[Solved] Court date advice

A position statement sets out what you wish to achieve in court. It’s very important in setting out the days you want to see your children. By all means set out your reasons for this & how you can facilitate it but keep it relatively short and to the point. It will likely be presented to the Judge shortly before the hearing (sometimes 30 mins/1 hour and they will have the other sides to read as well).

It sets out your position and you can expand on the points during the hearing when you have the opportunity.

its important you prepare this in a clear and consice manner. And that it is properly formatted (numbered paragraphs etc). This is the first impression the judge will have of you and it will presented alongside one prepared by a fully qualified barrister by the sounds of things.

Take 3 copies, one for you, the judge and the other side.

You can expect a certain amount of leeway for being unrepresented, but remember the judge is human, and can be swayed by small details. You have to show this is the most important thing in your life, so do make sure you do your homework on this. There are examples online and some resources on here.

Writing a Position Statement

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/writing-a-position-statement/

well what a brutal day that was....

Had my first hearing and it all seemed like a waste of time to me

Had to sit for hours, then finally got to talk to CAFCASS - they seemed to fell empathy for my situation and tried to ask my ex for more access... then spoke to my ex & her solicitor - when she came back to me she seemed to then think it was reasonable that my ex was offering me 1115 till 6pm each wednesday.

I refused this & said i want to contest, so we go in front of a legal advisor & my ex's solicitor went on a rant about how my daughter is in a set routine & if this was broken with an overnight midweek stay then it would be to much of a change for her, she reitarated this point over & over as well as the 30 minute drive between us being too far....

Then i got to speak, told the advisor my position & that i had the flexible hours in work to easily facilitate a midweek stay and that the travel really wasnt a major issue.

The legal advisor couldnt make any order as she wasnt in a position to do so, so she set a date for january for a contested hearing.

so seems i'm back to square one & just need to go along with my ex's orders till next year.

Think the way forward from here is to get a solicitor as i just felt like a rabbit in headlights out there.

The solicitor really pushed the advisor to have an early date as possible as a deadline for us to present our cases to the judge, i assume this is to give me less time to prepare anything or appoint a solicitor.

She also seemed very keen to hammer home the point that she would still be pursuing to come to an agreement out of court.....i hope thats because she's worried that i have a case and doesnt want to lose.

All very stressful

Thank you very much for your help on this guys.

hi,

am sorry to hear it didn't go as you expected. but really a lot does not happen at first hearing. we can expect it to go to round 2. in my case ex refused all overnights lol. i wanted mid-week overnights too. ex refused. and cafcass didnt recommend. so was stuck. and she made same argument about kids being in set routine and dont want any changes to disrupt them. so in end i just took mid-week contact, every other week. few hours after school. i may return to court next year and try get mid-week overnights.

its weird that only legal advisor was present. my case involved new born baby. was able to get interim contact until next hearing.

so sounds like your next hearing will be the final one? if so thats good. mine was longer, 3 rounds. section 7
report by cafcass. its actually a good thing that solicitor wanted next hearing to be ASAP. because you would not want this to drag on for months and months.

i recommend you go on the direct access portal and hire a barrister for your next hearing.

Hi there,

I would say don't take the initial hearing to heart. I was almost crushed by mine - the Judge's attitude in that one towards me was "What's your problem?" - my son's mother had stated she was moving him 200 miles away, and reducing even further the very limited contact she was allowing at the time.

In retrospect, he did me a favour, as son's mother felt she didn't have to make any compromises whatsoever after hearing this, and took that attitude with her to the final hearing where that Judge gave her short shrift and awarded almost everything I was asking for.

You've come to the point where a court order is necessary. Even if the mother is really seeking to get an agreement out of court (and it could be interesting to hear what she's offering to prove this), whatever you agreed in that forum should still be ratified by a court order, to have any legal weight. This was the advice I was given when I was in a similar situation. In my case we went for a contested final hearing, as the mother offered nothing but the status quo.

You're not asking for anything unreasonable, and midweek overnights are a pretty standard arrangement. In fact, the whole arrangement you're asking for is the one I put forward for my son, which the Judge awarded, after hearing and overruling all the mother's objections. Hopefully, you'll have a like-minded, reasonable Judge for your final hearing,

Good luck.