Cash Newman
Senior Constable Cash Newman (2021-present)
Nicholas Cartwright
Episodes: 7584-present
Date of Birth: 1993/1994
Parents: Anthony & Jennifer Newman (both deceased)
Siblings: Felicity Newman
Foster Parents: Gary & Katherine (deceased) Morrow
Occupation: Police officer
A new senior constable arriving at Yabbie Creek police station in mid-2021, Cash described himself as a country boy. He first became involved with the residents of Summer Bay when he arrested Justin for the assault on Stephen Tennyson, learning of his painkiller addiction. He was willing to release Justin on bail straightaway but agreed with Tori’s decision to keep him in the cells overnight in the hope it would be a wake-up call. Soon after, he had to deal with the discovery of a body in the bay and Dean’s fears it was his missing sister Mackenzie. When the body was identified as Susie McAllister, who had conned several locals a few months earlier, Cash conducting preliminary interviews with John, Justin and Leah. He also interviewed Irene, telling her she was officially a suspect. Mackenzie summoned him to remove Dean from Salt and Cash let Dean go without charge after he explained the situation.
Kieran admitted to him that he hadn’t managed to arrange a sponsor as part of his good behaviour bond, so Cash put him in touch with a local AA group. Cash was assigned to work with Detective Amy Peters when she led the investigation into Susie’s murder. He was uncomfortable with some of her methods, including ambushing Leah and Stephen at Salt for an unofficial interview. They clashed even more when Justin was arrested after Susie’s smashed phone was found in his car. Amy attempted to badger a confession out of Justin without a lawyer present until he collapsed from withdrawals. Cash halted the interview and took Justin to hospital, prompting Amy to warn him not to go against her again.
He became suspicious of Stephen and was proved right when Leah and John found evidence that he was responsible. He fielded questions from Leah, Justin and John about the money Susie had stolen from them. Leah and Justin admitted she had retrieved the money from Stephen’s motel room and Cash collected it, agreeing to keep quiet about where he found it. He was called when Alf and Martha believed Kieran had attacked Jasmine but quickly learned she had actually suffered an epileptic seizure. He approached Jasmine a few days later to remind her of the incident and tried to ask her out, learning her late husband was a police officer. He escorted Nikau home after catching him harassing Bella.
He tried to organise a touch footy team, with Jasmine attending their first practise session. He exaggerated an ankle injury to spend time with her and she agreed to a date. They had dinner together at Salt but he was reluctant to push his luck by asking for a second date. He played referee over John and Justin’s feud over buying the garage and met Jasmine for a drink, but was called away by his sister Felicity, who had got them evicted from their rental by ignoring noise complaints. He found out she had slept with Tane Parata on finding him leaving the house and arranged for himself and Felicity to move to the caravan park.
He was soon receiving complaints about her again and also learned she had told Jasmine their father had been murdered. Cash told Jasmine the truth: Their father had shot himself when their farm was failing and Felicity had never accepted it. He and Jasmine shared a kiss. He pulled over a young man for speeding who turned out to be Leah’s nephew Theo. He learned Felicity was hooking up with Tane again after seeing him sneaking out of her van, then that Tane was accusing Felicity of pestering him with roses and asked her about it. Felicity told him Jasmine was uncomfortable that they hadn’t slept together so he arranged a night at a hotel in the city. However, when he turned up at Salt to collect her, he found her drunk so took her home instead. He learned she was upset about her stepdaughter Grace leaving and wasn’t sure if she should attend Tori and Christian’s wedding. Cash ended up taking her there in his squad car, after which they slept together.
