Dad loses custody battle

A mother has won full custody of her children after their father secretly took them to live in Gloriavale, an isolated West Coast community described as ‘‘psychologically abusive’’ by a judge. Family Court Judge Sarah Lindsay ruled the mother, who lives in Australia, was the best person to care for the four girls aged 15, 12, 7 and 5. The decision says the parents were Kiwis who lived in Australia. After the relationship broke up, the father took the three older girls to New Zealand in 2016, against the mother’s wishes. He later joined the isolated Christian community near Greymouth. Soon after joining Gloriavale the oldest girl asked to be returned to her mother. The father refused but she went to live with her grandmother in New Zealand while awaiting the outcome of the custody case. The mother argued the girls would be isolated from their Ma¯ori culture and wha¯nau if they remained in Gloriavale. ‘‘She also fears they will not have the same opportunity to learn and grow as individual young women and achieve all they possibly can in life. [She] is opposed to her daughters marrying young and at the direction of the church elders,’’ the judge said. The father worried about their souls being at risk if they left Gloriavale. He told the court the mother’s lifestyle was ‘‘morally wrong and a risk to the children’s spiritual wellbeing’’. Both parents made allegations against each other of physical abuse of the girls. The girls were made wards of the court in February 2019. The mother only found out they were at Gloriavale in March 2018. The judge said the wider Gloriavale community was psychologically abusive to the girls by excluding them from school and shunning them.