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Hi,
This website is very helpful indeed and has given me the opportunity to fight for my daughter who is 2.5 years old.
I have been through the court and received the final hearing to gain access to my daughter. I was advised by a professional to build up my hours, which I have. Initially whilst the case was at the court I had an hour every Saturday at ta supervised contact centre.
At the final hearing I was given a go head to have unsupervised contact by the judge. For the first month I had 4 hours the second month I had 6 hours and the third month 8 hours, now that me and my daughter have a strong bond and she is very comfortable around me, The whole process of this exercise was so that I can build my relationship with my daughter gradually, not that this has happened, I have requested the mother for overnight stays for the weekend. Unsurprisingly it was a refusal.
I have offered her the option that we approach a mediator in order to get this done professionally, unfortunately it was a no go.
I have been to the court and have represented myself for the 4 hearings that we had prior to the final hearing. Allegations were ranging from inappropriately touching to violence. Eventually the allegations were withdrawn. Initially the allegations were 68 paragraphs and this than ended in 6 paragraphs. The Judge threw all allegations out and wasn't having none of them.
Now comes the second stage, I require to go back to the court to ask for shared parental responsibility and residence request for our daughter. Me and my partner are still married, but separated.
How do I go about applying to the court?
What forms do I require filling?
Do I need to go through the mediation service and obtain a certificate as I did the first time?
I would be grateful if anyone out there can help. It has been a tough journey and having my daughter taken away from me whilst she was 4 months is really heart breaking.
I look forward to any support there is on here to help me move to second stage.
Many thanks in advance.
Yes, you will have to attempt mediation again if you want to apply to vary the order and it's the same form, a C100.
If your order doesn't include progressing to overnights and she won't agree, the only option is an application to court. There's no guarantees and we cannot predict what an individual court will decide regarding overnight contact. I would suggest that if your order was quite recent, I would personally wait at least six months before making another application to increase.
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