Daniel Joseph: Pleads guilty to domestic abuse against girlfriend he met on Tinder

A Reservoir mum who hitched up with a Tinder match during lockdown ended up enduring a real life nightmare.

Daniel Joseph, 31, pleaded guilty in the Broadmeadows Magistrates Court to assaulting his then-girlfriend, who he had met earlier over Tinder. ​

A Reservoir mother was held against a wall while her child was clutched in the spare hand of her abusive partner at her home last year, a court has heard.

Daniel Joseph, 31, pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend at the Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, months after the pair had met in desperate circumstances at the height of Melbourne’s first lockdown on a popular dating app.

Prosecutors told the court that on December 18, Joseph, a commercial painter, kicked the victim when she was on the floor and called her a “useless mother” in the course of a violent argument, which the accused later told police was a part of a “back and forth” exchange between the pair.

The court heard Joseph and the victim met on Tinder in the second half of 2020, when both had lost their jobs as a consequence of lockdowns — Joseph as a casual labourer and the victim as a hairdresser.

Three months after meeting the pair started to live together, the court heard, and shortly after conceived a child together.

Prosecutors said that after the December offence Joseph began to stay for a second time at the victim’s Reservoir address.

The court heard that on April 18 this year Joseph and the victim became involved in another argument, where she was pinned against the wall in the garage with the pair’s daughter held by Joseph in his spare hand.

Prosecutors said Joseph told the victim to “sit the f--k down” and took her phone to prevent her from calling police.

“I’ll f---ing smash you,” the court heard he told her.

Josh Smith, acting for Joseph, told the court that his client had endured a “very tumultuous childhood” in which his family home was used as a “club house” for drinking and drug taking by his father, who the court heard belonged to an outlaw motorcycle gang.

Mr Smith said Joseph had left home at the age of 16 as a result of his upbringing, but had never been in trouble prior to assaulting his partner.

He said Joseph was “remorseful, profoundly so” for his offending, and that a stint in prison has “rammed home to him the consequences of his offending”.

Magistrate Mathew White ordered Joseph to be assessed for a Community Corrections Order , and adjourned the matter until June 16.