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 valuable mining tenements away from Hancock Prospecting at the time, lawyers claimed.