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Long story short, I have a 4 month old son, took ex to court for more days when he was 9 weeks old. I was getting 2 hours 3 days a week off her supervised. Went to court and ended up seeing my son 2 hours in 5 weeks, being upset I made a lot of false allegations in my position statement. Mum ended up having to file medical records as I said she was bipolar and that I had concerns with her parenting skills. Mums records were clear, also doctor wrote saying she is a well able mother etc. Last hearing I got 5 hours a week supervised by mum until next hearing. Safe guard report has come back and mum checks out, no criminal record nothing. It has come back that I have 3 convictions but been aressted 5 times. Selling drugs in 2015, criminal damage twice. And Cafcass says my past use of steroids have raised issues. Now mum wants contact centre. Will she get it? I’ve taken a parenting course and first aid course but on the last visit I stupidly forgot to change babies [censored] and when mum took him back his nappy had leaked!! What am I looking at happening here? Who pays for contact centre if I have to go? She wants me to have a few hours each Saturday. Will she be granted that? And she’s saying no overnights till 3?? Sorry for the rant.
Hi
Nobody can predict what an individual judge will decide but you certainly haven't done yourself any favours.
A contact centre can quite often be a good thing as if you have supervised sessions, the contact centre will provide written reports as to how the contact is going & that can go in your favour. If you end up in a contact centre, you will have to pay for it.
Unless the court can get you both to agree on a way forward with regard to imminent contact and subsequent overnight visits, then it will be up to the court to make a decision. When this happens, the most likely outcome is that the court will go with the Cafcass recommendations. With regard to overnight stays, if the mother doesn't agree, then 3 is usually the age that court would order them.
Thanks mate, yeah I know what I’ve done. I acted on the spur of the moment and tripped myself up. I have a solicitor and she doesn’t but she seems to be pipping is to every post. She said she wants contact but wants to know I’m capable. Just fed up of feeling like a visitor to my own child instead of a dad.
You certainly need to play by the book now. You may well have to accept her offer to start off with, but try to get an increasing level of contact drawn up.
With regard to overnight stays, if the mother doesn't agree, then 3 is usually the age that court would order them.
While this may be justified in this case, it's not my experience that a court would only order overnights from 3. That's a myth that scares dads into not asking for what they really want which is to be fathers to their children. In my case the court ordered overnights from age 26 months. justdad's has often posted that his daughters started overnights when they turned 14 months.
Despite the propaganda that there is out there discouraging overnights, there's no evidence whatsoever that this is harmful for the child. Even outside separated families, it's not uncommon for children to spend occasional overnights away from their mother, ie, with their grandparents, or when the mother works night shifts (ie, nurses).
So while I agree that Dadlad2018 has made a right mess of his case and hurt his chances of getting overnights before the child turns 3, I don't want other dads who read this later to think that's the norm. It's not.
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