My Story

My name is Daisy Armstrong. I am 29 years old and I live in Griffith in NSW.

I was in a relationship with Brett Joseph for 6 months. We met on Tinder in March 2016 and we started a whirlwind relationship on 2 April 2016. I thought that he was everything I had been looking for for such a long time. He was loving, he had the same interests and passions as me, he was educated, he wanted to make a life in the country , he wanted children, he loved my family and, most importantly, he loved me just the way I was – he was literally everything I had dreamed of – or so I thought! Luckily for me, our relationship ended abruptly on 1 September 2016 when I kicked Brett out of my house after learning exactly who and what he was.

Since that day I have learned a great deal about Brett. I have learnt about the tens, if not hundreds of individuals and businesses that he has scammed and conned over the past 10+ years. I have learnt about the broken hearts that he has left in his wake. I have learnt about his criminal activities as well as the things that he has done that should be criminal. I have learnt about the women who have been victimized by this man and who have not shared their stories – often because they were too scared, embarrassed, scarred or broken to do so.

When we first got together Brett told me that he been working for a number of years as a research agronomist in Sydney with Bayer that paid $120k a year, but he had left that job in November 2015 when he had broken up with his fiance (he said that that was his decision) and had left Sydney to return to his hometown of Mudgee. He said that he was working as a consultant for Bayer and was also doing some private agronomy consulting around Mudgee. Turns out that he had never been a research agronomist for Bayer, and had only worked for them for a short period of time as a labourer a number or years ago and he was not working at all when he returned to Mudgee in March. It also turns out that his fiance was the one who booted him (and that was in March 2016, not November 2015) when he was arrested for outstanding fraud offences and she found out that he wasn’t who he had told her he was.

He used to drive to Griffith to visit me every Friday and then leave every Monday for the first 3 months of our relationship. He said it was because he had to work – turns out that was a lie. Then in late June 2016 he pulled the “I have quit my job and I can’t not live with you anymore so I am moving down”.

He told me that as a result of the relationship with his ex-fiance that he was the 1/3 owner of a number of champion racehorses – including champion mare Winx and stallion Preferment. He told me that he had $6 million in prize money to spend – and, as the relationship went on, that he intended on spending that money building a life for us and our family. As it turns out, he does not own a hair on any champion racehorses – especially Winx. His ex-fiance’s family do! He is excellent at claiming other people’s hard work as his own – since we broke up I have received messages from a number of girls who he was cheating on me with and to whom he was claiming to be the owner of my family’s farm! Including sending them pictures of our property – including inside my parent’s house and with our crops and livestock. He even sent pictures of himself in my Dad’s little plane, claiming that it was his and that he could fly it himself. This makes me really angry – I know how hard my family have worked for what we have, and for him to just walk in a claim it as his is just wrong! He picks and chooses parts of other people’s lives, rolls them all together and presents them in a neat little package (literally) – HIM! It’s just bull!

About a month after we got together, Brett said that he was making enquiries about a number of properties in and around the same area as the property that my family already owns. I heard him on the phone to various stock and station agents, real estate agents and the like – what I didn’t know at the time was that he was using a fake name (Brett Johnson) and that he was giving these poor agents the run around for nothing. There were no winnings, there was no money and he never had any intention of buying any of those properties. It has now come to my attention that Brett has a track record of doing this kind of thing. The 2012 A Current Affair story details how Brett made an offer on a $44 million waterfront mansion in Sydney – and that that deal progressed all the way to building and pest inspections and contracts being drawn up before it was discovered that Brett did not nearly have the funds to pay for any property – let alone that one!

But here is the kicker – and I told him this when I booted him out of my house. I wouldn’t have cared if he had nothing. I would have loved him if he had nothing and if he was just a normal bloke. The fact that he allegedly owned these champion horses was cool (because I love going to the races), but if he did not own them I would not have cared. The fact that he had money also did not have any bearing on the fact that I loved him. I loved him for him – not for his horses, his money or anything else. And I would have loved him even if he had none of that.

