DD's Dad currently has no unsupervised access - SS agrees. I want to move to be nearer my fam for support. Can I ?

[NancyPiecrust]

DD's Dad is very unhappy with quite recent decision by me, backed up by Social Services, Health Visitors & Child Psychotherapist that DD not be in her Dad's sole care at this time. He hasn't reassured me in any way as to how he is getting help with his temper problem, suspected mood disorder and has told me he has quit smoking weed but I cannot be sure of this...He is just denial about his actions and how his actions have lead to this situation. He says I am using DD to punish him which couldn't be further from the truth. I really want him to get help so that he can be a present Dad for DD but he seems to not be able to admit that he needs help and instead deflects everything onto me and says I am making things up. What motive he thinks I have to make things up I don't know but he is clutching at straws to try and make this whole situation my fault. He admitted to my Dad, and in front of a therapist with me that he has been violent with DD but not actually struck her. But he still says that I am being ridiculous in stopping overnights and unsupervised contact & that DD was and is fine. Which is just pure denial. He also has been subtly threatening court action and has accused me of blocking us communication by refusing mediation and therapy with him - I went to one therapy session with him which I said I would try, and it was so traumatic for me to hear him deny, minimise and water down the description of DV in our relationship, and now to deny & minimise our daughters feelings and her distress and probably water down his account of what happened as well, so I declined to go to any further sessions with him, which my therapist also agreed was the right thing to do for my mental health as I have been doing so well in detaching from the abusive relationship & healing from the trauma of our relationship so far and could not, for the sake of my DD, put myself through that stress as I knew I needed to be strong for her. Mediation is taking a while to arrange as I need to apply for Legal Aid through NFM and also NFM have been slow & some stuff got lost in post. But he claims I am trying to obstruct direct communication etc...when actually I am just trying to maintain healthy boundaries and distance from him. Anyway, the environment I am in seeing him and his Mum all the time who are both hostile towards me & them being my main source of support as a single Mum, I am wanting to move back to home to be near my family. I have been thinking of doing this /planning to do this and plans got put on hold, for 1.5 years since we split up. I have been trying to make it work in London because I thought DD needed to see her Dad and didn't want to "take her away" from him, but I haven't been able to find a job here, nursery places keep falling through or not being suitable, I can't really afford to live here at all...I am completely dependent on him and his Mum...It's a horrible situation for me. I am in a long distance relationship with someone who lives down near my family now as well and I just want to go home, and be with him and be ina peaceful and calm environment with a lovely nursery for DD and my family who I trust and who love me around me to help with her & provide loving company for us rather than drama and hostility. I also have a job offer down there....I have handed in my 6 weeks notice to my landlord here and just want to go down there asap ..mid January...I don't know how to tell my ex that my moving plans are back on without triggering a court battle or him doing something rash like getting an order which means I temporarily can't move...etc...What would happen legally? When can I tell him which means he does have some notice - as don't want to do it sneakily or make it seem like I'm doing it to hurt him, as I'm really not, and I don't want to upset him unecessarily..! But which means he couldn't have time to stop me moving?
If he did go to court for access...how much does that usually cost, for him? And for me? And what are the odds that it would go in his favour given the situation? He would want 50/50 I think and unsupervised. Even though not best for DD...she is only 2.5. He has a history of DV with me which I did report to Womens Aid but not the police. he was verbally abusive to me whilst I was pregnant and in front of DD when she was born too. I can't bear to have to be forced to stay in London, and hand her over to him knowing he cannot handle her tantrums and cannot behave appropriately with her and is volatile, possibly on drugs and grappling with mental illness & poor temper control. I can't do it !
He is very good at being a "fun Dad" and playing with her and of course she loves him, but he is volatile and can't seem to control his temper and I can't trust him. Now it has extended to DD I am done with tip toeing around his feelings and trying to make everything ok for him. I need to do what's best for my DD and my quality of life too.
Any advice please ? Thank you in advance.

[GreenAndWinter]

I have no idea about the legalities of this, but I do hope that you are able to go. Presumably you have to be able to prove that you are acting in the best interests of your child. It sounds to me as though you are, and in a reasonable world this should be apparent if it ever gets as far as the family court.

