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This is my first post on this forum and I'm looking for some advice.
My current situation. My 2 year old daughter lives 200 miles away from me with her mother. I have already been through the courts to get my name added to my daughters birth certificate and also for a visitation order. Daughters birth was registered without me being told.
The final hearing was end of October 2018. My ex lied in court and nothing got sorted. The judges were useless and the legal system is terrible. My ex told the judges birth certificate forms had been sent off and no proof or evidence was asked for by the judge. We get out of court and obviously she has lied. 3 months later and this situation has still not been sorted.
A visitation order was agreed where I see my daughter 1 Sunday per month and 1 full weekend per month with days during school holidays to be discussed. Ex has not stuck to this agreement and picks and chooses the dates that suit her best. I do a 400 mile round trip to spend time with my daughter and also have to pay for overnight accommodation when I do a full weekend. Overnight stays with my daughter are not allowed as my ex says my daughter has a sleeping issue. This again has never been questioned by the courts or looked at by any experts.
I feel the whole process was a waste of time and money but feel I have no other option but to try again with the courts. My solicitor was terrible and useless and is costing me around £3000 for the whole process.
Has anybody on here ever been in a similar situation? Do I persevere with the legal system and fight even though it is all sided towards the mother.
My daughters birthday next month lies on my weekend to have her but have now been told by the ex partner I can not have her. This is the usual stuff I am dealing with.
Does what goes around comes around or is all this effort in vain? I feel helpless.
I have done everything by the book. I have paid child maintenance since birth, I buy clothes, toys, bugees and contribute towards what ever my daughter needs. However none of this seems to matter in the courts eyes.
Hi There,
With your final court date only being back in Oct it may be a little too soon to try and amend the contact order, the judge may not want to look at changing it just yet, if the breach of the order is frequent enough then you could apply for an enforcement order.
GTTS
Unfortunately the court doesn't always appreciate that any vagueness within the order can give an uncooperative parent the opportunity to take advantage of it. Plenty of our members have found themselves in your situation I'm afraid.
By the sound of it, your allotted weekends are defined, if that's the case and she is breaching the conditions of the order, you can apply for the order to be enforced. However, only a small number of enforcement applications are successful, somit might be better to apply for an urgent Specific Issue Order to insist that the mother respects the contact as set out in the order and let's the contact go ahead.
At the same time you could apply for a variation of the existing order to add more definition to the order as far as dates and times, and to begin to introduce overnight stays with you. You don't actually need a solictor, you can self represent, it's doable and many of our members have done so with much success. If that is a route you decide to take we would do our best to support you in that.
Child maintenance is an entirely separate issue to contact and one is not at all dependant on the other. The court will not look at the two together, if you have applied to court over a contact issue, the court won't take account of the level of maintenance you pay, or any extras you provide.
All the best
I applied for overnight stays and that got rejected. My ex produced a statement from the doctor about my daughters apparent sleeping issue and that basically ended any hopes I had. The sleeping issue has never been proven or tested and the only information the doctor gets is from my ex who lies about everything.
I also applied to get my name added to the birth certificate. The judge never issued this as my ex lied and said she had sent the forms off and everything was being sorted so the judge saw no reason to issue anything. He never asked for any proof of the forms being sent and never questioned the truth of her statement. It is now 3 months since the final hearing and this issue is still not resolved. I now find myself chasing the courts and trying to get the issue sorted which should have been sorted in court at the final hearing. I have sent letters to the courts but received no response. I am really unsure about alternate steps I can take as the courts seem to show no interest in my predicament and seem to think that my ex is an angel who is willing to cooperate with me fully because of the false persona she puts on at the court hearings.
Is my only option to send numerous letters to the court until I finally receive a response? I don't really know what to do next.
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