[Solved] Advice needed for a resident father - Please

Hi Pete,

Have you spoken to the guardian? Is the upcoming hearing the first hearing?

As you had good grounds for suspending contact the judge is very unlikely to act upon it in my view.

It might be advisable to contact the CAFCASS manager and discuss your concerns with them and make them aware of the terms of the Order. You will be able to put your points across during the hearing.

Thanks for your reply Mojo. I had my solicitor send the guardian the papers and notify her of the latest developments.

Its frustrating because the last thing i wanted was to suspend contact. I spent two years fighting a system, thats still archaic in its approach towards men, and im right back in court seemingly where we started.

It is your responsibility to make sure that your child is not at any risk and this you have done. Your solicitor should present your case with this in mind.

It's important that you remember that they don't change the residence of a child lightly, particularly in the fathers favour in my opinion. I think we can all agree that sometimes there is a bias towards the mother being the main carer.

I think as long as you remain clear in that all you wanted was clarification of the mothers state of health and medical care. You were told that she was in hospital and you were rightly concerned. The fact that you had to involve the police because of the grandparents aggressiveness and that they were in a supervisory role as recorded in the comms book you really were given no choice but to ask for a cooling off period. At no time did you want to deny contact and that was reflected in your offer to allow contact in your own home.

If you continue in a calm and reasonable manner and hold your position I would hope that you will get things back on track.

Thanks Mojo. Your voice of reason is exactly what i needed. Its really tough when your in the middle of alot of craziness. Especially when dealing with someone with personality disorders. Sometimes you just have to step outside and take a look at whats going on and when there are very emotive issues in play, it really becomes more difficult.

Hi Pete,

My son has custody of his little boy and is currently going through court again. He too had to suspend contact because of safeguarding issues and the mother applied for enforcement of contact.

The judge wasn't interested in agreeing the enforcement because my son had valid reasons for doing so. At the same time she applied for the enforcement, my son applied for a variance of the contact and this is what's being sorted out at the moment. They have backed my son insofar as overnight contact hasn't been restarted, she was allowed contact at her mothers after the first hearing which was in March, every sunday from 10-6...at the second hearing she has now been allowed unsupervised at her house but she only gets one day from 10-6 every other weekend so she's actually had her contact reduced at the moment. However the judge does want overnight to start again sometime in October. That said, she's up at court on drugs offences at the end of September and might get sent to prison, if this happens my son will again argue for no overnights.

The mother is a continual problem and I don't imagine that this will change, in fact the Social Worker said as much....we just have to get used to the fact that it will take all our patience and determination to continue to protect him...so we have decided that its best to be philosophical about it and try not to allow it to get under our skin!

Thanks Nannyjane. We have tried to involve social services during the legal process and because my child has lived with me since she was three days old they say its a "court matter" or that i mitigate any risk to my child from the mother. The level of contact didnt change throughout the whole court process. The guardian initially set the contact level at 5 days with 1 overnight every two weeks before she had the full information in front of her. I didnt come off too well this time after speaking to cafcass... she wanted to speak to me without me knowing what was in the order and asked questions that were totally out of her remit. When she started pressing me on why i was witholding contact she asked me to slow down. i apologised and said i usually talked faster when i was slightly stressed.. her words were, "well do you think your stress levels are having a detrimental impact on your ability to care for your child?" whats!?
Does you son get support from social services? I totally understand your sons position.

No quite the opposite, as I said its a continual struggle to get the authorities to listen. The section 7 report that was done by the SS for the second hearing at the beginning of August just glossed over the risks, alhough it did acknowledge that my son is doing a good job.....the schedule 2 report done by CAFCASS for the first hearing in March highlighted the safeguarding issues as serious but was ignored by the judge.....they seem to think that what happened in October - December last year is historic and not relevant!

There just no continuity and the result is determined by the whoever it is that does the reports and of course the judge on the day....some are good, some are just ok, but there are some that are unfit for the purpose...it's a [censored] lottery!

Thats exactly the problem i have alot of the time. i mention issues that were discussed 3 months ago and say they are still occurring with my childs behaviour and they say.. its been dealt with already, its historic. I told the cafcass officer its not historic if its still happening. I think part of the problem i have is that resident fathers are somewhat unusual and the courts always look to give a child a high level of contact. In our case the psychologist said that my child would probably have to see a psychologist at some point in the future.
I got so frustrated i wrote to 18 different child psychologists who were "expert witnesses" and most replied they wouldnt be happy to work with me, some even saying they risked alienating female clients!!

....if you look at what's happening in my sons case, it doesn't make sense, from March to August she was getting once a week contact and then at the August hearing we were told that we should be working towards an overnight every fortnight but then they reduced her contact to once a fortnight....expecting the overnight from Saturday morning to Sunday tea time to start in October.

Already though shes messing about with it as she's supposed to pick him up from my sons and then my son has to pick him up from hers at the end of contact....last weekend she called on the morning and said she hadn't arranged transport so could my son drop him off to her as well as picking him up later. We wrote to her solicitor telling them about it and saying that she has a full fortnight to organise transport and that she is breaching the order and must make sure that she sorts it out as it should be her priority not to let him down....

She was supposed to give my son petrol money during the contact from March to August, she still owes him £65 for that, the court didnt even tell her off for not paying him and it was written into the first interim contact order! So you see, the courts are just so lax at enforcing anything they order.

I feel for your son and family. I am much further down the process and there is very little support for resident fathers. I was considering blogging my experiences and starting a site for resident fathers.

