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HI All
It has been a while since I've been here last. Hope you all are doing well. We have obtained a court order and everything has been running more or less smoothly, with occasional threats to stop contact, but the court order has been working a treat so far. Until now... Basically the court order states that father spends alternate weekends as agreed (no specific dates) and they have a schedule where father has her every other weekend.
Back in April it was agreed that father has the child on 4th and 11th September, the mother now went back on the agreement and denies father access to child on the 11th saying that she is not breaking the order (even though it is agreed in writing that instead of 4th and 18th father has daughter on 4th and 11th. ) Father due to the earlier arrangement booked a holiday and asked mother to have daughter on the 25th instead of 11th. No reply from mother.
Is she breaking the order by not letting him have her for 3 weeks? As the order does not state specific dates and only says alternate weekends, if the alternate weekends have been agreed in writing 4 months ago and now last minute she denies access, is this a breach? Can we apply for enforcement? Also it is worth mentioning that back in June mother needed to change weekends and it was done without any fuss from the father....
Thanks a million!
That's a difficult one, the "as agreed" puts a bit of a spanner in the works in my opinion. As you have it in writing that she agreed to the change, that would go in your favour, but as it stands now you don't have enough time to take it back to court.
You could try giving Coram Childrens Legal Centre a call and see what they say. Sorry I can't be more helpful.
Hi Nannyjane!
Thanks. I must add that they have just been to court, because we arranged a trip for the 11th and she refused to make her available, we emailed the judge directly and he called them in for emergency hearing. Just in case we didnt get the hearing on time we changed our trip and went on the 4th instead. At the emergency hearing on Monday there was not much of a hearing as we already went to a trip and she said in front of the Judge " I already told him he can have her"! As soon as they left the court room she sent him a text saying as you changed your trip arrangements, thanks, you will now not have her on the 11th. I think she can't just keep changing weekends as she pleases! We are tempted to email the judge directly again, hoping that because she said father can have her in front of the judge he might get annoyed? 🙂 Any thoughts?
Hmmm...well done for getting it back to court so swiftly, did the judge know you had changed the holiday to the 4th and knowing that, still require the mother to stick to the agreement? With that in mind, in court did the mother say you could have her on the 11th regardless that you had been on holiday?
we changed our trip on Friday the 3rd and received an email from court the same day that the hearing is on Monday. On Friday she also emailed us saying, fine you can have her. At the hearing they told the judge that we had the trip. And she also stated in front of him I already told him he can have her on 11th.. So basically because they said the trip took place and she said that we can have her it all ended really quickly. The next day she send a text, saying because you changed your trip, you are not having her.... Will we stand a chance if emailing the judge again what do you think?
...I think you could email the judge, with a transcript of her text with date and time, but rather than asking for enforcement (I don't think that's possible anyway) you could ask for a more defined order in light of the mothers constant changing.
You could ask that the alternate weekends be defined within the order, as well as shared school holidays and shared alternate christmas and birthdays.
I would think that the judge might be annoyed that she left court and then changed what was discussed in court, so he might be amenable to making a more defined order.
Good luck
Thank Nannyjane
Sending emails back and forth trying to come to a different arrangement and trying to be flexible and reasonable....
If she denies all suggestions than will definitely email the judge as she is acting plain spiteful. For 4 months since April the arrangement was fine, up until she demanded money for school uniform, considering that my partner pays decent monthly maintenance and his extra offer of £60 on top of maintenance according to her was not enough as she is pregnant for the 3rd!! time and is not working. He refused to be blackmailed and there we go....
Some women........
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