A father who held an “entrenched and unjustifiable belief” that his two young daughters were being sexually abused in their mother’s home has been ordered to have no contact with the children.
In a judgment issued in the Family Court, Judge Stephen Coyle dismissed the father’s application to terminate a protection order against him and refused his bid for day-to-day care of his two daughters, aged eight and nine.
Instead, the judge ordered that the girls remain in the primary care of their mother, and took the rare step of ordering that the father have no contact with them at all.
The court also invoked litigant abuse legislation to prevent the father from starting any further court proceedings against the mother under the Care of Children Act or Family Violence Act for three years without express leave from a judge.
The high-conflict legal battle stemmed from the couple’s separation and a harrowing car ride in which the father drove at speeds up to 120kph, swearing at the mother as she begged him to slow down for the safety of her and her four children.
“You know what I’m f...en capable of, I’ll go for your dad’s f...en throat,” the father said during the ride, which was caught on camera, the decision noted.
Relations completely disintegrated two years later when the father alleged that his daughters were being sexually abused by the mother’s two older children from a previous relationship.
Investigations by Oranga Tamariki, supported by independent specialist child...
A father who held an “entrenched and unjustifiable belief” that his two young daughters were being sexually abused in their mother’s home has been ordered to have no contact with the children. In ...