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Hi All,
hope we are all well,
I would like to ask a couple of questions.
1: I had my son for the last week of the school holidays as agreed with his mother, but we had a disagreement and she demaneded that i took him home early, which i refused to do as we had already agreed he was staying with me and i had paid for and booked in trips out, she has now threatended with phoning the police on me for not returning him as she had demanded.
2: she is now threatening that if she basically ignored again etc, she will only let me see my son througha contact centre 1 afternoon a week can she do this??? my Son is now 14 years old?
3: at the moment he really does not want to go back home and would prefer to live with me, What age would the courts etc listen to a kid if he told them that he wanted to live with me, rather than his moms. I have got to admit tho i really can't fault her with how she feeds/clothes and basically does everything for him, but he gets on better with me and my wife. When he gets to 16 can he automatically come and live with m, or with him hopefully still in 6th form/College could she stop that?
From what my solicitor told me, if the child is able to confidently tell a court what they would like the child care arrangements to be then they will take this into consideration when assessing those arrangements. My son at 13 had to buck up the courage to tell his mum that he wanted to live with us both for half the time and she was forced to accept his wishes. Now he is 15 he has told her that because she has moved too far away that he wants to live the majority of the school time with me. Far better if the two adults can sort this out without the emotional stress for the child. Hope that helps.
Completely agree with the above post.
Were you married when your son was born? I ask because if you were you have Parental Responsibility (PR) which would help in this situation. If you weren't married then unless you have applied for PR you have no rights and if she telephoned the police they would remove him and return him back. With PR the police may call on you if she telephones but your sons wishes would be taken into account and the police would not get involved.
However if the mother has a Residence Order, the police might remove him....Residence Orders are civil and there is a grey area here, some police forces get involved, some don't.
My advice would be to telephone the police and explain the situation, tell them your sons wishes and ask them if they would intervene in the event that the mother contacted them. If they confirm they would not get involved then there's nothing to stop you from keeping your son with you. However I would advise that you communicate this to the mother.
If the mother doesn't have a residence order and you have PR, because of his age his wishes would carry a lot of weight in court. She could only enforce a threat of denying access with a court order which specifies contact in a contact centre.
At 14 your son if of an age where he should be able to tell his mother what his wishes are. If she doesn't accept that then she can apply to the court for a decision on residence, but she is highly unlikely to succeed because your son wants to live with you.
At 16 he can most definitely choose where and with whom he wants to live.
thank you martin and Mojo
I have never been married to his mother, But... when he was a baby i went to court and got PR. it cost me roughly 6k altogether as she kept saving no and making excuses etc, i also got a court agreement about when my son came to my house, but that has not been used for years now as she stopped him coming for over 18 months.
Every week now i have a fight on my hands to get him into the car to take him home, i think it is one of those things that he will always clash with his mom, even tho she does everything for him.
...My feeling is that considering his age and the fact that you have PR you do have the right to keep him with you. My previous advice stands with regard to telephoning the police and running it by them. You could ask them to call and speak to your son to avoid any misunderstandings. It would be best to keep the mother in the loop too. Your son will have to be brave and tell her what he wants.
As there appears to be a contact order in place this will apply until he is 16 usually. She may choose to go for an enforcement of the order, in which case you would be asked to attend court, this is a civil matter. Your son as Martin pointed out would be given the chance to have his say and he would be listened to.
If you intend to keep your son with you then after clearing it with the police, my advice would be to be preemptive and apply to the court for a Residence Order. You can either go for legal representation or you can self represent. If you decide to self represent we can explain the process and give you plenty of advice and support. There are some stickys at the trop of the Legal Eagle section, two about self representing and one about the C100 form which is the form that you would need to submit to court to apply for residency.
There is the option of mediation, some of them do offer child inclusive sessions and you could ask for this when/if you contact them. Heres a link www.nfm.org.uk ...As legal aid is still available for mediation heres a link to check if you may be eligible www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid
Yep, I'll second the advice above.
Another hypothetical consideration, is what exactly would happen if your son repeatedly ran away from his mother's house and came to your house.
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