Ex husband took dd and wouldn't return her

[MrsParker]

My ex husband took our daughter who is 5 out Sunday 1st march. Said he'd return her at 5pm.
he called at 4.45pm to say that she was not coming home, that she wants to live with him. Very upset, begged him to bring her home but he wouldn't.
Called police and social services out of hours team, but as he has parental responsibility he could keep her. Police advised him to take her to school monday.
He took her to school monday, I was there waiting. He said he'd be picking her up later.
Went to solicitor, she advised me to collect daughter early from school, which i did. School said ex husband had been on phone, asking school to ask dd wh she wanted to collect her. As joint parental responsibility school say either of us can collect her, so they can't stop him.

I am going to court to get an interim residence order, dd has always lived with me since seperation in 2005. He took me to court for contact, i asked for a drug test, and he withdrew his application for contact. I have promoted supervised contact for the last few years at my home. I allowed unsupervised contact for the 1st time in Aug 2008. He has been very unreliable, and i suspect he still uses drugs. She had never stayed with him before. This was only the 3rd unsupervised outing they'd had. He argued with me before he took her as CSA have just started a dedustion of earnings and he's not happy.

My problem is that my solicitor says court date will be in 2 to 3 weeks. School can not stop him collecting her from school, or taking her out of school early.
She was off last week with a sore throat. Off this week with tonsillitus, saw doctor monday.
The school will not entertain home schooling as a temporary measure until i have an interim residence order and a prohibited steps order to stop him taking her from school.

They say she either comed to school, or i remove her from their register as home schooled?
Anyone got any idea what I can do? Solicitor said to talk to LEA. Which i did, said its down to school what they do.
Anything i can do legally to speed process up. Don't have ex-husbands address, need judge to get police to release it to my solicitor to serve papers.
Anything i can do about the school? I want to protect her, and if i send her to school he can take her
Will post in legal & lone parent section? Would you send your dd to school knowing this?

[kid]

Without going into details, I know of a case where there is a risk of the dad taking the child from the mums care.
The mum is attempting to serve an injuction on the dad but his whereabouts are unknown.
She has written to the school explaining the situation and the school have agreed to only allow her to collect her child.

Is there anyway you can get a letter from the solicitor for the school stating the situation and the dates for the hearing? Is there any record of previous problems between you and XH?

What about changing her school? Would that be an option? It seems a real shame but I don't know what else to suggest.

[duchesse]

Oh goodness what a difficult situation for you all. I can't think of anything specific to suggest at the moment, just wanted to wish you well and bump this.

[MrsParker]

I might try writing to the school tomorrow, they did make their position clear, that he has as much right to collect her as me as joint parental responsibility. Just wish i could get this sorted for her sake!

Called other schools in area, no places. If i take her out of her current school, her place could be taken by someone else. So could be long time before i get her into another school

[duchesse]

Have you asked for an emergency interim residency order? You should be able to get that very quickly.

[MrsParker]

Solicitor says they will not consider an emergency interim residency order as i have daughter back now, and so as we don't have his address, we need to get judge to ask police to release his address and serve him papers.

[citronella]

I don't condone breaking rules but sometimes desperate situations call for desperate measures.

1. I agree a letter from solicitor to school might help. They are being inflexible.

1. Ask him for another drug test.

1. Can you manage to keep her at home for as long as possible on a 'sicky'until the court date comes through?

Awful situation for you.

[tatt]

sounds to me like they are fussing more about their unauthorised absence statistics than about your child!

Is her schooling more important that having her live with you? I'd keep her as Sick on the school records as long as you can. If you write a note saying she is ill what can they do? They'll send someone round eventually but by then you'll proabbly have been to court. If they come sooner she'll ill with stress brought on by the risk of being taken from her mother!

[yerblurt]

School are completely correct, as both parents have PR both are legally free to collect the child, the school does not wish to get in the middle of disagreeing parents.

Your call really - keep the child off school and risk losing the place or be there at school to collect the child early.

Has your solicitor requested abridged service notice - I presume he/she has a you say your hearing is in 2 or so weeks rather than the usual 4-6 weeks for a hearing to be listed.

If you do not know the wherabouts of your ex then the courts will make directions at your first hearing for the address for service of your ex to be made known to the Court. There is a form C4 but this is for ordering the disclosure of the location of a child, not applicable in your circumstances.

[PfftTheMagicDragon]

You don't have his address?

[Geepers]

I don't have any advice, but all I can say is that there is no way I'd be letting my child out of my sight, for school or anything else, until I had the law behind me.

I'd rather lose her school place (unlikely imo that this would happen) than lose my child.

[N1]

if the csa wernt involved, would you still have this problem?

[AnarchyAunt]

N1, I'm not sure this is the place for your anti-CSA crusade tbh.

OP - I'd keep her off school 'ill'. They cannot remove her from the register if she's ill, surely? They would need to send the EWO et al round first to find out whats going on at home.

I suspect the school are technically correct that they cannot get involved whilst he has the legal right to collect her, but that will hopefully be dealt with by the court hearing.

Good luck and stay strong.

[N1]

Schools only want to get involved it it's part of their responsibility. Legal disagreements are not part of a schools remit.

If the mother keeps the child out of school and the child is absent for more than 10% of the school attendance time then the school can make a referral to social services who will want to investigate. One has to assume that there is no history of the child being absent.

