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Hi everyone
I'm looking for some advice regarding my current situation.
I have a child's arrangement order that has been In place since 2014. As my sons mother was big on parental alienation and making my life a misery In general .
My son will be 14yrs old soon. As the years have passed , the court order has become pretty much redundant in some aspects. My son usually spends more time with me than the order states. However, this is usually down to the decisions of his mother . I am basically at her mercy.
I currently have no contact details for his mother as she doesn't want me to have her phone number .
Which makes the whole issue more difficult as we have no clarity on when my son may be coming to me , or indeed when she is expecting me to bring him back to her .
The last 6 months have been bad particularly, my son tells me his mother now has a job working nights .
Now, most nights my son is palmed off onto his grandparents for overnight stays . Or another relative.
He has no bedroom there - he is put in a car daily and passed around between relatives. He pretty much lives in his school uniform . He doesn't know where he is staying one night to the next.
I have been keeping a record of his overnight stays since June 21st. He has spent just two nights since then at his own home with his mother .
I speak to him every day and tell him he can come and stay with me . His is literally just up the road at his grandparents. He asks them and they say no usually. My son Is happy to stay at our house but he won't even make this known as he knows his mother frowns upon it . He basically comes when they OK it .
There's been instances where his grandparents have brought him to me and he stays the night . Even they don't tell his mother as she doesn't like it and his mother doesn't even know my son has been with me .
I've just arranged a MIAM for later this month .
I've been advised to vary the order I need to go to court .
I'm not sure how this whole thing may pan out , would it be reasonable to seek the order to be changed? To request on nights she is working, that our son stays with me ? That he should have a settled routine ,a home base and not be passed around relatives like a inconvenience? Enough is enough .
Am I right in saying , as a father with parental responsibility, surely I should not be told by other relatives, when my son can see me or stay the night ?
Apologies for the long winded post , just months of frustration .
Any advice would be greeted with sincere thanks
M
Worth mentioning that my sons mother didn't attend mediation in 2014. Dodged 3 court hearings , chose to attend the 4th as was threatened with prosecution.
Mediation this time around would be a failure even if she attended as she just doesn't care to arrange things amicably.
There has never been any issue regarding myself and the care of my son .
With regards to seeking more overnight stays , my sons school is 5 miles away so that isn't a issue . All of my sons family live in our small village (both sides of family)
Technically you will be seeking new child arrangements. Variations tend typically only happen in the context of an enforcement order where minor wording is changed to improve adherence by either party.
The best approach for you and your ex is mediation. If you go through the court process neither will get what you truly want.
If you ex has an unpredictable shift pattern and works evenings/nights, the judge will likely order:
-Contact 1 night mid week.
-1 or 2 nights every other weekend.
This means that you would have your son for considerably more night than your ex. Would you be OK with that? The court likes to keep things simple and it's not a process for seeking an a la carte child arrangements.
Furthermore you son is 14. At his age, his wishes and feeling carry heavy weighting and he would be interviewed by cafcass as part of a section 7 report. However bear in mind that the court process for CAO is currently 9-10 months if you go to a final hearing. First hearing would likely only take place 4-5 months after an application has been made.
Hi guys , thanks for your replies .
Currently the arrangements are :
I do the school run every Wednesday and drop him off at his mother's at 8pm
He comes to me on Friday evening and stays until Sunday evening (every other weekend)
However , very often on a Wednesday he will end up staying overnight .
Weekends also, he often stays with me on the Sunday night and I drop him off Monday morning
It varies wildy tbh .
He is always with his grandparents and they work also . So he is then palmed off to her aunty . (Overnight stays )
Sometimes his grandparents will bring him to me unannounced.
I just hoped we could have arranged a order which is better for my son.
He's happy staying with me , but he's very wary of being seen to be 'picking sides'.
I recently asked him if he would would be happy to stay with me on the nights his mother is working and he said yes.
At his grandparents, he is plonked In front of a games console all day and left alone .
