A MAN who drove his three children from Sydney to Canberra following a domestic dispute with their mother is to be extradited to NSW.

Frank Dipalma, 29, will appear in the ACT Magistrates Court this morning after he surrendered to police yesterday and handed over his three children — Angelica, 5, Dimitriy, 3, and Andrei, 22 months — at a motel on the outskirts of Canberra.

He disappeared with the children following an altercation with his wife, Natalia, who was admitted to hospital with an arm injury.

Mr Dipalma has been charged with malicious wounding, but police have not laid any charges in relation to the children, who were last night in the care of police ahead of being reunited with their mother.

For almost 16 hours, Ms Dipalma, 25, feared the worst. After the heated argument with her estranged husband at a park in Lane Cove, on Sydney’s north shore, she watched helplessly as he grabbed the children and fled in his car.

From her hospital bed, Ms Dipalma — who is believed to have separated from her spouse three weeks ago — said to police her husband had told her she would never see her sons and daughter again.

Her fears sparked an extraordinary police hunt for Mr Dipalma, which ended yesterday morning when he phoned a TV network to say the children were safe and in his care.

“It kills me to see on the news that I’m going to hurt the kids, and I’m not like that,” Mr Dipalma said in a call to the Seven Network.

“I just want to spend time with my kids, OK, so if you can just put over the news for me, that I am fine and I have called the police and they are on their way and nothing is going to happen to the kids and I’ll never hurt them. I want something out there just saying thekids are OK and I love them and I’ll never hurt them.”

NSW police flashed the numberplate of his car, a 1993 blue Commodore, on 24 electronic billboards along a number of prominent Sydney roads on Wednesday evening, only the second time such action has been taken.

The children were found in good spirits in the motel about 8am after police were able to make contact with Mr Dipalma on his mobile phone.

Sydney Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin said Mr Dipalma had co- operated with police.

“From initial observations, the children are fine,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to the children … they appear to be in good spirits. I could hear them in the background and they sounded in good spirits.”

Inspector Jubelin said the mother was “ecstatic” and “thankful the children have been recovered unharmed”.

Ms Dipalma and the children were reported to have been living in a women’s refuge since the couple’s separation.

She was discharged yesterday after a night in Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.