[AchingBack]

I'm not sure on the legalities of it but personally I wouldn't tell him about the move until the very last minute-probably the night before if at all. It sounds like you and you dd would be safer with the distance between you and being abusive it's all about power and control to him so I'd take it away.

[mrsnoon]

Just go. Unless you are planning on moving countries there's very little he can do to stop you.

[hedwig2001]

Not a lawyer, so those more qualified may provide more accurate advice. As you have given notice, I would only inform him as you leave. If you give him time, he can get a prohibited steps order from court. This will stop the move, but you will have no place to live, as you have given notice.
You will have to bear the costs of travelling for contact, as it is your choice to move away.

[FTCarer]

You are setting yourself up for a contentious set of court proceedings by taking (what appears to be) unilateral action.

Unless there is a court order in place he has a right to contact with his children and if you move away without notice he is totally within his rights to bring a relocation case. You'll have to explain why you didn't give notice and he will have a good argument for frustration of contact.

See a lawyer. Don't upsticks without advice!

[Fourormore]

Do you have anything in writing from SS, HV or the child psychotherapist that there should be no direct contact?
How far away would you be moving?

In terms of cost, he could represent himself and then it would only cost £215.

[JellyWitch]

Will you be able to bring her to see him for regular visits?

[NancyPiecrust]

Jellywitch yes I will be able to bring her to his for regular visits at this stage

[NancyPiecrust]

I have an email from child psychotherapist but HV or SS haven't got as far as putting anything in writing

[CocktailQueen]

Hmm, dh's ex did exactly this after they got divorced: moved 200 miles away with their ds. No legal advice, didn't 'ask' dh or anything. She just moved.

We made all the effort for the next 15 years to visit ds, staying in hotels etc. She maybe once took him up to us. DH didn't think about contesting it/taking legal advice.

[NancyPiecrust]

Sorry for 3 separate posts, just with DD and trying not to be on my phone! He only thing is I am not sure I could afford to bring her for regular contact every week say, but every other week yes probably. He will be saving £250 by me moving as he currently pays extra to help us rent a house that's near him. So he feels like he's paying to have us close. Which gives him a lot of control and power & he holds it over me. He did say he may consider moving closer to us if we moved as he is freelance and doesn't necessarily have to be in London for work. I don't want to up sticks and move with no notice but also I don't know he might freak out and try and get court order to stop me moving. I can't imagine he would want to put DD or me through that.... But who knows, he just seems to think I want to punish him which isn't true, & he seems to just want to play the victim when the only victim in the incident that happened, was our DD. I've been wanting to move home ever since we split up but mainly stayed in London for him & DD needs a supported single Mum surely not an exhausted & lonely one? I've done everything to try and make support network here and my friends are great but they have their own lives and can't come to help or hang out with us as often as say my Mum, Dad or brother would in the countryside... And much better quality of life & nursery for DD too. Plus she'd still get to see her Dad of course.

[NancyPiecrust]

Sorry that was meant to say he will have £250/ month extra a month because we'll be moving so can be not use this to pay for train rather than my DD having to do long car journey every other week?

[Dozer]

You need legal advice.

[shallichangemyname]

