I don’t believe that you have seen the account documents, and therefore you don’t know that the money is in fact the father’s to do with as he pleases.
When a 529 beneficiary is not the account owner, the money in the account is certainly not the beneficiary’s money being “held” by another person. And in the sense that the money in the 529 account is “designated” for a particular beneficiary’s use, that is only a temporary condition that can be changed in an instant with the stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse.