What would you do?

Hi all, how do you deal with your child not getting along with your friends child? My best friend has a little boy who is the same age as my daughter, they are 3. They used to be fine together but he went through a stage of hitting her, pulling hair, poking her face etc all unprovoked and randomly. Understandably my daughter now doesn’t want to see him. I have avoided situations for a few months where the kids would be together and just caught up with the mum alone however she’s now asking to do a play date, due to their age it’s hard to be right next to them at all times to prevent these things from happening as they’ll run off playing etc. Whenever I ask my daughter she says no as he’ll poke her face. I have spoken to the mum and she said he’s stopped hitting etc but he still pokes kids faces, she thinks he feels like he needs to touch them before playing. I want to teach my daughter consent and I know they are only little but she has expressed it makes her sad when he’s touched her face in the past. I obviously want to respect my child’s decision but I’m just not sure how to navigate things with the mum.