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Hi Everyone!
I had a lot of great advice hear at the start of the year when my contact was stopped with my son. Since then I have been to court an now have a court order for regular contact reinstated. 50/50 holidays, weekends, plus Thursday evenings. I did everything without a solicitor up until the last week before court, where I then paid for a solicitor to come with me as I was a bit unsure of how I would handle to the court situation considering the lack of sleep and severe stress!
Anyway, there have now been more complications, there's a few things I have concerns over, so I'll try to format this as easy as possible for you to respond to each point.
Concern 1) Contact has been stopped again. The reason given for stopping contact is that his mother now wants phone contact with our son every night that he is with me (this hasn't been the case for the last 2 years). I did agree to allow this until I had legal advice as she now wants this added to the court order through her solicitor (my solicitor has been on holidays for 2 weeks so I'm waiting for her to get back). So basically after being told to pick him up, i drove an hour waited outside her house for 45 minutes, for her to finally answer the phone and tell me very briefly, your not having him unless you go to my solicitors and sign for the new terms.
Concern 2) My view is that I think this is new phone contact request is unreasonable and not in our sons best interests. It would become law and if I didn't do it for whatever reason, I would be breaching a court order. Our son is only 4, and sometimes this won't be in his interest, if he's over tired, doesn't want to talk, or maybe even he's just playing up and it might make him worse, there many reasons. The main reason though is that it could just be the case that he's enjoying his time with me, so why make him ring his mother every day if he's happy and enjoying his time with me? What if he then misses her? If he ever asks to talk to her, I obviously always allow this, but this isn't about him wanting to talk to her every day, its the other way around. I sometimes only have him for one evening, can't we at least be allowed this for just the 2 of us to have quality time together and not have to involve his mother?
3) Also the last 3 months I feel like I'm getting a lot of harassment from his mother, she turns up at school when I'm picking him up/ dropping him up (despite it being agreed to use school for handover to remove our contact with each other) she rings repeatedly if I don't respond straight away about anything (15 calls in 20 minutes when I'm in work). This is despite the court order stating all contact relating to Jack should be done by text. She also threatens to ring my work if I turn my phone off. There's been many situations where I think she's being unreasonable with her calls and texts. A month ago our son was fast asleep on our way home from the beach and I was getting repeated calls and text, name calling ect, all because she decided she wanted to talk to him, but I didn't get him to ring her straight away as he was asleep!
4) Lastly, when I didn't agree to her latest demand, she got our son to ring me saying he doesn't want to come to mine, you could hear her bf telling him to say stuff, it was awful. My son clearly was just saying what he's being told, then at some point thought it was a game and was just shouting no, as he was being told to. I know our relationship is strong though and this won't be a problem if I see him, I just hate that they have put him in the middle. He shouldn't even know these conversations between me and his mother happen, never mind be made to chose between us. I had to hang up as the conversation then got heated and I realized my son could hear it all. It must of been on loud speaker.
My questions:-
Concern 1) what is the process to enforce the court order, and how long is it likely to take to see my son again? (I've read its form C79, £215, then waiting for a court appearance). Also can I reclaim the costs from our sons mother if the court determines that she has broken the law and I therefore shouldn't be financially out of pocket? The answer to this may determine whether I use a solicitor.
Concern 2) what is your view on her latest demand, is it reasonable for her to request this in court, or am I correct in thinking I should be allowed to have our time together and let him ring his mother when he asks to. The most I have our son is 8 nights during summer and xmas, otherwise its a Thursday evening or Fri-Monday. This request would even apply when I have him from school just for one night. The last full week I had him he rang her every 3 days, and went back a day early. I think this was reasonable? (there is nothing currently in the court order about phone contact incase your wondering)
Concern 3) What can I do about the harassment? its in the order for handover at school to avoid contact, and to only use text if we need to contact each other. I don't want this behavior to continue but I'm not sure how to stop it?
Concern 4) What should I do about them putting our son in the middle of it all. I've pleaded for them to not let him hear any of this but should I report it anywhere? long term I think it could cause him issue. Its confusing and a clear attempt to spoil his relationship with me because they cant do it any other way.
Any advise please! :/
Hi again
In my opinion she is being hostile to contact and trying to frustrate it.
1) Yes it's a C79 for enforcement of the order and a hearing is usually listed within 4 weeks, you're unlikely to get costs, sadly its just the way it is. You might if she made you lose money spent on a holiday for example but even that is a long shot.
2) I think her requests are unreasonable and it's likely a judge would see it that way too. One call per weekend should be adequate in my opinion. This seems like it's her own anxieties she needs to sort out or is just being difficult for the sake of it to control the situation.
3) It might light a touch paper but you could ask her to stop and that if she doesn't, you will report her to the police for harassment. Personally, I would (if you can) wait til court and deal with it there.
4) I think you could speak to his school once term starts up again and ask if he's been okay and if they can put any support in place for him?
Good luck and keep posting, we will do what we can to help you.
Thank you for the advice. Regarding the enforcement order, how is this enforced? I find it hard to believe his mother will get community service, a fine or a jail term (she's pregnant again and on social). I'm not saying I would want any of those things to happen, but what is the reality of how they can enforce it an order and stop it happening again?
The way I see it happening, she will get told off and asked not to do it again or ''else''..... Then our contact will be stopped again, ill be paying out more money that I don't have, and I'll be waiting another 5-6 weeks to be able to see my son again, which is [censored]. How many times can it keep happening? Does anyone have experience of what happens if there are repeated breaches of a court order?
I'm afraid that repeated breaches are difficult to contend with, utlimately if she continues to breach, your option could be to apply for residence - it would depend on how enlightened the judge is.
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