When he returned from some time away, he discovered Felicity was staying with her friend Anne Sherman and had been having further troubles with Tane, who he served with an AVO to stay away from her. However, his resolve was shaken when the mental health fundraiser at Salt was flooded with organophosphate that had been used in an attempt to murder Tane, with Cash placing the restaurant in lockdown until they had gone through decontamination. He worried Felicity would be the main suspect and told her to get her story straight. Jasmine found a receipt for organophosphate in her caravan and Cash confronted her over it. Looking into it, he found it had been ordered online with a pre-paid card and delivered to an empty house. He burned the receipt but had to take part in a search of Felicity’s van which found samples of the drug used to knock out Tane. Felicity told him Anne was responsible. Although sceptical, Cash reported it to Detective Darren Nasser but Darren still considered Felicity, who had disappeared, the prime suspect. Cash went back to their home town to look for her without success, then learned Tane was missing as well. He managed to track Felicity’s phone and he and Ari rescued Felicity and Tane just as Anne was about to kill them both. However, Felicity was still upset that he hadn’t believed her. He tried to warn Tane off spending time with her but later acknowledged it was good for her to have someone to talk to.
He interrupted Ryder and Theo firewalking, which contributed to them burning their feet. He tried to convince Felicity to join him at a memorial for their father, which he’d attended without her every year. Felicity said she’d go if he investigated their father’s death but Cash considered it pointless so went without her, asking Jasmine and Tane to keep an eye on her. When he returned, he brought the autopsy report on their father’s death with him as proof for Felicity, allowing them to talk things over. Back on duty, he pursued Mia when she drove off after being pulled over. When the car was eventually stopped, Cash found a body in the boot: Matthew Montgomery, Chloe’s father. He arrested Mia when she refused to explain but let her go after Ari (falsely) confessed to killing Matthew.
Alf tried to get him to charge Theo with attempted murder after a challenge where Ryder was buried alive in a coffin but Cash dismissed the claim since Ryder had been a willing participant. However, he failed to talk Alf out of pressing charges over Theo taking the surf club buggy for a joyride. He surprised Jasmine with a birthday dinner which initially had her running away before she explained she’d always been upset that her father, who abandoned her as a child, never got in touch on her birthday. However, they ended up going away to the city together to celebrate. Shortly after their return, he intervened when Neve Spicer attacked Mackenzie at the surf club, then beat a sharp exit when Jasmine invited him to move in with her. He told her he didn’t want to leave Felicity bnt Felicity told him not to use her as an excuse. He and Jasmine eventually decided to put it on hold. Soon after, when Ari died and he saw how well Felicity handled it, he changed his mind and asked Irene for the key to move in but she refused without him talking to Jasmine. In the end, Jasmine readily agreed.
Cash began to regret it when he found it hard to relax around Irene, especially when bumping into her half-dressed in the middle of the night, but some straight-talking from her improved things. He had to break the news to Jasmine that her father had died, which Jasmine initially didn’t react to, although he ended up supporting her, especially when her half-brother Xander turned up and revealed their dad had had another family after leaving her. Cash had an early run-in with Jasmine’s newly-discovered stepsister Rose when he tried to caution her about tackling a robber at the Diner only to learn she was a police officer, and filled her in on their father abandoning Jasmine. He helped smooth things over between the siblings after an awkward lunch, suggesting they go for a walk on the beach instead. Rose spoke to him about getting a transfer to Summer Bay. He stumbled across Theo’s father Dimitri trying to force him into his car and took them to the station, where Leah reported Dimitri for assaulting Justin, and Theo reported him for physically abusing him.
On his first day working with Rose, they pulled Alf over for speeding but Cash let him off, knowing he was going to pick up Martha from hospital. He refused to look into a mysterious “PK” that Felicity said was hanging around the restaurant and investigated a fatal car crash Logan had been involved in. Xander told him and Rose that Millie, the other driver, had been distracted looking at her phone but when Millie denied it and accused Xander of harassing her, and Cash learned Rose had kept quiet about Xander being accused of similar before, he took Rose off the case, although Millie soon confessed. Rose convinced him to take the situation with PK seriously especially when they found PK, real name Peter King, murdered. They questioned Felicity, Dean, Mackenzie and PK’s associate Nathan Silva, focusing on Dean when he and Ziggy lied about being together and a blood-covered wrench was found in the car he was using. When the wrench was confirmed as the murder weapon, Cash wanted to arrest Dean until Dean produced Nathan as the real culprit.
