An aggressive and violent father has had contact with his children limited to two hours a week after the court deemed that his presence in his children’s life caused more harm than good.

The court said that contact would be under strictly supervised access.

In a case brought to the notice of the Family Court, it emerged that the six-year old girl and four-year old boy were born out of a relationship between their mother and the man, whose mood swings and bouts of domestic violence had led to the breakup of the couple.

The man’s drug addiction and frequent brushes with the law made him an “irresponsible” parent who subjected the little ones to scenes of violence, often beating his partner, swearing at her and uttering foul words in their presence.

When the woman finally decided to put an end to the misery, in the hope of starting a new life, the man would not accept her decision, obsessed with the hope of patching things up.

The court heard how on the occasion of his daughter’s First Holy Communion, the man had snatched the girl from the Church parvis, striking her mother when the latter turned up outside his home to take back the child.

On account of his actions, the girl had missed the party organised by her maternal grandparents and had even missed the traditional Corpus Christi procession.

There were days when the father would not even allow the mother to see the girl.

The court heard how the woman had filed endless police reports against her partner for threats and stalking episodes.

All this obviously placed the children in an unstable environment and in clear danger, the court observed, when deciding upon an application filed by the mother to obtain a judicial pronouncement in this respect.

Madam Justice Abigail Lofaro observed that this was one of the few exceptional cases when it would be better for the children “to maintain least contact with the father” since his contribution to their upbringing was “not a positive one.”

For this reason, the court awarded care and custody of the minors solely to the mother, granting the father two hours of supervised access a week.

The paternal grandmother, who evidently had a good relationship with the children, was also granted a 2-hour weekly access.

The man was also ordered to pay a maintenance allowance to the mother of his children, something which he had failed to do for the past two years.