Baby Reindeer: Serial stalker Kobi Jane Langshaw banned for life from contacting victims

Serial stalker Kobi Jane Langshaw — whose obsessive contact with two men had chilling similarities with the Netflix smash-hit Baby Reindeer — has been banned for life from ever contacting her latest victims again. Last week, law clerk Langshaw was convicted of more than two dozen charges of aggravated stalking and breaches of restraining orders, following extraordinary evidence of her pursuit of two Perth lawyers, which dated back more than eight years. Despite court orders preventing her from coming anywhere near Patrick Gardner and Aaron Herbert, Langshaw was found to have twice moved to addresses within metres of where the men worked and lived. In another instance of court imitating life, Langshaw also claimed she was the one being stalked — just as real-life Martha in the Baby Reindeer series has since it aired. In a Perth court on Thursday, magistrate Belinda Coleman granted a police request to impose lifetime restraining orders on Langshaw, forbidding her from ever contacting her two victims again. She will never be allowed within 200m of either of them and will also be permanently banned from several streets in Caversham, near where both men live. It was also revealed in court that since first being charged with stalking the pair, Langshaw has been handed five different convictions for various offences — including stalking, providing false information to secure bail, common assault and criminal damage. And it was even revealed she had admitted breaching a restraining order taken out on her by a WA prison guard. During an at-times bizarre court hearing, Langshaw was castigated for claiming she needed to visit the Caversham area to see family and friends. “I take everything you say to me with a grain of salt unless there is independent evidence,” Magistrate Coleman said. “You have continuously committed offences against these men. I am not adjusting the boundaries.” The magistrate pointed out that the only time Langshaw had ever been listed as living there was in 2018 — after she moved there to continue her campaign of intimidation against the two men. She also claimed in court that since her crimes were revealed in The West Australian, the “men had taken to climbing over my back fence”. The area she is currently living in was not published in any reporting of the proceedings. She will now be evaluated by a psychologist, a neuropsychologist and a psychiatrist, who have been asked to assess whether any undiagnosed condition has contributed to her offending. They will also be asked to assess the risk of further offending or escalating criminality. Police also raised the possibility of Langshaw being declared a “vexatious litigant” following her apparent applications for her own restraining orders and amendments to others. She will return to court in October to be sentenced. After a trial that began in 2022 and finished earlier this year, Magistrate Coleman found Langshaw guilty of three counts of aggravated stalking and a slew of restraining order breaches — following a trial that revealed the astonishing lengths she went to pursue two men. One of whom she was infatuated with and the other who she detested. Police prosecutors laid out how Langshaw had first met criminal and family lawyer Patrick Gardner in 2015. Magistrate Belinda Coleman concluded that the relationship had been strictly professional, with any sexual connection being a “fiction of (Ms Langshaw’s) imagination”. By 2016, Mr Gardner had taken a VRO out against Langshaw following disturbing and creepy behaviours, which continued despite the court order specifically telling her to stay away. On one occasion, she rang the president of Mr Gardner’s football club, pretending to be an AFL official, to inform the club of an umpiring award he was to receive — which didn’t exist. She then turned up to the club’s awards night and refused to leave. In the same year, cameras caught Langshaw allowing her children to play with skipping ropes metres from Mr Gardner’s house. And the court heard she was also barred from attending the Family Court building in Perth because of other alarming outbursts. Despite those convictions, Langshaw’s obsession with Mr Gardner escalated, while another man who worked in the Family Court was also targeted. “She is a highly intelligent woman,” Magistrate Coleman said. “And she is skilled at lying to take advantage of others. It is clear that she uses charm to manipulate others for personal gain. “She holds a sense of superiority and is very opinionated. When challenged, she becomes hostile but can instantly switch back to being sweet and unassuming. “It is clear that she was and still is completely infatuated with Mr Gardner … on the first occasion he gave evidence, she stopped taking notes and stared at him the entire time. He did her best to avoid her unrelenting gaze. “She even took her hair out of her ponytail and fluffed it around her shoulders in an attempt to draw his attention — it was very unnerving.” In her findings, Magistrate Coleman concluded that despite orders restricting her from going within 200 metres of Mr Gardner’s home or office, she took jobs in buildings within sight of his — and even leased a CBD flat within that perimeter. Magistrate Coleman also found that Langshaw then moved to a house in Caversham, knowing that both men she was banned from going near lived there. Mr Gardner reported seeing her walking past every morning as he drove to work. He told police she had also ‘tailgated’ him in her car and repeatedly frequented the café or shops at the same time. She was also sighted sitting on BMX bike — before letting out an “hysterical laugh” when she realised she had been spotted. “Ms Langshaw was terrifyingly aware of Mr Gardner’s routine and movements,” Magistrate Coleman said. “There are no such things as chance meetings when it comes to Ms Langshaw — she has an uncanny ability to find out information and be in places at opportune times.” The court was told she had spent hundreds of days behind bars already on the charges and for other convictions — which include a separate stalking conviction on another man she had met through work in Kalgoorlie. In that case, she concocted a fantasy that she was in a relationship with the man’s wife, then harassed him with fictional sexual details for more than a month.