Nathan revealed Felicity had been running illegal poker nights at Salt, leaving Cash with no choice but to arrest her. However, Mackenzie interrupted, saying she had organised the nights and Felicity had believed they had a license. Cash rightly suspected that wasn’t entirely true but Felicity escaped without charge. Cash joined her at a Parata barbecue where he got drunk and arranged to meet Rose at Salt, ending up being thrown out by Mackenzie. He fell asleep with Rose in her car after refusing to go home to Jasmine drunk. Even though nothing had happened, he told Felicity and Rose to keep it from Jasmine. Jasmine then left town to help out on her in-laws’ farm when her mother-in-law Wendy had a heart attack. Rose asked if there was a reason he’d kept things quiet and he realised she was attracted to him. She denied it but things were now awkward, with Rose trying to avoid being rostered on with him. Cash talked Mackenzie into accepting Felicity’s offer to buy half of Salt and accepted Xander’s offer to join him and Rose for lunch only for Rose to bring along her new boyfriend Tex Wheeler and flaunt the relationship. Cash agreed to give them space.
Felicity convinced him to attend the relaunch of Salt, but he was uncomfortable to see the band playing was Lyrik: He had once had feelings for Eden Fowler, one of their members, only for her to disappear right after they slept together. He and Eden cleared the air but he remained in a tense mood, getting into a row with Tex. He gave Eden a reference to lease a house and witnessed Xander nearly picking a fight with Rodney Jorgensen, a drunk driver who had killed a teenager, with Rose confiding about Xander’s difficulty handing traumatic cases. However, Xander refused to talk to him and, during a tense meal, blurted out that Rose loved Cash. Cash spoke to Irene about spending the night in Rose’s car and she encouraged him to tell Jasmine. He instead made plans to propose to her on her return to town but she failed to turn up and he decided to report her missing. When the police called at the farm, they found Jasmine had decided to stay there and didn’t want to talk to Cash. He had to break the news to Xander, then decided to head to the farm with Irene to try and talk Jasmine round. He failed and was forced to accept she was more in love with Robbo’s memory than him.
On his return, he immediately got involved with Rose’s investigation into the biker gang Tex was a part of. He placed Felicity in a cell to stop her getting caught up in things as Tane wore a wire to get evidence. Cash failed to put on a bulletproof vest before taking part in the raid and was shot and injured during an exchange of fire with gang leader Marty, who was killed. He was rushed to hospital and had to be resuscitated. When he came round, he had a hard time dealing with the fact he had killed someone. He ignored Felicity and Xander, and Doctor Bree Cameron offering him counselling, and obsessively questioned Rose about how it had happened, convinced she was hiding something. He tried to go down the station to get answers but had to accept he wasn’t strong enough to leave the hospital. Rose brought in the case file, which included a statement from a witness saying Marty had fired first, but even knowing he wasn’t to blame didn’t lift Cash’s mood and he asked Felicity what it felt like to have a breakdown.
He didn’t feel able to go back to living at Irene’s, where he had lived with Jasmine, so moved in with Tane and Felicity on being discharged and told Rose he couldn’t be around her. He insisted on Felicity driving him to the police station but was unable to get his sergeant or the doctors to certify him as fit for duty. He attempted to move out to the caravan park on realising staying with the Paratas might make the bikers suspicious but Felicity refused to let him. When Rose warned him the bikies had taken out a hit on him, he struggled to respond but eventually went to the station to check the transcripts. He convinced Rose to accept a commendation, then kissed her, prompting her to throw him out. He got drunk but apologised the next day, although he remained distant.
