‘Leave me alone’: Lang Hancock’s 1989 plea to daughter Gina Rinehart

afr.com:

Pilbara legend Lang Hancock pleaded with his daughter, Gina Rinehart, to stop a barrage of criticism over his business and romantic dealings, asking her to “leave me alone to live the rest of my life in peace” as their relationship broke down in the late 1980s, a court has heard.

A series of 30-year-old documents aired in the West Australian Supreme Court also cast doubt over Mrs Rinehart’s claims she knew nothing about her father’s work to transfer the ownership of valuablemining tenements away from Hancock Prospecting at the time, lawyers claimed.

Gina Rinehart was concerned about what Lang Hancock was doing with the company’s assets, and the role Rose Porteous played. 

New evidence detailing correspondence between Mrs Rinehart and her father were used on Tuesday by the lawyer representing two of her children, Christopher Withers, SC, who said she was aware her father had transferred the ownership of Hope Downs tenements into a separate company.

Mr Withers told the court the new evidence contradicted claims by Hancock Prospecting lawyers, who last week suggested Mrs Rinehart was kept in the dark by her father as he allegedly breached his fiduciary duties and moved the tenements out of the company and into another in a bid to ultimately create a tax-free income stream for himself.

The land moved by Lang Hancock into a separate company is now covered by the Hope Downs mining project, which is at the centre of the months-long trial. Descendants of Hancock’s business partner, Peter Wright, are seeking royalties from the mine, and have joined John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart to the trial as co-defendants.

According to Mr Withers, the documents also showed Mrs Rinehart once accused her father of running Hancock Prospecting