[Solved] First hearing was a disaster .... please help

BMurkin,

You will find in some case, especially the ones you read of on here, that if the mother of the child does not wish for the father to have some form of contact with the child, she can and will make allegations to delay said contact contact taking place.

It's really then down to the court ultimately to judge whether the allegation has any relevance to the progression of contact, and whether it needs to be fully investigated with a fact finding hearing.

If your ex is making allegations that depict a patteron of domestic violence/abuse that has supposedly been witnessed by the child, then I would think that the court would want to assess any potential risk to the child going forward. Again this could come in the form of a fact finding hearing.

False allegations of this nature of course just delay things, but the courts first priority is to establish what is in the best interests of the child, so thorough investigation if warranted, can and will take place.

If you did nothing wrong, then the truth will usually prevail. You just have to be prepared to fight these allegations and accept it as part of your process of getting contact with your child established.

Naturally we are all here to help and support, so don't worry too much.

Simon.

Oh wow!

As I said my ex wants to go down court route. She says she wants me to have contact with my son but she has alleged domestic violence and that my 2 year old son has witnessed it. Although she has never called the police.

So it looks like this CAAFCAS organisation will do something similar to me and advise that I have no contact with my son irrespective of what my wife says 🙁

I'm really pinning a lot of hope on someone who hates my guts doing the right thing in regards to contact over my son. I'm doomed.

I so wish I never argued back with her and just listened to her. I never hit her but she's only doing this because she felt this is the only way she could leave with our son.

I have mixed feelings of anger for her lies of domestic violence and remorse because my stubborn attitude drove her to it.

You aren't doomed. You have every chance of getting contact established.

The point I'm trying to get across is that if your ex chooses to make these allegations to cafcass and the court, they will investigate in order to make the decision that there is no risk to the child by ordering contact. Just because an allegation is made does not mean it will be found in court to be true. You just have to be prepared to stand up to the false allegations as and when they are made.

You may be able to negotiate a schedule of contact with your ex prior to your court hearing, and then put it before the judge to get it agreed.

My advice is take things day by day, assess your case based on the reports you get from cafcass and what happens in your first court hearing. That will set the scene for what you need to do going forward. Anything else is just speculating, fearing the worst, and just worrying and stressing yourself.

Simon.

"If your wife chooses to make these allegations to cafcass and the courts"

- aren't the court automatically made aware of them anyway due to the non molestation order put on me? Will they only investigate if wife brings it up again? Why wouldn't she I guess

"You may be able to negotiate contact prior to contact hearing"

- do you mean on the day of the court hearing? So there is an actual opportunity to negotiate before going in front of the judge?

Hi

This is my experience and I hope yours is better. My lovely dad has a non mol too, all based on lies yet again. CAFCAS were made aware of it by ex and advised the judge of it in their report. Ex repeated all the DV lies to the judge anyway. My lovely dad wasn't given any chance to talk to the judge or negotiate access, he said he felt like everyone talked over him. He did ask for access, even suggested a contact centre but the judge said it was up to ex and she refused so that was that.

To be fair CAFCAS have been quite helpful since and are even trying to get ex to agree to access, she won't though. I seriously hope her lies are discovered as it will be a total injustice if she gets away with the vile things she's accussed my lovely dad of.