A man whose two daughters were abducted from a Queensland school and held for four years by their mother says his family has been affected "to this day" by the ordeal.
The children's mother, who cannot be identified, was jailed for at least 10 months in Brisbane District Court on Friday after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to defeat justice.
Speaking after the sentencing, the children's father said the court had determined that the woman's actions were serious and wrong.
"I've had to recount things and relive things that I've tried to forget, about how hard it really was not knowing where the girls were," the man said.
The court heard the woman believed that her children had been sexually abused by their father and that the police had failed to investigate properly.
The woman used fake names and changed the two primary-school girls' appearances to prevent discovery but an undercover Australian Federal Police officer infiltrated a group of people who were assisting her to stay on the run.
The girls were found outside of Queensland after police arrested the woman when she visited a rural town for a medical appointment.
The woman's barrister, Laura Reece, said her client had abducted the girls after being "radicalised" by people who claimed to fight against paedophiles and presented themselves as authority figures on family law and abuse investigations.
"This was offending born of a very specific set of circumstances and protracted court proceedings that catapulted her from a normal life," she said.
Ms Reece said the woman had been suffering from a major depressive disorder at the time but now had unsupervised contact with her daughters.
Crown prosecutor Mark Dean KC said the girls were in the custody of their father for years before the woman abducted them and took them to multiple remote locations across Australia.
Mr Dean said the woman was an educated professional who had been told by police, child protection services, and the courts that there was no evidence the girls had been abused.
"In the face of all that, she abducted her children for four years," he said.
Mr Dean said it was important to hand the woman a sentence that would deter others from taking the law into their own hands and endangering children.
Judge Paul Smith said he accepted the woman had an honest but unreasonable belief that her daughters were being abused.
"There has been a significant emotional loss to the father," he said.
Judge Smith told the woman the courts could not allow people to decide which laws they would obey.
"No doubt, whatever I do today will have an impact on the children, though this matter was largely started by you," he said.
The woman was sentenced to three years imprisonment with an order she be released on a $500 good behaviour bond after serving 10 months.
Speaking outside court, the girls' father said he had a private opinion on the length of the sentence but accepted the judge had made an impartial decision.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
Lifeline 13 11 14
beyondblue 1300 22 4636