He returned to work but behaved in an abrupt manner while tracking down Pete Wilson, a mugger who had attacked Remi, with his arrest leaving Pete with a bruised shoulder. He was also dismissive of Marilyn and Irene when they tried to report Marilyn’s e-mail being hacked, saying to contact cybercrimes. He slept with Eden but was dismissive of her the following morning. He was placed on leave after Pete made a complaint so met up with Eden for another hook-up, which soon became a regular arrangement. He attended a call-out when Leah’s house was vandalised but dismissed it as kids and went off to another liaison with Eden, only to be caught with her by Felicity. He was uninterested in Felicity’s fury but thrown when Remi told him Eden was falling for him. Eden denied it, but told him to leave her alone when she injured her ankle celebrating Tane and Felicity’s engagement. She eventually admitted it was true and Cash decided they should stop seeing each other.
After initially being dismissive of Rose’s suspicions that Heather Frazer was behind the vandalism at Leah’s house, Cash became concerned when Justin reported Leah and several others missing, and Heather’s stepmother was found dead in a freezer. He accompanied Rose in checking out the function centre they had gone to, finding them all tied up. Cash chased after Heather when she took Marilyn hostage and cornered her on a balcony which she ended up falling from (although she escaped serious injury). After the incident, Cash and Rose cleared the air. With Marilyn having left town in the aftermath of the incident, Cash agreed to look for her unofficially. He quickly found and spoke to her and had to report she didn’t want to come back to Summer Bay, although Roo convinced him to let people know where she was.
Felicity asked him to give her away and encouraged him to make a go of things with Eden. Finding himself working with Eden on the wedding plans, they decided they couldn’t be friends and should just do their own thing. He tried to talk to Felicity about inviting their foster father, Gary Morrow, to the wedding and John suggested bringing him to town against Felicity’s wishes. He had Gary bring up their father’s old ute, which he wanted to use as wedding transport, and convinced him to come to the house to see Felicity. Although Felicity was initially furious with Cash for disregarding her wishes, she eventually accepted the idea. Cash found their mother’s old necklace in the ute and gave it to Felicity for the wedding.
When Remi left him a note asking for help and then Eden asked him hypothetical questions about a friend being in an abusive relationship, Cash began to realise they had a friend in trouble who wouldn’t report it, deducing it was Bree. He was forced to investigate Dean for abusing Ziggy after Bree made a complaint against him but Bree eventually withdrew it and instead admitted to her husband Jacob abusing her. Cash arranged an AVO for her. He was then co-opted by Eden to help her search for some wedding dresses that had been stolen. Together, they found the dresses for sale online and Cash and Rose posed as an engaged couple as part of a sting to catch the thief, Stan.
When Felicity’s hen night turned up in the middle of the bucks party he was attending, Cash initially accused Eden of arranging it until she revealed it was Felicity trying to set them up. Cash took Eden home when she drunkenly fell off the stage where she sleepily told him she loved him. Cash blasted Felicity for creating an uncomfortable situation. He told Eden about Remi being in hospital with a busted hand after a run-in with Jacob and she accused him of ignoring what she’d said. He told her that if he was going to love anyone it would be her but he couldn’t go there again. Gary tried to talk him out of the mindset and, as they waited for Eden to talk Felicity into coming to the wedding, Cash told Gary he was going to tell Eden how he felt.
He was derailed by the news Eden and Felicity had been involved in a near collision with Leah and Justin that led to both cars crashing. Cash went to the scene and ended up accompanying Eden to hospital. When he heard the brakes had failed, he accused Justin of messing up the restoration. He apologised to him after hearing the brakes had been cut and he and Gary found the house had been bugged, realising the bikers were responsible. He promised Gary he’d tell the taskforce but was determined to deal with it himself. He enlisted Rose’s help to look at the phone records and visited Tex in prison. He and Rose identified Tex’s outside contact, Lloyd Stevens, and Cash sent a challenge into the bug to arrange a time and place to meet. He admitted what had happened to Tane, who told him to leave the house rather than put them in danger. He got a response to his challenge but Rose refused to let him go, keeping him under guard in Eden’s hospital room as Lloyd and several others were arrested. However, he was then escorted from the surf club by another gang member, George, and taken to Tex, who had escaped from prison and was preparing to kill him. He was saved by the arrival of Tane and the police, managing to take down Tex himself.
