Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: Important Information – open to read:
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
This is the very short story. My daughter is going to be 18 in a few weeks time. I lost contact with her 5 years ago, through no fault on my own and have tried to contact her via letter, birthday/Christmas cards and email, but never had a reply. Out of the blue she contacted me last week asking me to pick her up from a residential care home. I spoke to one of her carers who advised me I was unable to contact my daughter as they has been informed by my ex wife that there was a court order in place stopping my contact. This is untrue! I drove to the care home where my daughter was threatening to harm herself if I did not remove her from there. Legally I was allowed to as I have perental responsibility for her, but because the care home had been lead to believe there was a court order, they had to call the police. The police arrived and where satisfied and the care home notified they had been lied too about my contact. It turns out my daughter was sectioned under the metal health act and spent 8 months in hospital, before being transferred to the residential care home in December 2015. She has been unable to live with her mother for the last 2 years due to a safeguarding issue at her home address as it alleged her mothers partner abused my daughter. I had not seen my daughter as I thought she did not want me in her life and my daughter had been told she was not allowed to see me because of this court order my ex wife lied about. The result being I was never contacted by authorities about my daughters health, education and living arrangements. My daughters health is the most important thing to me, but I wanted also raise the question about the CSA payments I have continued to make, even though my daughter has not lived with her mother for the last 2 years, has not been in education since she was 13 and is subject to a section 20 as her mother gave her up to put her in care. Believe it or not that is the short story. Thanks in advance for any advice. I have missed out on a total of 7 years of my daughters life due to the lies her mother has told.
Hi there
What a tragic and distressing situation for you both, my heart goes out to you.
As far as maintenance is concerned, even though your daughter has been out of education since she was 13 you would have been required to pay maintenance until her 16th birthday. It was the mothers responsibility to inform the CSA of the changes to your daughters living arrangements and I think that your payments should have been redirected to the Local Authority, I suggest you speak to them. About the fact that you have been paying maintenance to the mother, unaware of the situation, they may well want to take it further themselves. I would also contact the CSA and talk to them about this.
I do hope your daughter can start to get better in your care and that you can both start to heal the wounds of your separation.
All the best
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.