THE former Australian father of the year, Ron Delezio, has rejected as untrue and hurtful claims by his estranged adult daughter that he has air-brushed her from his life.
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Mr Delezio, the father of the eight-year-old burns victim Sophie, also has a 34-year-old daughter, Catherine, a former street kid who has decided to tell the story of her troubled past and her battle for her father's love.
She told the Herald yesterday that she still takes inspiration from Sophie, but in an interview with Grazia magazine she suggested that she and her brother - from Mr Delezio's first, teenage marriage - did not fit into the wholesome family image he now wanted to present.
In a one-line response yesterday, released through the agent Max Markson, Mr Delezio said: "I love my daughter Katherine dearly and I find the article totally untrue and hurtful to me and my family."
Catherine Delezio told the Herald: "I have waited many years to tell my story and I have done so now reluctantly but with total honesty. I regret that my father still cannot acknowledge my troubled years and that I have not had the relationship with him that every daughter deserves."
Ms Delezio has had no contact with her father since he was named father of the year in late 2006. He had been a tireless campaigner and fundraiser since Sophie suffered extensive burns in 2003 when a car crashed into her childcare centre in Sydney.
Catherine Delezio had much contact with Sophie, her father and his young son during those years. Her parents' marriage had been unworkable and they split when she was a baby, and her first memory of meeting her father was when she was nine.
She has revealed she was sexually abused as a child for months, by a man who lived nearby. She later became a ward of the state, a street kid and a mother at 16. And she will soon face drug charges with her partner, a former policeman who was caught in a police operation targeting a Sydney nightclub.
When she walked out on her father in 2006, Ms Delezio wrote to him that "you do not love me as a daughter the way a father should".
She told the Herald she did not expect a reconciliation while her father lived in "denial" but she said: "I will continue to watch my younger brother and sister from a distance and Sophie remains an inspiration to me."
