[Solved] Contact arrangement order

Thanks.

My child is 11 months so am I right in to believing I won't get overnight stay anyway so no point me even thinking about that. Especially when he's not being bottle fed either.

What's reasonable? I was thinking every weekend for few hours. Although I don't know how I'll manage that since he doesn't recognise me and cries upon seeing me due to the period of not allowing me contact. She doesn't want to see or talk to me either.

Allegations she'll throw is DV. She called police and had me arrested but there was no charge. I understand cafcas will ask me about allegations. How do I approach the allegations? To deny or say it was one off incident?

What is a position statement?

hi,

during my court days, cafcass asked me if i want overnight stays with the baby, who was about 5 months old at the time. something about her face gave me the impression that she wanted to know if i'm crazy or not 🙂

i told her overnights are out of the question as babys still breast-feeding and shes too attached to mum. i said i can wait till babies 1, then she can visit my place and stay for few hours and go back to mum. when shes 2, can look at overnight stays. at 1st hearing, court ordered that i should sit in ex's family address for 30 minutes every saturday to see baby, just before picking up other 2 kids. no wonder at the 2nd hearing my ex had different barrister hahaha.

so the house visits lasted about 5 weeks or so. that changed to me taking the baby out to nearby coffee shop or park, for an hour, every 2 weeks. not much but still a good start. and plan is to see her at my home for few hours when shes a year old.

regarding allegations, i say honesty is the best policy, which my solicitor advised. i admitted to past incidents (real ones). and because they happened 4-5 years back, cafcass didn't seem bothered as no one got beat up. she praised me for being honest & gave me green light to see kids.

check this for position statements: https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/writing-a-position-statement/

its basically a paper which states why your in court and what you want court to decide. take one to every hearing.

So I got the letter from court today. The first hearing isn't till November! I wasn't expecting the hearing to be so far. I thought it's usually around 6 to 8 weeks from when you submit the form! Can I ring them up and ask if it can be sooner?

hi,

you could ring them every few days and see if theres any earlier dates. sometimes other cases are re-scheduled. for me my court app was sent off in december. first court hearing was 31st jan. was not much of big deal for me as ex was letting me see kids every saturday at the time.

As Bill suggests, give them a call and ask if they have a cancellations list.

With funding cuts, and more unrepresented people applying to court, the backlog is growing at some of the more busy courts...apart from checking in with them, there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Use your time to prepare a brief two page position statement to take with you to the hearing, it helps the court to have a little more info about the background and what you would like them to do.

All the best

Guys I've just got back from families need fathers (FNF) meeting. Due to time constraints, I couldn't talk in detail to the man and couldn't ask back many questions due to other people waiting to have their turn. So not quite convinced he had the full picture before advising me. I may be wrong!

Anyway, the man at FNF was telling me to fill out a C1A form and submit it to the court to supplement the C100 I sent last month. He states I should list ex's behaviours of hitting me and also jumping out the car when I was driving because she got annoyed (albeit wasn't moving very much I must admit).

I'm in 2 minds about this. Whether I should just wait till the cafcass phone interview and mention in there or actually send this additional form. I understand it will go to ex and she will see it and have chance to respond.

Knowing my ex who is a narcissist i can see it backfire and turn it in to [censored] for tat and make allegations against me. On the other hand, I also fully expect my ex (who I've now realised doesn't care about boundaries) will most likely already make allegations of DV.

What do you think guys, submit this C1A form or just mention the incidences in my cafcass interview but coat it with "I'm concerned about my child's welfare because ex has hit me in his presence and tried to leave a moving car, I'm concerned about my child when my ex loses her temper". If i submit C1A the family will reject the letter and return to sender as they won't open any letters marked from court address now following a c100 which they received and already opened but refusing to acknowledge with c7. I'll be setting myself up to fail if I send c1a now and they return to sender, at courts they'll argue they didn't get and will say look "we returned c1a so that's proof we didn't receive c100 either. My ex are extremely manipulative and those who don't know them fall for their lies

Your thoughts please...

If your son was a witness to any of the events then submit the C1A and have it on record. Don't play down things like the speed you were going at. Yes she may turn around and accuse you of DV but as long as you stay away from having any direct contact with her and her family it will be historic. Judges are use to both sides throwing allegations at each other.

CAFCASS are known to make things up that neither party said even when parties are in agreement about certain things, so I wouldn't rely on them.

In regards to serving her - talk to the court clerk about the best way to serve her if her family does that for court letters. Though you could put the letters in different envelopes/parcels with different people writing the address each time and sending them special delivery so you know they have been delivered.

Btw unless someone has a formal medical diagnosis of being a narcissist or any personality disorders/traits make sure you don't use that term in court, with CAFCASS etc. Just state her actual actions and on the rare occasion you have to describe her behaviour regarding contact or your relationship lumped together use terms like unpleasant, problematic, troublesome etc. (Get a thesaurus and dictionary out then check any words you want to use could not be interpreted as rude/derogatory/sexist)

I used Unreasonable, Irrational and hostile when referring to my ex's ways to CAFCASS and Courts for her refusing to extend contact.

CAFCASS and court both said that she was being unreasonable, irrational and guilty of implacable hostility towards contact in several reports and hearing judgements!

Just an update guys.

I had my cafcass interview yesterday. It was totally different to what I was expecting. It was only 12 mins long.

Lady said she tried contacting my ex and couldn't get through so will try contacting her after my phone interview. My interview then proceeded and she asked only general and safeguarding questions about my son.

1. His ethnicity, religion, language. My ethnicity, my religion and my language

2. Asked if I have any safeguarding concerns and I said no

3. Asked if domestic abuse been feature of our relationship and I said no. Then she said well police checks show you were arrested but released and social services were involved. I explained I was arrested but denied the allegations. She then said ok if it's one off then it'll be seem as isolated incident but if we talk to your ex and she says there more than one occasion then it'll be looked in to.

4. She then asked if there was any substance abuse. I said no

5. She then asked when the last time I saw my child and I gave date and gave reason why ex not letting me see him now (because I have decided to end relationship with her)

6. She then asked if I had anything to say. I asked is that it? And she said yeah the interview is only for safeguarding concerns. Anyways i just added: childs mum is amazing mum but we just don't get on. I added I want our son to have positive relationship with both his parents and extended family and that I want to achieve a workable relationship with other parent for sake of my child. I added I want my son to be raised in a loving environment.

I don't know what to make of it. It was very short. I was expecting it to be about 40 mins and expected her to ask what I would like and how I am with my son. But she didn't.

She was going to call ex. I'm hoping that because she called me first it's good as she didn't have any questions regarding any allegations that ex could potentially have made if she was contacted before me?

Your thoughts?

hi,

yes that cafcass telephone call is very basic. with dads its a 10-20 min call. with the ex its 2 hours :p :silly:

this is only the start. they will probably want to do a section 7 report. this is when they will interview you in person, and mention any allegations the ex has made about you. dont be so concerned as to what the ex will tell them, as most of it will be hot air.

Will update you.