He then received the news that Eden had woken up and rushed to the hospital to tell her she was right about them being together, only for her to react with distress and confusion. It turned out she had forgotten their relationship, prompting Cash to offer to just be her friend. However, when she continued to remember nothing, she told him to stop visiting. He learned she had been discharged but she still refused to let him visit. He joined Tane and Nikau in confronting Felicity over her excessive drinking but her response was to move out to a caravan. Cash took her home after she made a show of herself at Salt and she told him she felt they were cursed. He had to pull her over for drink driving but they built bridges afterwards. He felt optimistic when Eden agreed to spend time with him but she pulled away when he kissed her. He realised Eden remembered everything when she sang a song about their relationship and they kissed. After talking things over, they reunited and spent the night together. They were soon co-opted by a reunited Tane and Felicity to organise their wedding. When Felicity got fed up of waiting and organised the wedding herself, he advised Tane not to make it all her. Cash woke up the morning after the wedding to find Eden wearing the engagement ring he’d bought Jasmine and was terrified he’d got engaged to her and couldn’t remember it. Eden eventually admitted they’d just put the ring on her for a joke but was hurt at how panicked he was at the idea. Cash won her over by exchanging the ring for a charm bracelet for her.
He had to arrest Justin for assault when he caught him attacking Conor, a man he mistakenly believed had assaulted Ava, and helped Rose arrest Brock, a drug dealer who had attacked Xander and killed his friend Jamie. He was uncomfortable to walk in on Eden sitting on Remi’s lap, feeling they shouldn’t be so tactile anymore. Although Eden wasn’t happy being told how to behave with her friends, she accepted he had a point. He was pleased for her when the band wanted to use her song, when she’d actually been hoping he’d be against the idea. He supervised Justin’s first day of community service and clashed with one of the other attendees, Robbie Carpenter. He declined Tane’s cousin Kahu’s attempts to get him to invest in a trawler and instead offered to invest in album Lyrik were trying to do only for Eden to decline in turn.
He became involved in the case of Andrew Lawrence, a teenager Justin found abandoned, and managed to uncover the fact that his father had died a few weeks earlier after leaving him alone in the house and that his father had been reported as kidnapping him when he was four, having been a member of a cult, Vita Nova. Theo showed him a Missing Persons page he’d set up and Cash answered an enquiry from a woman claiming to be Andrew’s mother Esther. After a cursory check of her ID, he took her to Justin and Leah’s to meet Andrew. It was only after she left town with Andrew that the taskforce dealing with Vita Nova revealed she wasn’t Andrew’s mother and Cash had to break the news to a furious Justin. Although taken off the case, he teamed up with Justin to look for Andrew. He got the cult’s address and they went to the compound together but Andrew refused to leave with them. Cash learned Andrew’s mother was dead, probably murdered by the cult, and arranged to cause a distraction so Justin could sneak in and get Andrew only for Andrew to again refuse to come, leaving Cash to reflect that they’d done all they could.
He and Leah realised Justin had gone back to the compound on his own but Cash was unable to get the taskforce to help. He instead decided to report him missing and track his phone, which confirmed he was at the compound just before Andrew called saying Justin was hurt. Cash took a large number of police and ambulances to the compound and took pleasure in personally arresting Margot. He didn’t have peace for long as Felicity revealed she’d been raped. He began searching social media footage of the event where it had happened in the hope of finding a clue and helped Tane and Felicity find a way through things.
