[Solved] Final Hurdle...hopefully

By the sound of it, the next hearing will be a review hearing, but if everything can be tied up and agreed, it could also turn into a final hearing.

It's best to keep your statement as short as possible, you don't need to repeat anything that the court already knows about, just include any new developments and of course what you would like the court to do.

All the best

Hi,

Hope this message finds you all in a good place or struggling to get there. It was finally over for me in July 2k17, judge was confused why the case was still going on and why ex was so reluctant on communication, overnights and most importantly why we were still using a contact centre -

My ex was ordered to meet me halfway on the 230 mile round trip I'd make every fortnight to see my daughter for a few hours to now taking her home with me. She's asleep in her own bed room as I type thuf. My ex types out detailed handover emails with things like what my daughter has had for lunch etc. Loll

I have my daughter Friday to Sunday every fortnight now and talk on the phone with her twice a week for ten minutes a time. When I look back at the years that now seem like have flown by actually felt like ages and hard when I I was going thru it all. Kudos to whatever triggers repression. All I can say is seeing my daughter grow up infront of my eyes has made the self rep and sleepless nights worth it.

We are back in court for a review hearing in October. Haven't really had any problems with handover. The first time my ex handed me our half asleep daughter and dropped the bags of toys and night clothes and stormed off...it was a pretty busy car park but not life threating..juggled holding my daughter and picking up the bags somehow.I pulled up her behaviour with her Solicitor and she hasn't done it since. She has also booked a holiday with our daughter and her new partner into Europe on the weekend I'm supposed to have our daughter, and I'm excited for my daughter to see the world, but she booked it in August for September knowing it's my weekend. But we have agreed the catch up days etc. Do you think I should raise these two incidents in the review hearing? I do believe if there's an agreement it should be stuck to, but I don't wanna come across as a grass.

Thank so much in advance
Yas

That's great news for you and your daughter, well done Yasser.

A review hearing is to iron out any teething problems, so you should absolutely bring any breaches to the courts attention. It's not grassing, it's making sure that the future can follow w with as little disruption as possible... hopefully the judge will remind her what breaching the order could mean, what powers the court have to punish a parent that breaches for,no,good reason.

Keep a diary, record any incidents and write a brief position statement for the review hearing....in the mean time just st enjoy your new found freedom with your little one.

All the best

I suppose though what constitutes a breach can be hard to judge. Orders can be a bit strict, and at some point you are likely to want some flexibility too.

I think problem arises when one of the parties makes arrangements that breach the order without consulting the other parent, that's just wrong, but no doubt happens all the time and seems to be the case here.