[Solved] Contact arrangement order

hi,

your ex will bring up all kinds of allegations against you including DV. Your first cafcass call will be basic. DV issues will be raised. you should just state that police released you, no further action. cafcass will check your police records.

at some stage a section 7 report will be done by cafcass. thats when they call you in for an interview. and they will ask more questions surrounding your past relationship, abuse allegations, what kind of child contact you want etc.

before your arrest, did you get into trouble with the law? any convictions?

Hi thanks for replying

No fortunately not ran in to problems with law before. This was my first time.

So to clarify, when Cafcass call for first time, is it sufficient to tell them I was arrested by police but released without charge and that's it? I'm worried they may make me say something which will go against me and perhaps reopen police case? Is that possible? Would they tell me to explain the pictures she has of her "injuries"

I'm not sure if I want to hire a lawyer, from what I've heard they charge extortionate amounts and sometimes self representing goes in your favour too.

hi,

during my case, solicitor suggested that honesty is the best policy. in my dealings with cafcass, i admitted to stuff that i did do. fortunately they had nothing to do with injuries/beatings. just stuff about furniture getting beat up a few years back. and in my s7 report, cafcass officer praised me for being an honest person.

in your initial cafcass call, just say ex accussed you of DV and you were arrested, then police released you without charge. cafcass will go away and check your police records.

Thank you.

What kind of questions were you asked?

my experience with caffcass was basically positive. I was aprehensive as on their initial phone call the ex had givn them an absloute shopping list of complaints which I was asked about. Many of these were historic (had been dealt with previously). My photo diary of activities showing my two having fun helped me (my confidence) though the caffcass officer did not spend a huge amount of time looking at it. I think the officer when she came to interview me had also seen the ex that same afternoon and very little of the allegations in the initial phone call were actually asked about. It is possible my ex had damaged her own credibility by the allegations or in the afternoon visit.

When i read ther caffcass report it was good enough to get me the contact arrangements I was asking for (every other weekend and a couple of weekday evenings). My best friend described it as biased in that it was basicaly hostile to me but without the available facts to find against me. It was certainly more hostile than her visit indicated was likely.

hi,

yes i would also like to add that my cafcass experience was very positive. the officer was very down to earth and reasonable. at my last hearing, it seemed like my barrister just wanted to be reasonable and open-minded. he wanted to add issues with travel abroad and passports, into the recitals section, which i thought was a stupid idea, as i know my ex and he does not.

at that point the cafcass woman intervened and said the passports and travel really needs to go in the ORDER section, to reduce chances of me returning to court next year. ex side were also proposing silly times for me to drop kids back on sunday, like 4pm. cafcass clearly recommended evening drop off. so again she intervened and said it should be 5pm at least. after cafcass case was closed. she was still emailing me advice when i contacted her about some concerns.

I'm getting anxious here, submitted my form 2 weeks ago and made a payment exactly a week ago over the phone. I have still not received any dates from court and I've read it takes approximately 14 days from time of submitting application.

I called the court today and the lady told me it was with a legal advisor and she couldn't give me a timeframe of when I should hear from them. I now think the legal advisors contacted the police and social services as I was arrested (but released without charge after her allegations of domestic violence) and it was police who made referral to social services.

Any idea how long this could possibly take?

I responded to your other post.

Unfortunately, the timeframe is a guide, you're pretty much at the mercy of the court process and it will depend on how busy they are.

all I would suggest is if you've heard nothing in a week contact them again.

hi,

you need to relax. this is only the beginning and your stressing about receiving letters/confirmation from court. try be patient.

I agree with you. Just that my ex and her family have been extremely malicious and been playing games with me so far. I tried various means of trying to arrange contact but all failed before going down court route. I don't wish to allow them to play anymore games or ignore the letters. Hence I'm impatient about whether the letters have been sent to her not. I've since found out after submitting the application that ex no longer resides at her dad's place so that's another worry! As that's the address I used in the c100

hi,

your over-thinking. i gave you my example earlier. ex ran off with kids to some address. would not reveal to me. she always would spend weekends at her mums. so i put down her mums address on court paper. and thats that. when the paper arrives at her dads, they can either pass it onto your ex, be dumb and ignore, or they could give court her current address.

you now need to focus on the actual court hearings - the contents of positions statements, the crazy allegations, what kind of contact your seeking etc