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Hi,
In 2000 I split up with my partner of six years, and in this time I had one daughter called Hannah, and she had a daughter from a previous relationship where the other dad had no contact. I wanted to see my daughter but my partner would not allow it, so I proceded to take her to court. In two and a half years she refused to attend court and after numerous attempts with the courts sending couriers and people to her address no partner was forth coming. Around August 2002 the judge said " Mr Fish, is Miss _______is not going to attend there is very little that the courts could do. At this point I had just about had enough, I was at the edge of my sanity, and chose to walk to which I have regretted ever since. I went slightly of the rails for the next two years having very little respect for myself or women in general for that matter, and would say that I am forever jaded by how I was treated by the judical system. I was not married, and in the time that I was trying to take her to court towards the end she had moved, to where I don't know.
My daughter was three when I start the court case and our other daughter as I do considered her that as I raised her for six years was seven, and would be eleven and 15 respectivly. I have listened to all kind of advice over the years, and in many ways after I eventually came to my senses I wanted to find her, but felt terrified for many reasons as our split was not amicable.
I suppose what I would like to know is that anybody out there who has gone through the same thing and eventually managed to see their son/daughter, and what if any advice could you give. I have now managed to find her location and am seriously consdering pursuing again, but wonder at the consequence.
Thanks for reading
Rob
Hi Rob
Firstly welcome to Dadtalk and I hope that you will find the site informative and helpful.
I'm really sorry to hear about this situation. I haven't been through anything similar and I can only imagine how distraught you must feel at losing contact with your daughter Hannah and her half-sister, the little girl you raised as your own for six years too. As your children are much older now, it sounds as if taking your ex back to court may help you this time round. As the children are so much older now, they will likely have some say in whether they want contact with you or not. It's likely too that they will have memories of you and as they grow will be curious and want to know you as you form an important part of their personal history.
I do think it would help you to talk it all through with an organisation called Families Need Fathers who you can call on 0300 0300 363 or log on to their website http://www.fnf.org.uk as they will understand the issues here.
I am going to forward your post on to our legal team for their advice which will take a few days.
I hope this helps.
Keep posting.
Thanks Mikey I really appreciate that, I am going to speak to Romford Crown Court to see if I can get any additional records. I have most of the paper work from the soliciters at the time. As said any advice they can give would be really helpful.
Thanks again
Rob
Dear Rob,
We apologise for the delay in responding to your query.
As you are probably aware, contact with parents is the right of the child, not the right of either of the parents, and until a child is able to decide for themselves (absolutely at 16 years old) then it does fall to the resident parent to decide upon contact if there is no court order in place.
Although we generally advise that mediation should be the first step, it may not be appropriate in this case, but that is a decision for you to make.
Following this, the only legally binding way of gaining contact with your children is by gaining a contact order from the courts, following the same process as what you used previously.
In some circumstances, the court are able to grant contact even if the other party refuses to attend court, and this would still be legally binding upon the mother, but the court would decide whether this was appropriate in your case. If a court order is put in place, and it is breached by the mother, then you would have to take the matter back to court and the court would decide whether or not to penalise the mother for the breach.
The views of the children are considered, especially for the 15 year old, as any court order would only be valid until the child is 16 years old. The views of your 11 year old will be considered but are not usually the overriding factor, they are given weight dependant on the child’s age, maturity and understanding of the situation. The deciding factor is always what is thought to be in the best interests of the child, which is not always the same as what the child wants.
The courts are usually in favour of granting contact between children and their parents and there has to be serious reasons for this to not be the case.
We hope that this information is useful to you, should you require further advice then please contact the Child Law Advice Line on 0808 8020 008 and an advisor will be happy to help you.
Kind Regards
Children’s Legal Centre
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