around Luc when Marilyn showed her how to give her a bath. Ash wanted to go camping with Luc and after initial reluctance Kat agreed to go. She was frustrated by the lack of creature comforts but began to enjoy herself…until Luc had to be rushed to hospital. It turned out she needed emergency surgery and Kat admitted to Tori that she was worried about her lack of maternal feelings for Luc. She offered Raffy a place to stay while Brody was out on bail. She wasn’t present when Luc was taken off the ventilator but was pleased by the news; however, when Ash revealed his plan to adopt Luc, she instantly rejected it, telling Ash they’d never talked about adoption and asking him to give her time. She arrested Ziggy for stealing her wallet, letting her go with a warning. Ash asked her how she felt about the adoption and she admitted she wasn’t sure if she wanted children, prompting Ash to decide they should break up.

She moved back into the caravan park but struggled to come to terms with the break-up, so ended up going out for dinner with Ash to try and reignite things. Although they got on, she was annoyed to realise they had both been confiding in Tori and realised she had a crush on Ash, asking him to stay away from her. She said the same to Tori when she babysat while Kat was attending drinks to celebrate being recommended for detective but, despite her frustrations, eventually accepted she couldn’t tell them what to do.

She helped calm an amnesiac man named Robbo who had attacked Alf and convinced him to stay in hospital, then saw Tori leaving Ash’s flat first thing in the morning, although he assured her it was innocent. However, she was frustrated when Ash then took a beating from Zannis while trying to track him down, accusing him of doing it for Tori. She began spending time helping Robbo to avoid Ash and she and Scarlett accompanied him to the cove where he had first been seen. However, she left in a rush when she found a photo of herself at Robbo’s camp. She got Robbo to take a polygraph test which showed he was telling the truth about his memory loss. Nevertheless, she booked him for driving without a license when he reversed into her car but ended up bringing him along with her when she went looking for Brody, who had missed his bail check-in. In fact, he and Ziggy had been kidnapped by Zannis and his men who knocked Kat out, but Robbo managed to overpower all of them. Kat turned down a date with Ash to go for a drink with him and broke up with him. She then kissed Robbo in her caravan, although Tori knocking on the door stopped them going any further.

She was convinced to help Robbo look into a lead on his past only to find a partially burnt photograph of him and his old girlfriend dead in the house. It turned out she had died from diabetic complications but Robbo decided not to look into his old life any more. She and Scarlett decided to move into the flat above the Diner and on her first night there she slept with Robbo. Immediately after, she found a boat covered in boats and bullet holes with evidence that Robbo had been on it. She and Scarlett found a gun on board and discovered it belonged to Dylan Carter, who she was due to give evidence against in a corruption trial. The discovery that he had been on the boat, a search of his house (which it was discovered was the source of the photo of Kat that Robbo had had) and CCTV footage of him holding Robbo at gunpoint led to the conclusion that he had hijacked Robbo’s boat and gone to kill Kat.

When Jay Turner, who had been arrested for running an ice den, accused Brody of stabbing him while he stayed there, Kat insisted she had to investigate and organised a search of the Morgans’ where she found Brody’s shoes had Jay’s blood on them. She instructed the CPS to press charges but Scarlett convinced her to search Jay’s house where she found the screwdriver that had caused the injury with only Jay’s fingerprints on it. Jay backtracked, saying he had fallen on it, and Kat had to tell CPS she’d made a mistake. McCarthy was unimpressed, telling her she should have done the search in the first place and had overcompensated because of Brody being a friend, and withdrew his recommendation for her as detective. Kat was furious to realise Scarlett had got information from some files she’d brought home, accusing her of ruining her career, and initially demanded she moved out but after Alf and Marilyn played peacemaker they exchanged apologies.