Since starting the Facebook page and website, I have learnt that Brett was cheating on me with at least 23 girls and 2 guys. At best he was talking to them (not just normal talking – I mean inappropropriate or explicit talking – talking that you wouldn’t do with a person that you just wanted to be friends with). At worst he was sleeping with them. Now some people might classify cheating differently to me – but, in my book, cheating is doing any or all of of these things when you have a partner. These are just some of the things that Brett did to me while we were together that I consider to be cheating:

• Talking to other girls/boys on dating sites;
• Messaging girls/boys and saying that you and your girlfriend are “rocky” and that you are “discreetly seeing what else is out there”;
• Sending pictures of your appendage to other girls/boys;
• Receiving compromising pictures from other girls/boys’
• Telling other girls that you see them as your future wife;
• Making plans to visit other girls/boys for dates and/or to stay with them;
• Telling other girls/boys that you want to build a life with them;
• Denying that you have a partner – even when specifically questioned about who I was (often he told people that I was his “good friend” or “office manager”);
• Having active profiles on and actively using Tinder, gaymatchmaker, grindr, POF or any other dating website;
• Actively seeking out other people on social media to be anything more than a friend;
• Any intimate act with any other person – from kissing and beyond!

Now the entire time Brett and I were together I had no inkling that he was cheating on me with so many other people. While we were living together he wasn’t on his phone for the amount of time that you would expect that someone doing what he was doing would need to be. We had an argument early on in our relationship when I saw him messaging another girl (turns out that she was the one he ended up sleeping with). He told me that he was allowed to talk to other girls as friends – and that he was only messaging her because he was interested in her photography. Looking back on it now he was actually messaging her and arranging to meet up with her. He told me that he didn’t cope well with insecure girls (which was apparently what I was being) and threatened to leave me. We were out at my parent’s farm and he said that he was going to pack up his stuff and we were going to drive back into Griffith and he was going to leave. I think that was the first time he threatened that, so it was very upsetting. He told me that he was driving between Mudgee and Griffith every weekend, which should have been enough to show me how committed he was to our relationship. And he was right. The guy was driving 5 hours each way to come and see me every weekend for the first 3 months and then moved his life to be with me after that – surely someone who didn’t love me and who was cheating on me wouldn’t do that! I could not have been more wrong!

He was busy telling me that I was the person who he had waited his whole life for, who he wanted to marry and make a life with. We went and tried on engagement rings about a month before I booted him for goodness sakes.  I believed everything that he told me about me being the one he had waited for and about us being together forever. He was so convincing and his actions with me backed up his words. I was totally head over heels for the guy and I honestly believed that he was the same for me! All the while he was cheating on me, not just with 1 person, not 2 people, but with at least 25 people of both sexes!

So, you may ask, how did Brett cost me so much money? This one is a difficult one to answer because I am still in the process of working out how much Brett has cost me and exactly how he did it. What I can say is this – I estimate I am at least $25,000 down because of the relationship. I was essentially supporting 2 people for most of our relationship. When I asked for Brett to contribute to our everyday expenses he would pull the “I have quit my job and moved my whole life for you” and the “I have been driving to you every weekend” card, so I would feel guilty and drop it. I would pay for stuff on the proviso that he would “pay me back” – but he never did. He would also book stuff (usually from clearing sales – he was obsessed with buying crap at clearing sales) up to our farming accounts on the proviso that he would “pay them when the account arrived”. When the account did arrive he was always “getting paid by Bayer next week” or “getting a $20k bonus from Bayer next month”. I refused to let the accounts go unpaid, so I would pay them and thought he would repay me. When I asked him to pay for some of the stuff I had paid for he just yelled and screamed at me, threatened to leave me, told me how selfish I was, told me that he was planning on spending $6m on our future and I couldn’t absorb a few thousand dollars. Plus the usual “I have quit my job and moved my whole life for you” and the “I have been driving to you every weekend”. I should have stood up to him, but I didn’t, and I felt guilty because the guy have quit his job and moved his life for me and wanted to invest his winnings into our future – so I thought maybe I was being selfish. So, again, I dropped it.

Everything I have learnt since the day I found out just who Brett was has started a fire in me. It is a fire that has given me the drive to put a stop to Brett Joseph’s horrendous behaviour once and for all. He has gotten away with too much for too long – and it is time for that to stop. It is time for the manipulation and the lies to stop. It is time for his parent’s to stop trying to condone his behaviour and blame it on “mental illness”. It is time for his victims to band together and stand up to him and bring him to account for everything that he has done. It is time for law enforcement to properly investigate this man and bring him to account for his criminal activities. It is time for everyone to be aware of exactly who he is and what he has done – whether that be by way of social media, mainstream media or word of mouth.

It is time to make the world a place where Brett Joseph’s face is recognised everywhere he goes so that he is unable to get away with the things that he has gotten away with for so long! Knowledge is power – and my goal is to give you all the knowledge you need in case his man walks into your life, the life of someone you love, the life of a colleague, or even when you see him walking down the street one day with some poor girl who is, more than likely, another victim!