There is a whole raft of case law on parents wishing to move within the jurisdiction (as distinct from wishing to move abroad, out of the jurisdiction). Google "internal relocation with children" and it will come up with lots of legal guidance.
It is not for you to apply because you don't need the court's permission to move within England/Wales (if you wanted to move abroad you would need consent or the court's permission). The application is his to make, to stop you. He would apply for what is known as a prohibited steps order or a specific issue order. The court fee is £215 and after that he could represent himself so it wouldn't cost anything. Unless there's a clear evidenced history of DV then you wouldn't get legal aid. But you too could represent yourself. It seems scary, but it's not that hard.
If there are welfare issues, which there seem to be, then in the proceedings there will be a CAFCASS report, with a CAFCASS officer interviewing you, the father, possibly DD and possibly other family members. This will be ordered at the first hearing and CAFCASS will be given specific issues to cover (eg the weed smoking, violence towards you, DD, his ability to care for DD etc)
The case law is on your side. Mothers are not often stopped from moving in these circumstances. To succeed, you need to show how/why things are difficult for you where you are, that your reasons for moving are genuine and well thought-out (which they seem to be), that you have an appropriate plan in place for where you will live, a clear plan for where you will live, where DD will go to nursery/school, what you will do for work etc, and you need to come up with proposals about how the loss of contact for the father and paternal family might be compensated for. The latter is more tricky for you because he currently doesn't have unsupervised contact. To deal with this, you need to find local contact centres where you are moving to, find out how long their waiting lists are etc, and propose that he comes down for the day/overnight twice a month or whatever to see DD, and you need to factor in how contact might be built up so that eventually it is unsupervised, and then that she is staying overnight with him and eventually going to spend weekends with him in London (and extended holidays). You need to demonstrate a clear plan about all of this.
The only fly in the ointment here is it could take well more than 6 weeks to resolve this. It takes 3 plus months for a CAFCASS officer to even be assigned to a case, let alone for them to then write a report. If it goes all the way to a final hearing you are looking at 6 months to a year.
Is he likely to try to stop you for the sake of it, knowing he's likely to lose?
Send him a letter saying that you are planning to move, why, what your specific plans are for housing, schooling, work etc, when you are proposing to go, and proposing how contact with him should be preserved and developed.
The alternative is to say nothing and just move and tell him when you've done it (and have in place a contact centre who is ready to take him so there is no break in contact, and he can of course spend the £250 he now spends on your housing to spend on petrol/trains). But he may then retrospectively apply and try to have you sent back. You will then start off on the back foot by having done a midnight flit without his consent and the court won't like that. You could of course explain yourself by saying you were scared of his reaction if you asked him, and focussing on the DV/weed smoking aspects of your case, and playing dumb (I didn't realise I needed to ask his permission). Whilst the court may not be impressed with your fait accompli, on the other hand, by the time the court deals with it at a final hearing (ie after a CAFCASS report etc), which will take months, you and DD will be settled in a new home, new nursery, with support etc etc, and so even if the court criticises your behaviour if the move is in DD's best interests then you will be allowed to stay.
Have a look at this article, it's a bit old but it's a good summary. You will see that one of your strongest points is your own happiness, and your new relationship. The less contact a father has, the stronger your position as the loss of contact/effect on contact becomes a weaker argument.
www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed878
also this one:
www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed158634
You will see that the happiness/stability of you as the primary carer is given great weight. Your evidence needs to deal with how/why life is difficult for you in London (don't focus on how difficult you find him/MIL, focus on how you miss your friends and family and have no support network, how your new partner is not in London, that it is a relationship with a future and you really want to make it work and that is only feasible in the long term if you live closer together).

[NancyPiecrust]

Thank you so much shallichangemyname for detailed advice / has been very helpful... And everyone else thank you too.

I have one more question... Say if I tell him in the next couple weeks when I had actually found a house... Then would he have time to start the court proceedings ? In that time surely i could still move ? How quickly would a prohibited steps order actually be lodged and then take effect ?

[shallichangemyname]

Normally when you issue, you get a first hearing about a month or 6 weeks later. In your case perhaps longer because of the intervening Xmas period.
You only get a shorter wait if it's an emergency. In an emergency he could get a without notice hearing, or a short listing (ie you get notice, but hearing is a few days later).
He could only do this by goiing into the court and saying it's an emergency and asking for a quick hearing. He then gets it in before you go, court makes an interim order prohibiting you from going (to stop you presenting the move as a fait accompli). But say you've already given notice so will become homeless and already have commitment to rent a new place wherever you are going etc etc. Could go either way - they could let you go temporarily or they could preserve the status quo and stop you going. it's a bit of a risk.
Sorry there's no clear cut answer to this question.

[NancyPiecrust]

Thanks again ! Makes it a lot clearer thank you.

