A 12-year-old girl was so anxious and frightened about having to visit her father that she broke out in hives and wet her bed.

The man, with a history of family violence and criminal offending, wanted to continue the supervised visits to prove to his daughter that he had turned his life around and could be a “new drug-free father”.

But a psychologist’s report said the girl, identified only by the pseudonym Edie in a Family Court decision, felt “scared, intimidated, helpless, coercively controlled and terrified” by her father.

Edie also feared that he would take her away and not return her, or cause harm to her or her mother.

The decision said Edie’s fears were “a direct result of her experiences with her father and what she reports she has seen, and what he has said to her”.

The father, however, told the Family Court that a follicle test had proven he had been drug-free for 12 months and he was now a “different man”.

Despite this, Edie made a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation to the Family Court judge explaining why she didn’t want to see him.

It took her two to three months to prepare.

“The PowerPoint presentation is like nothing I have seen before,” Judge Lex de Jong said.

“It is quite extraordinary ... The overriding message is that [Edie] does not want a relationship of any kind with her father.”

Judge de Jong has now granted her wish, awarding Edie’s mother her day-to-day care and banning direct and indirect contact by the father.

The father is not allowed to go to Edie’s school and if he encounters her accidentally, he must leave immediately.

All communication between the parents is to be through a court-approved special messaging app called OurFamilyWizard.

Contact was allowed every three months

The anonymised Family Court decision said Edie had been the subject of proceedings in that court since she was a year old.

A parenting order in 2024, the third issued in the case, allowed the father to have supervised contact with Edie every three months.

This was suspended, however, because of Edie’s “very concerning reaction” to seeing her father even in a supervised situation.

She said she felt “scared and just sick” to be around him and felt angry at her mother for encouraging the contact.

She broke out in hives on the way to a meeting, and wet her bed and had nightmares before she was about to see him.

The psychologist’s report said there had been family violence in the past, and the father had a 19-year criminal history, which included convictions for violence, drugs, dishonesty and driving offences.

The psychologist said the father did not show high levels of understanding, remorse or insight about his impact on his victims, and his offending showed “impulsivity, obsessional thinking and stalking, and risk-taking behaviour”.

He had been sentenced to prison four times and to home detention three times.

His last conviction was in 2024, for a family violence assault for which he received home detention.

Judge meets with Edie

Judge de Jong said he met Edie, a high-achieving and sporty student, with her court-appointed lawyer before the latest hearing in her case.

“[Edie] presented as an intelligent, independent, forthright and determined young woman,” he said.

When the judge asked if there was anything she wanted to tell him, she gave him a PowerPoint presentation with the title “How to STOP my dad from being my dad”.

In a section on why the judge should listen to her, Edie said she was a very smart person who wanted to live her life like a normal child.

When questioned, Edie said she was open to the idea of her father sending lessons or cards to be held for her in the future, but was not interested in opening them.

“She could not foresee a time when she might be interested in reading what her father had to say,” Judge de Jong said.

Although he banned the father from contacting Edie, the judge ordered her mother to keep him informed about his daughter’s progress, awards, achievements and any health issues through the messaging app.

The judge also wrote a letter to Edie in which he explained to the girl that her father had been doing a lot of things to turn his life around and had stopped taking drugs.

“Your father understands how important it is to respect your views,” the judge wrote to Edie.

“Your father wants you to know he loves you. He is very proud of you and wishes you the best with everything you do.

“Your PowerPoint presentation made a very big impression on him and gives him a lot of things to work on.”

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.