Marilyn convinced her that Robbo was planning a big surprise for her birthday, leaving her disappointed when it turned out to just be dinner at Salt. Robbo quickly upped his game, taking her to a balcony table at a restaurant in the city and giving her a necklace. When Robbo won a trip to a cabin for four in a raffle, she invited Justin and Scarlett to go with them. However, someone planted a bomb in the cabin and, although Robbo realised in time for him and Kat to get clear, Scarlett was injured. In the confusion, Kat was kidnapped by the person responsible, a hitman hired to make sure she didn’t testify at the corruption trial. He tried to dump her in a dam to drown but was chased off by Robbo. Kat withdrew her statement in the case over McCarthy’s objections.

She had to question Ben for assault when he punched Brody. When Alf remembered the hitman staying at the caravan park, forensics tests identified him as Dennis Novak and Kat learned he had a partner named Beckett Reid who no-one had ever seen or even found DNA or fingerprint evidence of. She lost Scarlett as a flatmate when she left town with her husband Caleb, then found out she was pregnant. She confided in Roo then told Robbo, who promptly proposed to her. She instead decided he should move in and they should raise the baby together. When she heard the police had tracked down Novak, she insisted on following them to his safe house but he got away after punching her in the stomach. However, the experience convinced her she wanted the baby.

She investigated Mick when he gave Ziggy a scare but showed little interest in Justin’s report that Buddy had been kidnapped. When she heard that her old partner Pete Symes, the other witness in the corruption case, had been murdered, she agreed to testify after all. However, she was then kidnapped by Novak, who took her to a wreckers’ yard and tied her up in a car that he prepared to crush. She was rescued by Robbo, who took her to hospital. However, when she had a scan on the baby, she learned she was actually fifteen weeks pregnant, making Ash the father. Tori forced her to tell Ash and Robbo, with Robbo confirming he would stand by her. When she got out of hospital, she spoke with Ash and was concerned about how involved in the baby he wanted to be. DI Will Shepherd turned up leading a taskforce looking for Novak and quickly became interested in Robbo. Kat sat in as they wondered where he went after taking Kat to hospital and he admitted he went looking for Novak. A phone trace indicated Novak was still in Summer Bay but his phone was later found in Melbourne with no sign of him. Kat and Robbo arranged for her to give evidence by video link from the police station.

She then learned Novak was dead and assumed his employers had killed him for failure, with Robbo assuring her he wasn’t involved. Despite this, they found themselves being investigated by Shepherd. Their flat was searched, resulting in Robbo getting into a scuffle with the police in view of most of the town, and Kat was suspended when it was revealed she had given details of the case to him. She went away with Robbo for a bit but Ash called her back and showed her money and a gun that he had found in Robbo’s old bag, which Robbo had supposedly disposed of when he gave up looking into his past. She realised he must have found the other things around the time Novak’s safe house was found, then found a key for the safe house in Robbo’s bag. She and Ash tracked down the box Robbo was holding when he encountered Dylan, containing a passport for Robbo in the name Beckett Reid. She convinced Ash to let her go to the police on her own but instead went to see Robbo, only to find that he’d known he was Beckett Reid since she’d first mentioned the name. He admitted he had also killed Novak and held her hostage in the flat, wanting them to go away together. Kat faked a problem with the baby in order to get Tori there and managed to escape and call the police, although Robbo fled with Tori as hostage. He quickly released her and Kat was left hiding out at the Morgans’ and facing awkward questions from the police about keeping evidence from them.

Robbo reappeared and turned himself in, telling Kat he had planned for them to live in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with new identities and he had given Tori the address. Kat demanded it off her and said a subtle farewell to Ash before going to the police station where she claimed her suspension had been lifted. She made up an accident to get rid of Murray then sprang Robbo from the cells, saying she wanted the life he had planned. Ash turned up and tried to stop them but Robbo knocked him out and they left him locked in a cell. However, as they were driving away, Kat was distracted and drove through a Stop sign, causing a collision with Jasmine Delaney’s car. Robbo called an ambulance but Kat told him to go to the cabin and wait for her, giving him her necklace. She was rushed into hospital unconscious with internal bleeding and an emergency caesarean failed to save her or the baby, both of whom died. Ash and Tori then visited her body.

Kat and her baby were laid to rest at Summer Bay’s church the following week, with her mother Devera and brother Paulo attending the funeral.