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Good afternoon ..I had my final hearing in December following a section 7 report from caffcass. Having had constant access to my son since birth me and my ex partner have had numerous disagreements over the years resulting in her stopping my contact with him. Following 2 years of family mediation numerous gaps in me being allowed to see him because she said so. I thought enough was enough and made a court application against her. How ever I have been representing myself and my ex had hired a solicitor, and has decided to use this as an opportunity to get me the worst possible deal she could think or in terms of contact with my son. She has come to court accusing me of being domestically abusive yet there is zero evidence regarding this. She did however have a few voice recordings and txt messages of phone calls where she had previously stopped my access and I have used bad language towards her in sheer frustration of not being able to see my son. I have never been arrested for acting abusively toward her nor had she ever reported such things to the police. We had been separated for nearly 7 years and some of these txt messages are 4 years old. Caffcass reccomend that because I deny the allegations she had made apart from obviously the txt messages , that the contact stay the same which is what my ex suggested not the court or caffcass which is 1 days supervised contact at my parents home. They would of sent me on a domestic abuse course but with me denying the allegations and the courts favouring my ex partners story they would not. So there is no alternative to getting an improved contact. Please help I fear I am out of my depths now and would really appreciate any advice given.
Has the court confirmed all of this in the arrangement order? I believe if that is what the court decide, you have to stick to it. You can contact the court and ask if you can appeal it, but this may not be approved.
It is worth checking if you can apply to the courts again for more contact, if you have not done anything wrong for a while, they may take this in to consideration. The issue when you dont have a solicitor, the courts tend to not listen to you, they seem to prefer talking to solicitors more.
I cant really make much sense of whats happened. It seems you may need to get a solicitor to act for you or get some advice. don't make sense only being allowed 1 hours supervised and that been ordered at a final hearing. if u didn't agree surely u would of had opportunity to cross examine and contest decision made
Hi . My ex made all sorts of rubbish up . Accused me of mentally abusing my kids etc and domestic abuse . Regardless I’d still had continued contact , weekends etc since birth .
My barrister said cafcass always say no to contact when this stuff is alleged . I argued in court , successfully , that there was no evidence to back up what she had said , apart from some crappy messages between us and that the kids had never come to any harm , that they’re upset when they leave my house after the weekend etc etc .
The magistrates agreed and disregard the cafcass person who was more interested in flirting with my barrister than listening to me .
Your ex will be told to make all sorts up BUT she has to prove things . And because you 2 might have argued etc and as it had only been behaviour between you and the ex I don’t think they’ll care . Your ex will prob say she’s scared for you to pick up the kids cos that’s what they do . So you just have to say you are very happy to do handovers in a public place , service station whatever .
hi mike,
how many hearings did you have? for me, i had 3 and the s7 report came out just in time for the 2nd hearing. thank God the cafcass woman was down to earth. i admitted to doing silly things in the past (years back), and she wrote in report that i am an honest person and she didn't give me any trouble. i had barrister for all 3 hearings so i think that did help quite a bit.
if order is done and dusted and cafcass case closed, you could appeal. or you could stick to order for 12 months (which sounds awful) to build up good track record, then apply to court again for more time with child.
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