I was told by a solicitor i had been the mother and the father had personality disorders and spent 9 months in a psychiatric ward, then i would be limited to once a month at a contact centre or at the very most alternate weekends. The level of contact set for my child by a judge and guardian was totally unworkable in the long run.

Is your son represented in court? How far are you into the process now?

I can really empathise with you....the issues they consider as historic...physical abuse, drugs and neglect are on going in our case and have never stopped being an issue! She's up at Crown Court currently for goodness sake!...for growing and intending to supply cannabis...she used the room which was supposed to be my grandsons bedroom and filled it with plants...yet the judge in court asked her if she takes drugs and was quite happy with her no answer! She was being investigated for hitting her other child in October/November last year, reported by the school....guess what, she said she didn't do it so they believed her, again! Physical violence was one of the issues we highlighted in the custody case back in 2011, but because my grandson was 4 they decided he was too young to be taken notice of! So the kicking to the head and other abuse dint get taken seriously.

It's now become something that we realise will be a consuming part of our lives, at least until he gets older and just might then be listened to!

He was represented during the residency case, but this time he's a self repper... We have our final hearing sometime in November. We're cool with it though, we did what we set out to do and that was suspend overnight contact, he hasn't stayed over with her since October last year, and even though she went for enforcement it wasn't upheld and instead of 3 overnights every fortnight plus a midweek every week she had her time reduced to 1 overnight every fortnight. There are no winners though, we didn't take the decision to stop contact lightly...we take no pleasure in this but our priority is our boy,

I really didnt want to suspend contact. when someone comes out of hospital tells you they have nearly died and that they are taking your daughter out for the day on there own and look a total mess.. i called social services who told me i would be held responsible if anything happened to her in the care of her mum because i let her go. You seem to be damned if you do and damned if you dont. I thought court would have settled down after legal aid finished but she is now represented by her parents solicitor who were the inital instigators of proceedings.

It does consume part of your life. I am now married and have adopted my partners son and with a third child on the way, as soon as they found out about my new child they started saying so many awful things to my daughter... the court just dont recognise what she says because she is only 2 and a half

I hope you asked SS to record your call...it will be helpful for you if the conversation has been recorded and filed because it shows that you were really given no alternative but to suspend contact.

It's an uphill battle but we do it for our children and we will continue regardless of the opposition! I know you feel the same....I've found this Forum to be so cathartic, it has helped me immensely and I have learned so much...I have made it my mission to help as many Dads (and some mums) as I can!

Out of interest and you probably wont know or may not wish to disclose but why was she in intensive care?

You have to be on deaths door to be in one and to be out of hospital the following day doesnt quite add up.

You do not know that she may have been in hospital / intensive care because of a drugs overdose or an attempted suicide. Therefore it is highly appropriate you have taken the correct steps to safeguard the children.

i was communicated that her mother was having intensive care treatment by the grandmother, the person we were looking to supervise in the event that her mental health deteriorated. She claimed she had a collapsed lung and nearly died. Although this could have been histrionics. She was in a private hospital as well. she claims that she had a gall bladder removal and the Cafcass officer took this as the truth without any medical evidence.
My childs mother also wrote in her statement to court that its part of her "care plan not to let him know about any of my medical issues" Care plan?! The fact that she didnt turn up for contact instead sending my childs grandmother and great grandfather, who then forced us to call the police because of there abusive behaviour. The cafcass officer told me what was the problem she was having blood tests.. which is clearly untrue as mother was in hospital. I have since the discussion with cafcass offered mum contact at my home, and then contact at her own home with the undertaking that grandmother would supervise. There was no response from the solicitor on either count. The shared residence application is also on back of a statement where she sayd she always has family around her at home and that she has never had my child overnight at her own place of residence only at the grandmothers...

Hi Petedb

Stand by what you are saying to everyone. SS would be right that you have a duty to protect your child and knowing there are these serious issues you suspended contact to protect your child. Continue in that vein, you will not be dissed for it and the Court will be wanting to know what the medical stuff was in any event.

You have offered supervised contact, that is not unreasonable, and they are not taking you up on it, that's their decision and will be seen as they are not attempting to compromise during the proceedings.

The grandparents have to be made aware that protection of the child is of the utmost importance and that that is what you are doing at the end of the day.

CAFCASS don't have the right to ask for GP reports, but the Court does.

I think I mentioned if you have concerns about the CAFCASS officer you can go above them to their manager and speak about your concerns and raise the points that you feel have been routed wrongly.

Im concerned that a complaint against cafcass could be viewed against me in court.
I dont understand how any opinion i gave to the officer without having view of the court order and when the cafcass officer refused to tell me details of the order is fair or impartial. I wasnt aware of the content within the statement provided as part of the court application just the general nature

I don't quite understand, you are the respondent and the mother has applied for enforcement and shared residence. When you were served with the forms you should have received copies of all of the documents that she sent in as part of her application. If there is a statement that was attached to the served papers surely you should have received a copy of this too?

As far as CAFCASS is concerned, you wouldn't be making a formal complaint, it's completely acceptable for you to,speak to the manager and the hope is then that issues can be resolved without the need to,complain formally.

I have tried to get in contact with the cafcass officer on the advice of my solicitor. Her office manager told me she is busy for most the week and they would leave a message for her, so i emailed the whole department my position statement as they would not give me her email address or phone number.

I am going to try every day to get hold of them now. Frustrating isnt the word!!

It might be worth asking your solicitor whether he can try to contact cafcass - they may find it harder to avoid his calls.