Escape ... the mother who left Italy with her daughters. Credit:Harrison Saragossi ''I'm here risking everything I've got for these girls,'' he said through an interpreter. ''I hope my children get that message - even if they don't understand that now, they'll understand it when they're older. I'm here because I love them and I want them in my life.'' The father said he still had faith in the Australian legal system but felt ''abandoned'' by the federal government for not doing more to support him against his ex-wife's ''defamatory'' allegations that he was an abusive father who would take the children back to Italy and not let them see their mother. ''I believe if an Australian had gone to Italy something completely different would have happened.''

He said Australia would have treated him ''very differently'' if he was the mother rather than the father at the centre of the custody dispute. ''You tend to favour the mother over the father in this country. In Italy people have consideration for both parents, the mum and the dad.'' The Italian said he was ''very, very angry'' a Brisbane Family Court judge, Peter Murphy, ruled that his children go back to their mother's care without any supervision while they await the High Court decision. Justice Murphy said he granted the mother interim custody with ''great reluctance'' but had been firmly persuaded that it was better for the children to be returned to their mother, rather than the four sisters remaining in foster care. The girls were placed in foster care in May after their mother's family took them into hiding in defiance of a court order that they return to Italy for a custody hearing. At the time, the children's Australian grandmother said of their mother: ''She loves those children and will do anything to protect them.''

Although the father is pleased the Family Court has granted him visitation rights, he is concerned his former wife will try to hide the children from him again. ''Given the precedent of the last two years, I am seriously worried about what could occur to my children,'' he said. ''The whole family of [my ex-wife] collaborated to hide the children … The mother has always played dirty, that's why I'm worried.'' Lawyers for the mother said she could not comment as she was legally prevented from doing so. In Australia without any family or friends to support him, the father said the drawn-out custody battle had taken a big emotional and financial toll, but emphasised his daughters were the ones suffering most. ''I get my strength from believing in my daughters' love.''

In court on Friday, the mother's lawyer read from a letter written by one of the girls in which she spoke of wishing for a ''miracle from God''. ''If you ask me there is nothing in the whole world I want more than just to be home with my mum and back at school with my friends again,'' the teenager wrote. The father said he was embittered by the ''distorted depiction'' of him by his ex-wife in the media and the courts. Despite the family breakdown, he still believes the custody battle can be resolved so the children can have both their mother and father in their lives. Loading

''I will obviously fall in with whatever my daughters' wishes are, but I can't believe the idea that they want to stay in Australia is their wish and not somebody else's,'' he said. ''I want the children to be able to enjoy both families, the Italian and the Australian. I want them to understand there is a father in their life … It is unacceptable for my daughters to be over here and have no relationship whatsoever with Italy or with me.''