He has no structure or settled routine .
I don't want to go to court , it was bad enough last time but I just feel like this will o on indefinitely otherwise.
My ex has no regard for courts , laws etc . I fear even if she did attend mediation that if donetjing was agreed , she'd go back on that within days
how about the holiday periods, what is that like?
if your child has made it clear that he wants to spend more time over at your place and mother is not allowing it, then I think it would be reasonable to go back to court to request more time. you could consider a 50/50 equal care arrangement, if your able to manage that.
@bill337 the only thing we have is that during half term etc ,my son stays overnight on the Wednesday through till the Thursday evening.
The order stated there should be be scope for holidays etc , to be arranged amicably when needed.
But tbh , it's impossible.
I have no contact for her .
He spends so little time at his mother's home , we never even know where I'm meant to be dropping him off .
So then my son is ringing around trying to find out .
I'd happily have him stay with me as much as is possibly allowed .
We've had occasions when his mother doesn't answer the phone to him and then he just stays with me anyway .
Been more than a few occasions when I've taken him to his mother's (5 miles away) at the expected time, for her not to be home .
Also times where I've gone to collect my son as agreed for nobody to be home .
I can only assume she gets a thrill out of wasting my time . It's just not fair on my son
@bill337 definitely, the issue that also concerns me being she's put the fear into him - she makes it known she doesn't approve of him staying with me . He's reluctant to tell anyone what he wants . I ask him if he's happy about staying with relatives. He just shrugs generally.
Though he has told me he'd be happy to stay with me on nights his mother is at work .
I'm not even sure she's at work as much as she says tbh .
When the court order was put in place 8 years ago, she wanted a weekend in two with him. But now it seems ridiculous as on the weekends he's not with me , he's dumped on his grandparents anyway .
I just find it absolutely crazy ,that my son is dumped off on relatives a 5 minute walk from my house .
When he could be at our house , with his own bedroom and all his belongings and settled
The current orders are clearly no longer fit for purpose, let alone enforceable.
Your first step should be to draft your proposal for arrangements covering:
Term time
Half term
Summer holidays
Christmas
The court will want to see a proposal that's simple, easy to adhere to and ideally has some consistency e.g Monday nights the child always stays with parent 1.
Thank you for your help both:)
With regards to Xmas, special occasions etc, I've always been at her mercy.
I'm not sure how often she works , I'm not convinced it's as often as she tells my son tbh .
So I'm struggling to set put a clear proposal based around her work.
But what I do know is that I'm totally flexible. I do tend to work Saturday mornings ,on these instances when my son is with me, he will stay at my parents until I get home around 1pm. But that's not often and he looks forward to staying there. They live over the road from me,he also has his own bedroom there.
I'm able to pick my son up from school as I rarely work later than 2pm. Even if not, there is a bus stop outside my home and the bus route would drop him off right outside his school .
I see no plausible reason to be denied extra contact other than the fact his mother simply does not like him coming here .
But , having been to the family courts before, I am wary.
The last situation involved her taking my son out of the school system completely, moving home without informing me . And having a live in bf with a DV police record longer than my arm .
All the while denying me contact which I had to fight tooth and nail for .
I just fear the outcome of taking the family courts route does not improve the situation for both my son and myself . Im aware of the impact these matters have on children and I don't want to risk doing this if it doesn't help our situation. That's the fear
I feel your frustration. Ex is unwilling to participate in mediation but the alternative is the court process which is long, tiresome and acrimonious.
There is no doubt that a court would order more contact between you and your son. However as I mentioned before, the arrangements are kept simple, black and white, rather than change every week according to your or your ex's work schedule. The latter is simply not possible to adhere to nor is enforceable.
The other option is for you to wait until your son is 16. At that age, children are legally able to move out of home. He would be able to travel straight from school to your home mon-fri and your ex nor the police would have powers to force him to go to stay at his mum's.
Basically it might not be worth embarking on a 9-10 months legal battle if your son will turn 16 in 18 months.
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