[Solved] Liverpool... a city of absent fathers.

Good Morning,

Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Graham I am 31 years of age, a Police Constable and most importantly a father of a beautiful two and half year old daughter called Freya.

I am also going through the lengthy and expensive process of taking my ex wife to court in order to have contact with my daughter.

I originate from Kent where my daugter and her mum live, I have since moved to Reading. Freya's mum and I seperated over a year ago and since then I have struggled to have what I consider to be quality time with my daughter.

While my ex is allowing contact to take place, this is based on supervisory terms. Directly after we sepearted Freya's mum would only allow me to see my daughter with her present supervising me.

Since we have been to court an interim order was put in place that I would have contact with Freya once a week for four hours. This time would be supervised by a third party, it was decided that that third party would be the maternal grand father, something that I agreed to as my ex wanted this contact to take place in a contact centre!!!

I have done this now for a period of six months, and while I do not need to prove myself, I feel strongly that I have done all that has been asked of me by the courts and by my ex.

Imagine my anguish then when we have our second hearing and my ex refuses to move on her current position and after alot of backwards and forwards the court issued yet another interim order which now states that I will have the following contact with my daughter

Four hours once a week, two hours supervised and two hours unsupervised

A full section 7 report will now be conducted by CAFCASS.

I have had contact with CAFCASS before the first hearing, I do not know what other people's experiences with CAFCASS have been, I however felt very much like everything was weighted in favour of the mother.

I have also tried mediation, my experience with this was also the same, that they seemed to favour my ex.

Sorry to waffle on, if you have got this far thank you for reading. But you may be wondering why I am telling you this.

I am aware of the recent think tank that stated that many children are not having contact with their fathers or any male role model.

As I stated at the beginning of this I am a Police Constable, a recognised profession, an upstanding pillar of soceity. Holding such a position I am subjected to rigourous security checks.

I am not a criminal, I have never done anything to harm my ex wife or my daughter. I am not a risk to my daughter and neither are my family (who are being refused contact with their garnd daughter) so why then am I made to feel like a criminal by my ex wife, the courts CAFCASS etc.

As it is the case that I am going to be subject to further court hearings and a full CAFCASS section 7 report, it is my intention to contact the local MP for Kent and volunteer my case for them to review and audit to ensure that the processes are transparent, fair, impartial and that the correct result is achieved.

Please can you tell me where I might be able to view the report of this think tank?

I also welcome any views, comments and feedback regarding experiences with CAFCASS, Court, mediators etc and any advice you may have.

Once again thank you for reading all of this.

If it is the case that I have bought this to attention of the wrong people I apoligise

Many thanks

Kindest regards

Graham

Hi Graham, have replied to you but in the legal section.

Eeehh NJ ...I saw a prog "skint" I think that was Liverpool. But I don't understand why they say Liverpool only, its all over the UK, I live in Stoke on Trent........its just as bad!

Hi Graham and welcome 🙂

...You most certainly have come to the right place!

The Thinktank that is responsible for this report is The Centre for Social Justice and it is due to be published this week.... heres a link -

www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk

Just one other thing, you mention going to your MP, the court proceedings are in private and you would be in contempt of court discussing them with anyone outside of the court, except your solicitor. I doubt that your MP would touch it, the Judiciary are wholly independent of politicians and if you think about it you can see why...If politicians had any say then there could be a conflict of interest, and they would as politicians do, try to interfere with the due process.

As EnyaM mentioned you have posted in the Legal Eagle section, I'll pop along there and see if I can help you further 🙂

EnyaM....The reason Liverpool has been highlighted is because from a list of the twenty worst places for fatherless families, eight of them are on Merseyside... 🙁

eeeeeh..I strongly suspect that those responses are from those who could be bothered to reply !LOL! 🙂

The Centre for Social Justice would have researched thoroughly I'm sure, I very much doubt it was compiled from a poll or such like!