He briefly thought he had a culprit when he received a report a man had been bragging about the rape, only to find out the suspect had an alibi and it was just a bitter ex-girlfriend causing trouble. Felicity asked him for $10,000, first claiming it was to fund a Lyrik launch night at Salt and then saying she had financial difficulties, and Cash agreed. Tane later informed him the money had been used to pay off her rapist, who was blackmailing her with a video of the assault. Felicity revealed she had managed to photograph the culprit and get his number plate, allowing Cash to identify him as Jeremy Holding. Cash and Rose arrested him and found evidence on his phone that he had raped eight women going back years but Cash was left depressed at how long it had taken to bring him to justice. He considered resigning but Eden convinced him to just go away for a while. On his return, he managed to unnerve Felicity wih a rather unhinged attempt to convince her to help him stop sexual assaults. After a chat with Bree about coming to terms with what happened, he made plans with Felicity and Tane to put safeguards in place at Salt and arrange self-defence classes. He reluctantly gave Felicity access to the footage of her assault but she couldn’t go through with viewing it, so he supported her meeting Jeremy through a restorative justice programme.
John asked him to look into Irene’s new lodger only for her to turn out to be Harper Matheson, a social worker from the city who was an old friend of his. Harper revealed to him that her sister Dana was on the run after her boyfriend accused her of being responsible for drugs found in their flat. Cash agreed to look into it and discovered the only evidence against Dana was that her pass card was used at the hospital when the drugs were stolen. He spoke to Will Madden, the detective in charge of the case, pointing out holes, but Madden told him Dana had priors. When he went to see Harper, he found Dana with her. Despite suspecting Madden was corrupt, his initial response was to take Dana to the station but he quickly changed his mind and agreed to Harper continuing to hide her at the beach house. He found out Madden had buried the fact Dana was having lunch with Harper when the theft occurred and went to get the CCTV footage that would establish her alibi, only for Madden to get to it first. He started an anti-corruption case against Madden and told Irene he was convinced Dana was innocent when she discovered her hiding in her house. Not long after, Dana was arrested by Madden and promptly disappeared, supposedly having escaped. He confided in Rose and they worked together to trace a mysterious call Harper had received, which led them to Madden standing over a prone Dana. When Dana confirmed Madden had tried to kill her, Cash took pleasure in arresting him.
He made a full statement to the anti-corruption board only to find himself suspended pending an investigation. Shortly after being told he was suspended for three months, he learned Irene and Harper had been arrested with him no longer having the authority to intervene. He took a special interest in Justin being in hospital after a murder attempt by remnants of Vita Nova. He got punched by Tane when he walked in on the aftermath of a row between him and Felicity, quickly learning Felicity had continued taking the pill when they were supposed to be trying for a baby and Tane had moved out as a result. He briefly went to Lyrik’s comeback gig until Felicity walked out on seeing Tane there. He managed to bring his suspension review forward but, just as he was about to go, he heard Felicity was at Salt laying into Mackenzie, having overheard Cash telling Eden that Tane was sleeping with other women. Cash rushed there in time to see Mackenzie collapse from a heart attack and helped resuscitate her. However, as a result he missed the review, meaning he would have to wait until the end of his original suspension. He refused to do anything about it, insisting Felicity was his priority.
When he learned Eden had a brother, Levi, who she had been estranged from since her teens, and he was now Mackenzie’s surgeon, he advised her to speak to him. He met Levi himself for a drink but Eden saw it as a betrayal. He then heard he and Felicity were being evicted, since Tane had given up the lease. He felt maybe it might be best to move out for a fresh start but accepted Felicity’s desire for them to take over the lease. Eden then asked him to take her away so she could avoid Levi. He was reluctantly to leave Felicity but she convinced him to go so he took Eden camping. Eden struggled with roughing it and was finally tipped over the edge when he had to remove a tick from her neck. He explained he used to go camping there with Gary to give him a break from looking after Felicity and apologised that she hadn’t enjoyed it. She agreed to a bushwalk to a waterfall but he then overheard her on the phone to Remi, asking him to come and get her. He convinced her to stay another night and then go to a hotel in the morning, but woke up to find her gone.