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Hello All,
Please are you able to provide me with some advice? This is in relation to my brother.
In April 2017, my brother took his ex-partner back to court as she was constantly breaching the clauses contained within child contact order. After a long and painful process, he went back to court and the judges ruled in his favour - as a result, his contact with his daughter increased.
Soon after the paperwork and the contact order was sent, it started to become apparent that his ex did not comply. There were days/weeks where she would breach.
In September 2017, my brother sent his ex a message highlighting that if she continued to breach the contact order, he would take the matter back to court but wanted to try and resolve the matter informally. A few days later, my brother received a call from the police to state that his ex had reported harm against his daughter, and that his daughter had a bruise on her arm. She alleged that my brother did this.
My brother attended the police station to undertake an interview, and he also attended an interview with the Child Protection organisation.
It is extremely clear and evident that the allegations made are false; for example, the lady at Child Protection picked out some key information - as follows;
1) The daughter said to her mother that she did not want to go downstairs, so father fulled her shoulder and back on the stairs.
2) On the daughter's back, a bruise is visible.
3) Mother tried to call MASH on Friday after school but states it was closed, however mother noticed the bruise on Wednesday.
4) Mother saw bruises but did nothing straight away
5) From Wednesday to Saturday, the mother did not seek medical attention
6) Although the daugther has disclosed that it was her father that had done it, there is a great possibility that the daughter is being co-erced as she lept looking at her mother during the interview with child protection. Daughter expressed her worry that her father would be going to the court (she is 4 years old - how does she know what a court is?!)
7) Mum had delayed accessing services and time frames do not add up
8) Child Protection lady states that she is not interfering with the police investigation but does question mother's parenting capacity as she has not been honest
9) There is a pattern of similar allegations against the father - last year at the same time - no further action by Police.
The above is a summary of what is contained in the report.
However, my brother is stuck. This interview was held in October 2017. The police have informed that the matter will go back to court for a result to be determined, however the police are holding this up. They are not releasing the report they have contained and this is the last bit of information to be disclosed. When my brother calls the Police, the lady dealing with the matter says she is 'too busy' and 'has other cases to deal with'. This is poor. We have written letters of complaint to the Police but they remain unresponsive.
Please can anyone help? My brother is desperate to see his daughter and the mother is not releasing her because of the ongoing investigation.
My thoughts is that we take this back to court ourselves?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks 🙂
The police matters are criminal and the contact order is civil, so yes, you can take this back to court for enforcement. The result at court is likely to be affected by the police decision, but the court can order police disclosure to get things moving along.
Hi Yoda,
Many thanks. I am preparing the particulars of claim as we speak.
Based on the fact that there is substantial evidence to show that the allegations raised against my brother are false, do you think we can treat the application as a 'without notice' application? I understand this is quite difficult to achieve, as we need to demonstrate urgency. The only way I can see this happening is to outline facts of the report that show that his ex is wasting police time, and that there is no evidence the alleged harm happened, and taking into account that the allegations were raised so long ago, that the urgency is because my brother wants to see his daughter? Or will this not be a good enough reason.
An urgent application is different to a no notice application. No notice means the other party won't be informed about the hearing until after it had taken place, if an order is made at that hearing the mother would be informed and another hearing set, to allow for her to put her side of things across.
An urgent application is generally allowed when there is a risk of harm to the child, and isn't usually granted because there has been a break in contact.
Thanks for your help thus far!
If I am submitting an urgent order to the Court, do I need to serve my C79 and statement of complaint to the Respondent too?
It depends on the particular court that you use, some will serve the papers directly to the respondent, others will send you opines of the application and other documents that you then serve on them yourself. This can be done by post as long as it is recorded and signed for. It's also possible to pay for someone to serve them on your behalf, these are called process servers if my memory serves me right.
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