FTCarer - what do you mean by unilateral action?
I have consulted him about my plans to move before and he agreed to them in the summer, over the phone although not in writing. He eventually said he understood and would make it work somehow and he said he realised it was actually ok for him to just see DD at the weekends. I then put the plans on hold because I hadn't found quite the right house, and I started a post grad diploma here in London but I only have 17 training days of the course left from now until July and some months I have no training days at all for the whole month so that is the only commitment I have in London & the training days are on the weekend so I could bring DD up to London and she could stay with her Granny (his Mum) and see her Dad then as well. He has never been able to have a super consistent routine as sometimes he DJs on the weekends so I don't think he would ever want to have his routine dictated to him by the courts. So hopefully he wouldn't go this route.
London just is so expensive for me, and feels very desolate and lonely right now and has done for over a year.. I have been looking for a part time job but nothing has come along & also on the days that DD has been with her Granny I have used all my spare time to do housework, food shopping, clothes washing, tidying, studying and maybe 1 hour of going to gym as I can't go anywhere in the evenings and the gym keeps me sane ! So if I was working on those days I would have no time to do all those things. I was hoping that once she started nursery in January I could find some work to do every afternoon but after looking lots of different nurseries the nursery that I thought DD had a good 15 hour place at has told me she can only have Wed,Thurs,Fri afternoons for 5 hour sessions each day which is not ideal at all and not very usefully or evenly spread out through the week. they want her to be there only 1pm - 6pm which I think is too long/too late all in one session and all clustered towards the end of the week. Not a convenient or nice routine for her or me. The nursery where I want to move is amazing, lots of green space, fresh air, very safe area etc and has offered me any days and hours I like and as long a settling in period as DD needs, no pressure, no rush etc.

I have made the no unsupervised contact decision based on what's best for DD not ex Partner...but it is also backed up by opinions and advice from professionals... So how would the courts look at that? Especially as I have discussed my desire to move with him many times...I hope he would see this is not a reaction or as a way to stop him having contact with DD,...I have done everything I can to faciliate him seeing her all the time...way more than is 'usual'. But's it's time I put DD and myself first rather than him now. And that is what he is kicking a fuss up about...he can't stand it and just says he doesn't want to be dictated to. But he would prefer to be dictated to by the courts? And he doesn't seem to care about DD's feelings in all this and how she has been affected by his recent actions. She has been emotionally and physically hurt by him and he doesn't seem to get that, which is very worrying.

[MrsBertBibby]

From all you're saying, I don't doubt a court would let you go, in the end. The only risk is if he gets the court to make you stay until a decision can be reached, which realistically would be several months.

But if it's a move he had agreed to before, then I don't see why you shouldn't get on with it. It's up to you when you fill him in, the proper thing to do is to tell him now, but I can imagine with his anger issues that isn't an enticing prospect.

[shallichangemyname]

She means taking matters into your own hands and going without discussion.
As he agreed to it before and you have been making plans ever since, you could just make the final plans and then do it, and effectively give him no choice. Morally I think this is questionable but legally it may strengthen your position (unless you are criticised for taking unilateral action - BUT you would say it's not unilateral, he had agreed to it ages ago - IYSWIM

[RedHelenB]

Might mean that overnight stays may happen sooner rather than later though, depending on the court obviously.

[NancyPiecrust]

I just found out that ex's Mum lied to me... She made me believe she was having DD at her house for a sleepover last night, said she was looking forward to it & acted all excited when I dropped DD off at hers at 5pm... And then took her round to DD's Dad's house to sleep over there. Where I have said she cannot go, and Social Worker & HV & Child Psychotherapist agreed. Completely breaking our arrangement & complete deception. I cannot trust her anymore 😭 How can she continue to be the unsupervised contact person????

[shallichangemyname]

You need to be very careful now because you don't want it to look as though you are blocking contact just when you are wanting to move and when you will be wanting to show that you will facilitate contact.
But neither can you let this go.
It's hard to know what is the right thing re unsupervised contact without full details (which I can't expect you to give on this forum). HV is of course only going on what you've said. And SS. And SS hasn't said it officially either. Just in informal advice to you.
If MIL can't be trusted then it's contact centre time which would be awful for DC.
Can you get SS officially interested now that MIL has stopped co-operating?
What would it take for XH to do to get you to agree unsupervised? Drug testing?