[Solved] Back in court again - further developments

Hi there

This just gets worse!

It seems to me that finally the judge has the measure of your ex, probably because of this situation with her partner... hence the second order suspending contact.

I can understand that you are wary of your ex's ability to pull the wool over their eyes, as she's done this in the past. As far as not bad mouthing her to CAFCASS, just tell the truth, she's doing a very good job of showing her true colours by her actions. I don't see how it can look bad for you at this point.

As far as your wife getting PR, I don't see why she shouldn't, just concentrate on presenting the facts and being child focussed, remember it's your job to protect your child from risks and harm.

Your ex is an alcoholic and unstable, it's hardly surprising she gets abusive and confused, she will look to blame others, as this allows her to continue her behaviour and her addiction, insight and taking responsibility for her actions would get in the way of that.

As you've already applied for a NMO at the start of the new proceedings, I would just go with it and see how it pans out.

As far as handovers, the mother hasn't got contact now, so I wouldn't propose anything at the moment...in fact for your child's safety, I would be requesting indirect contact, as your ex's situation looks like it's now spiralling out of control and she may not have hit rock bottom yet...no place for a child to be.

You know you can contact me at ally time privately, I think you just have to hold firm and present the facts, your child needs protecting and as hard as it is, the biggest risk to him is his mother.

Best of luck

It really is quite comforting to read your response. To have someone unbiased to tell us everything we are doing is ok. Thank you.
The safeguarding letter is due to be filed at the end of this week and that is to ensure if there are any risks with son seeing Mum. Then we will have to go from there with regards to contact. You hit the nail on the head about the Mum, I was hoping that over time she would become responsible but she hasn't. It has just got worse.

I'm glad that you took some comfort from my words, we've been on quite a journey and as you said, we haven't reached the end yet.

Unfortunately you are caught up in the tragedy of an alcoholics downward spiral and you must continue to do all you can to protect your child, how hard it is for you all, I just wish I could do more.

All the best

Hi sporadic - if it's any comfort, I went through residency (as it was then, about 10 or 11 years ago) for my kids from an alcoholic ex. The court look as though they have a measure of her now, and now that's established, it's going to make your case that much stronger, and chances are she will dig herself ever deeper holes.

Thank you both for replying. So I have had some further developments this week.
It turns out that the children of the boyfriend are under a child protection order which was news to us. We received the safeguarding letter from CAFCASS today and that was mentioned within it.
It appears to me that the reason the contact was suspended was due to the severity of injuries the mother sustained in this attack. Now I don't know this for sure but the recommendations were that contact was ok on the basis son would not see injuries. I am presuming. Also within the safeguarding letter it used the same police record as before with no addition of a caution for assaulting my wife earlier on in the year.
My other concern is that all of the content with the safeguarding letter seems to be centred around the boyfriend. The mother has deteriorated mentally since he was on the scene and son has witnessed domestic abuse incidents whilst in their care. It mentions none of the more significant stuff. The reasons I removed son from her care were nothing to do with her boyfriend, at all. They were problems that she had created herself. Problems that I was aware of but had no idea of the severity. Very early on after separation from mother I was basically told to [censored] out because I was poking my nose in and genuinely I thought maybe I was being a bit over the top with worry. I gave her the benefit of the doubt in parenting. It was only last year that all of these issues came to light and her taking an overdose in front of my son and telling him I am going to kill myself was the last straw. I get a strong sense that she is going to weedle her way out of this yet again and not only will she have pulled the wool over the SW's eyes and the judges she will now do the same with CAFCASS. She is very well presented and quite articulate and from talking with her you would NEVER assume that she had a single problem, seriously. It is quite scary.
I rung CAFCASS, they advised that they used the police record because it was 'up to date enough' and that she had compiled the safeguarding letter without speaking to either of us because of the time scales in which the judge had directed. She was given information and she has collated info from that and got the above. Its a classic case of 2 + 2 = 5 to me.
So, I am now expecting contact to be reinstated on the basis that there are no more injuries and son will not see any. Why on earth would judge stop contact because of him when it is her that has the problems? She is playing the victim yet again when she has clearly admitted she is not only a victim but a perpetrator of domestic abuse. Milk the system is what I see. She got evicted for non payment of rent and has told CAFCASS that she has been placed in temporary accommodation because of this domestic incident, the [censored] incident occurred after she moved!
I am seriously going out of my mind with this woman.

If you can get those facts in front of a judge, corroborated by officals (police, cafcass etc) then I would say that you should be considering that the order should be that she resides with you and that contact with your ex should be possibly supervised or at the very least supported in a contact centre. I cannot see how it can be safe with your ex having shared care - that would make your ex think she has more rights than she should have.

Hey, ex isn't going for shared anymore. She gave son up 2 weeks after shared care was granted as she 'couldn't cope' which she told the judge. The return to court is to assess wether the original (shared care) order should be varied which obviously it should from shared care and to ascertain if my wife should be a joint carer for my son. All of this involvement from cafcass was judges request after I took it back to court following a further alcoholic relapse from the ex which resulted in leaving my son with a complete stranger while she galivanted around drunk.

This must be utterly frustrating, not to say worrying for you all. The only advice I can give is to keep chipping away at it, hold your position and argue your sons position. If the Cafcass report has left out important information ask them to amend it, if they won't then you have the right to make the court aware of other developments that haven't been included, either by position statement or verbally during the hearings. At the final hearing you should have the opportunity to cross examine the office they wrote the report.