Dear Dad: Please leave us alone

FOUR Sunshine Coast sisters in hiding with their 70-year-old great-grandmother to avoid flying to Italy with an abusive and mentally unstable father have written emotional letters begging their dad to leave them alone.

But the father, his lawyers, the Family Court, and the state Department of Communities and Child Safety show no signs of backing down and are using police to hunt the girls.

The youngest girl, a dual Australian-Italian citizen, told her father she felt "much safer'' in Australia than Italy.

"I need my mummy,'' she said. "I don't want to leave my friends too. You never listen to us.''

The sisters told The Courier-Mail last week that their father beat them and their mother, and often was absent from the home during his work as a computer programmer.

The eldest sister, who claimed her father broke her finger during one beating, wrote that he was ruining her life.

"Do you really think taking us away from our mother is going to make our lives better?'' she said.

"You are the only one who can stop this from happening so please stop is now and let us live here with our mum.''

"I do not feel safe with you.''

The man's Australian wife fled Italy with the children in 2010 with the assistance of Commonwealth officials.