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Hi
My ex has stopped me from seeing our baby daughter for months since I left her. The day after I left her she assaulted me, then she had me arrested claiming to the police that she was the victim of domestic violence and had tried to strangle her and that I had hurt our daughter. All lies. She even hurt herself and told police it was me. I was released on bail pending further enquiries and never charged.
She retracted her statement a few days later and wanted to get back with me. Because of the seriousness of her heinous allegations I wanted to make sure she couldn’t accuse me of anything further so was recording phone conversations when she rang me. My career was on the line even if I was charged with a crime, never mind convicted. She was made aware that I was recording.
In the recordings her false allegations are discussed between the two of us, and throughout the conversation her wanting to get back with me is the main reason for her calling me even though I was adamant that wouldn’t be happening. The conversations total about 2 hours. She wanted to get back with me throughout. I didn’t want to get back with her, and was just trying to arrange contact with our daughter.
Her refusing me to allow me to see my daughter was basically her trying to emotionally blackmail me to get back with her.
Because I wasn’t getting anywhere with her, I applied to court. I feel she has now accepted I won’t be getting back with her and has gone back to her false allegations of domestic violence and harming child.
The first court date will be soon. I want to know will the court accept the call recordings as evidence? Searching the internet, a lot of advice is that recording the phone calls is frowned upon and could back fire on me. I made her aware of it though. To me it seems silly when all I wanted to was to protect myself from more false allegations, but now feel that it would disprove her false allegations very clearly.
Any thoughts would be really appreciated. Thanks
I also have a recording of her shouting and swearing at me for 10 minutes during a face to face argument before we seperated. She was unaware of that recording. Would that be allowed as evidence?
Also, are WhatsApp messages allowed? I have every WhatsApp message she ever sent me stored on my phone and can get a lot of evidence that would be useful to disprove her allegations from those.
Thankyou in advance for any advice
Keep all messages and recordings as evidence to show the abuse you have suffered at her hands, DV works both ways!
As for the recordings transcribe them accurately to paper and use them as your evidence, however your ex's legal representative may argue its not admissible because its not been transcribed by an official transcription service. But at least it'll have been read by the judge.
All messages can be shown as your evidence, I used screen shots and made sure to keep the dates and time stamps on them. Just make sure you add your replies etc... to ensure the conversation is there to add context.
Dad-i-d has given you some good advice,
As you haven’t had the first hearing yet, how is she making the allegations? Did she submit a C1a form?
You can mention you have the evidence, with a brief outline of what it is in a position statement, that you can prepare and take with you to the hearing. Just a couple of pages to tell the court a little more about the background to your case and what you would like the court to do. You can’t attach the evidence to this though, but you can mention it and state that you have it with you and would like permission to file it as evidence.
I agree with the above - transcribe the recordings, and certainly the fact that she was made aware of the recording, I would say would make your position stronger with using the recordings, certainly for any conversations that happened after she was made aware (presumably this is in the recorded conversation somewhere).
My experience with texts, I got them all downloaded and printed by my nephew.1000's of them between me and the ex.
Court ignored them. And listened to every lie my ex said.
For example even though I had a text to say on that certain day at that time my ex ordered me to pick our daughter up and collect all her belongings, they ignored that and took what my ex saying on that day and time I picked daughter up and refused to return her so ex phoned social services and police came to take the baby cos she was breastfeeding(she wasn't) . Even had police appolagise to me that night cos they had to attend with social services and a police woman went up to my ex and said to her face she's a disgrace. Police wrote in my favour and that ex was always causing trouble and she'd been warned to stop and told her to seek help with her mental health and they'd seen texts from the ex demanding I collect our daughter that night.
In court though, judge was like blind to all this on paper in front of him, it was simply Mr dad you've constantly removed your daughter from her poor mother even when she was being breastfed. You are a terrible man u have to see your daughter in a contact centre lol
It depends on the judge - sounds like you had a bad experience, but it's still worth having them all printed or transcribed. Better to have them and not need them, than not have them and need them.
It depends on the judge - sounds like you had a bad experience, but it's still worth having them all printed or transcribed. Better to have them and not need them, than not have them and need them.
Yes true but don't put all your hope on them in helping like yeh iv got all this proof it's got my back itl show the judge what the ex really is. Cos you might be in for a nice surprise like I was, and a lot of men are when the judge sees you as Mr bad man even though you have proof she's a liar
Yes, everything you have could potentially be used as evidence, but as Mojo says, you haven't even had the first hearing yet.
When you have your phone call with Cafcass you can mention that you can back up your side with evidence and also mention this in a brief position statement.
Until you get to the first hearing, you can't actually know what the mother's position is going to be. She's behaved erratically so far, so she might well be reasonable at the hearing, you just don't know. I've seen cases like this resolved in one hearing, so don't rush too far ahead of yourself just yet.
If you can't agree at the first hearing, the court will likely order you both to write a statement of evidence and then you will be able to quote some of the conversations or use key whatsapp messages.
People have a tendency to try and bombard the court with all their evidence straight away but you are not allowed to do that. Even once you are allowed, pick out key pieces, don't use everything you have.
best of luck
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