TWO months after fleeing Timboon, alleged conman Dene Broadbelt has re-emerged as a mental health advocate hoping to visit schools to talk about his experiences with bullying and depression.
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But it seems Mr Broadbelt is still up to his old tricks — he claims to have “the backing of Lifeline” for his school visits, but the national crisis support and suicide prevention service has denied endorsing the 21-year-old.
Mr Broadbelt caused a stir in the south-west in March when he attempted to set up a real estate agency in Port Campbell while living in Timboon under the name Harrison O’Connor, despite not having a Victorian real estate licence or a sub-agent’s licence.
When he last spoke to The Standard in March, he said he was applying to change his name to Harrison Eyles and was leaving Timboon because he was “feeling hounded”.
Prior to his arrival in the south-west Mr Broadbelt — who has also gone by the name Dene Mussillon — was allegedly being investigated by NSW and Northern Territory police for a string of offences relating to using fake references.
A group called The Dene Broadbelt Support Group was also set up, bringing together over 100 members who claimed to have been affected by his actions, including those he allegedly duped with a national events promotion and recruiting agency which collapsed last year.
Now Mr Broadbelt is touting “a new road show tour (called) One Day With Dene which will take to the road in the coming weeks visiting schools across Australia”.
In a lengthy press release, he said the presentation would lay “bare his mistakes, truths, regrets and his triumphs” in an effort “to stamp out bullying and depression”.
He claimed to have the backing of Lifeline for the school visits — Lifeline’s head office responded yesterday to say he did not.
“Mr Broadbelt does not have the backing of Lifeline as stated in his media release,” a Lifeline spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Mr Broadbelt had contacted Lifeline’s marketing team and had been offered “wallet cards” to distribute to raise awareness, but nothing more.
“We often provide such collateral to members of the general public who wish to promote awareness of our crisis support services; however, these people do not have our authorisation to represent Lifeline nor are they authorised to speak on our behalf.
“We have not expressly provided Mr Broadbelt with authority to use the Lifeline name.
“We shall be contacting Mr Broadbelt today to clarify this with him.”
In the release promoting One Day With Dene, it described his life as “troubled” and “a secret hell” and claimed he was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety and suffered at the hands of bullies “because he did not fit in with social norms”.
He also blamed his past workplace in Goulburn for defaulted invoices over the running of a festival, claiming he “was treated like mud on the bottom of a shoe” by management and robbed of “several thousands of dollars from my final payment of wages” when he left.
Mr Broadbelt also said the support group and his bad reputation were the result of a former associate who “was like a mini version of Ivan Milat — just not a serial killer, he was a reputation killer” and who had threatened to “make (his) life a misery” and ruining every business Mr Broadbelt tried to start.
“The sheriff was knocking at the door on a weekly occasion for around a good three to four months requesting payments for outstanding invoices and trying to serve legal orders,” Mr Broadbelt said.
“At the time my mother was suffering from severe epilepsy, cancer, depression, anxiety and an auto immune disease.
“My only option was to declare bankrupt (sic) so I did this in October 2014. My debts totalled around $250k. I only admit to running up around $100k of this as there is a default on my credit file for a home loan which I never applied for so this has a big impact on the amount.”
Mr Broadbelt also claimed in the press release to be “the most talked about media personality in 2014/2015” and said that at “Timboon I was ran out of town”.
mneal@fairfaxmedia.com.au