[Solved] Re: Children's Centres - for dads too!

Hi nj

You've seen on the forum that too often the courts are slow to enforce contact orders when there is no good reason for withholding contact. In your case, you are acting in the best interests of your grandson's safety and looking at alternatives, so though you're technically in breach of the contact order, I can't see that there would be a court in the land who would do any more than say perhaps you shouldn't have done it, and then move onto the important matters.

I hope so actd...

My son wrote a letter to her solicitor outlining the reasons for suspending unsupervised contact and the fact that he was trying to organize supervised contact in the interim.

I called the CLCC yesterday, to get a legal perspective, as there is technically a breach of the contact order. They felt pretty much the same as you and suggested that we wait for the response from her solicitor. If enforcement through court is threatened by them, then we should act quickly and submit a variance order, and ask for suspension of overnight and unsupervised contact and further CAFCASS and SS reports. As violence was one of the arguments we put forward when fighting for Residency for my grandson, and this is now being alleged by the older child, there should be a good case for suspending overnight contact and taking a more controlled stance to contact in the medium to long term. Thats our hope.

There is a separate issue of a new resident boyfriend, newly released from prison and whom the mother is refusing to name or divulge the reason for the conviction.

Do the ss know who the boyfriend is? If not, then it might be worth contacting the police - there may be all sorts of issues regarding him, depending on what his crimes were.

...My son bought it up when he called the SS but they had no comment to make about it. All they said was that they were happy he had contacted them as they had intended to make contact themselves. They said they couldn't discuss the little girls case, but that my son would be involved in the investigation. All a bit vague and my son is now waiting for them to make formal contact.

Bear in mind that the incident of alleged violence against this child happened over two weeks ago, and my grandson has had a full three night, unsupervised weekend visit and two after school visits with her since it happened! The SS are just incapable of joining up all the dots and I dont think incompetent is too strong a word here! 😡

I did mention to the CLCC about contacting the police but they seemed to think that we should let the SS investigation take its course.
I felt that with an accusation of violence, the police should have been involved. Once we have the name of the new boyfriend (we live in a small town and we will find out!) we are going to the police for a check on him.

You know, you think that once you go through Court and get a final result, that the worst of it is over.... but thats just pie in the sky! This will never end, these battles will continue to be fought and hopefully won, but the war's not over, and wont be for years to come.... She wont accept that it was her own actions that led to her losing her son, and until she takes responsibility for that, this wont end.