[Solved] Final Hearing

Sorry another question - would the fact that she has never needed any medical attention or been to hospital for any of the injuries be of any help?

With regard to the suggestion of presenting evidence to refute any findings of fact, do not become overly focused on this. It is, as you say, a very difficult thing to do, given its all based on hearsay and the judge has completed that task.

If you did have something quite plainly obvious in refuting an allegation then by all means you should present it, but this will not be, generally speaking, the objective of the report. It is not another 'chance' so to speak for you to defend the allegations, in fact your son needs to approach this with a mindset of acceptance of what has been found to have happened (regardless of your views on the credibility of the mother and the lack of truth in the allegations) and what will be by far the most important point for you to establish to CAFCASS and the court is that the child will not be at risk of any harm whatsoever by having contact with your son. This is your ultimate goal to achieve and in light of the findings, a difficult task. It would be fruitless to focus excessively on mother's credibility in my opinion.

Focus on how you might be able to prove to CAFCASS and the court, that despite the findings, the child will not be at risk in any way. In my view, that is the (difficult) task for you to achieve going forward.

To extend on this view and provide a different perspective, the outcome of such situations, as can be found in case law, often can rest on the 'perpetrator' of the findings, showing acceptance, remorse, willingness to undertake courses etc.. This is important, and I understand that for somebody who feels they have not done, or they know they have not done, what has been found to be fact in court, it can be very difficult or even impossible to exhibit in the proceedings. I think its something to note and be aware of.

Chapter

From your previous post....

With regards to the FFH. My son had 5 allegations on the Scotts Schedule
1: Applicant abusive, threatening her, controlling and coercive behavior
2: Applicant physically abusive and violent including slapping, and threatening to kill her
3: Applicant physically abusive to the child and emotionally abusive.
4. Applicant harmed a 3rd party in presence of the child
5: Applicant threatened to abduct child.

Surely if the judge has removed the ex partners “statement”from the evidence , no’s 4 and 5 of the Scott Schedule allegations, how can they be found as true?

I agree with CHAPTER that the FoF has been completed, but perhaps the fact that there was no evidence to back up the third party allegations, might be a reason for appeal... I’m not legally trained and have little experience of the appeals process, but if there is procedural error it may be an in for an appeal.

If possible, I think some legal advice at this point would be helpful for your son. Some solicitors offer a free initial consultation, or the CAB mayalso be able to offer legal advice.

The forum are also in partnership with Dialogue First and they offer a free telephone consultation with a fully trained lawyer via the forum, I’ll provide a link.

https://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/making-it-work/free-legal-consultation-divorce-separation

my god you really give goood advice sir and knowledge, very well said i say

Thank you everyone for your advice.

We have not heard anything back from the court since Fact Finding hearing (on 12th June). We have not been contacted by CASCAF.

Can you advice what our next steps should be?

thank you

Have you given the court a call to chase up? It wouldn't hurt to do so and they should be able to tell you what the next steps are, I would have thought a date should be set for the next hearing.

Thanks Mojo - I have dropped them an email.

Hopefully you will get a response, if after a couple of days you haven’t heard, I would chase it up with a phone call.

All the best

I have now received the reply from the court along with the finding of fact conclusions.
They are really hard to read, as they completely agree with all the allegations of his (EX), even when we provided evidence against the allegations from the Police and The EX's family member.

The Judge has decided to go with The EX and her best friends evidence, rather than police and Ex's Family member (father) who all said they have never witnessed any violence/abuse or found any evidence of violence/abuse. But .. Onwards and Upwards.

My next question is : CAFCASShave now contacted us (by email) asking for home address, which I assume is to complete a home visit (section 7 has been ordered). Any tips? Do I finally get to say my piece or do I keep my opinions to myself. Will they even let me speak or will they just want to hear from my son. My son lives at home with myself and his dad.

I want to tell them all the [censored] she has put us through over the past 4 years, show them the diaries I have kept, text messages stating "do as i say or you wont see you Grandson again" type of messages. Tell them we have taken him on holiday, looked after him whilst EX went on holiday with various boyfriends.. In short, tell them the truth about the whole situation and the truth about EX.

or

Do i just tell them how much I miss my grandson and really want to work towards building the relationship again.....

I think i know the answer.

A similar thing has recently happened to me - in fact they refused to admit evidence in court that contradicted their final decisions. This evidence proved that a police disclosure was vastly inaccurate yet they can just "choose" to exclude it? The judge even contradicted evidence that was included in the police disclosure.

If you have evidence that contradicts the decisions, appeal it. Especially if it's police evidence. Complete the form N161 and get help from the local PSU if you can. My local PSU have a solicitors attend once a week and they can give help on appeals - it might be worth booking an appointment.

It makes no sense that judges can completely ignore evidence and even make decisions that evidence contradicts. They only have to do so by the "balance of probabilities" standard of proof rather than the "beyond all reasonable doubt" standard of proof that is used in criminal courts. It makes me wonder if the standard of proof that's used in the criminal courts was significantly lowered on purpose so that it's easier to make people guilty. This in conjunction with the fact that judges are ignoring evidence is alarming to say the least. Ultimately it seems that this "balance of probabilities" boils down to an opinion - by just disregarding evidence, judges can find you guilty and force you into a position of having to make an appeal - this is a very complicated procedure because you can only appeal if an error is made in law, the forms make little sense and everything is very time consuming. Apparently it can take many months for appeals to go through.

Without legal aid, it is almost impossible to find out what are errors in law relating to your case. If you are self representing, you are basically on your own, without the ability to get legal advice from anyone (they all want to be paid) and even the various organisations that purportedly can help (family rights group, childlawadvice, etc) say that they can't give you legal advice and refer you to people who want money for their services (such as family law decisions, which is basically a group of McKenzie friends who won't help without being paid).

For those that can afford a solicitor, having to go through an appeal is just lining the solicitor's pockets even more.

Thank you. The Judge in his conclusion (short version) says my son acted upset and calm with the police and this has fooled them, However He (judge) is not fooled and believes my son has committed all the allegations that his EX has claimed. So it is hard to appeal as the police disclosure reports that there are no findings of violence and even reports that the EX stated she called them in SPITE. But the Judge has said DV victims often do not report all DV to the police or retract their statements in fear and that victims of DV often stay with the abuser for many years. Thus EX must be telling the truth and my Son is a lying abusive person who can fool the police and EX family members for years.

** I do agree that ACTUAL DV victims often are terrified of their abusers and do not report to police and hide the abuse from their family. ** however stating in court the above when it is untrue to stop contact in my mind is very wrong .