If the mother claims that the child is ill (sick) and it's discovered that the mother was lieing, the mother might get accused of not being a credible witness, and therefor everything she says has doubt cast on it..... including the point about the ex using drugs.

If the mother makes the child ill to keep the child out of school. MSBP or FII spring to mind.

The solicitor is right in saying that you can't abridge an interim residence application. Not only because the child is with her mother but because the father has a history of taking the child to school (and wanting to collect the child at the correct time, where the mother is clearly making the child feel different to all the other by treating her child differently to what other children are treated.

Whether or not I am anti CSA, the question is not answered. Would the OP have this problem if the family wrecking CSA were not involved?

As I see things, the OP got the CSA involved. The CSA are forcing money to be an issue, so the father is forcing the contact issue. The money receiving parent wants the money but she (in this case) doesn't want the money giving parent to force the issue of contact. So....the CSA is the problem.

As I see things, (and I don't claim to be correct), the OP could dig herself a hole in the next few weeks in the run up to the court hearing and if the drug using father knows how to use the court system, he could expect to get about 50% care of the child and 50% of the residency.......if he is smart. 50% care is not out of his reach, unless the mother makes it so.

[citronella]

If I was you I would start putting down in writing all the reasons why you feel he should not have residency e.g drugs, unsuitable housing etc - I don't know if these apply to your situation but my point is you need to go fully prepared to fight your corner in court as should be your solicitor.

[KingCanuteIAm]

Pasted from your other thread, "I wish I had some top tip for you to get round it but I know I ran into the same brick wall.

One of the things the school have introduced now (following the uproar I caused!) is a sign out sheet where a form is sent home with the child to be completed with the name, address, signature and a password for anyone who has permission to collect the child. This seems to work well as it gives the school a good reason to refuse to allow a child to leave (at least until they can contact the resident parent for confirmation). The only potential problem I could see is if the non-resident parent happens to collect the child on the day the form is sent home and fills it in/sends it back without your knowledge IYSWIM.

I know it doesn't help much right now but perhaps you could suggest it to the head as a solution to cover their backs and give you the reassurance you need."

N1, how on earth is any of that relevant to the thread? The CSA is not the problem the Op's ex behaviour is the problem. If you want to rant about the CSA why don't you start your own thread to do it on? That way you can rant away to your hearts content and the Lone Parent section can return to some kind of normality and be useful to people again.

[N1]

When did the op problems start? When they seperated and the dad wanted to see the child? Or when the money grabbing csa got involved. And ask, will the problems end if an interim resendency order is made.

[KingCanuteIAm]

If only we were interested in your crusade N1, it would make your posts so much more interesting.

[RockinSockBunnies]

God, what an awful situation to be in. I'd certainly err on the side of caution and keep your DD with you for the next few weeks - thinking of absolute worst-case scenario, what would be better? Losing your DD's school place or potentially losing your DD to your ex?

Can you get a GP to sign your DD off from school for some kind of stress related condition, relating to the situation at hand? That would clearly buy you more time.

Fundamentally though, even if the school were to withdraw her place, you'll always find another one once the situation is resolved.

[yerblurt]

KingCanueIam:

re. the 'signing in and signing out form', this has no legal standing whatsover.

If a parent has PR then they are an equal legal parent and they can collect a child from school.

This is in danger of derailing the original thread though and maybe we should discuss that.

The CSA is an interesting although side-issue.

We all know that CSA and contact are supposed to be unrelated but realistically in life they are. We don't really know the circumstances about the original posters ex to comment too much, however, I noticed that he has a DEO on him. The CSA is all about collection and enforcement and clearing up numbers to hit targets to get bonuses.

[KingCanuteIAm]

Yerblert, You do not sign in/out it is just a list from the resident parent to sya who has permission from them to collect. It is not supposed to have legal standing, it is useful only as a way for the school to stall long enough contact the resident parent/police in difficult situations like this.

[MadameCastafiore]

I feel for you as I went through awful custody battle a few years ago for DD - please make notes of all the wanky things he has done and continues to do and make sure that the judge hears that he is putting pressure on your daughter to choose who she lives with as at age 5 this should not be happening - she has to be at least 8 for her to make this decision I think.

Make sure when you go to court that you do not attack him as a person just his suitability in terms of being the best parent - say that you want him to have contact - suggest every other weekend and half the school holidays - you have to be the straight man here - be honest and upfront and the judge will see through him.

[yerblurt]

KingCanuteIam:

You misunderstand the law - if a parent has PR then they are totally free to collect a child from school, regardless if there is a residence order in place, unless that Court order states a schedule for school collections/drop-offs.

So if the school has this 'signing in/out' policy it has no legal standing and can quite rightly be challenged by any parent with PR. This is confused thinking.

It may be useful as a stalling tactic but that is all it is - if a parent with PR wishes to collect a child then there isn't a bean the school can do, they should not and do not want to be in the middle of disagreeing parents.

[N1]

The judge is an expert in law. If you tell a judge that the ex is presurising a 5 year old to make a decision without evidence of the father doing so and evidence of that child being harmed. Then the argument goes nowhere. The child must enjoy time with the dad and the child was presumably ok after spending the night. The mother would be expected to show a court something that shows that the child is will be in real danger. You cant offer contact and claim that the dad is a danger\irresponsable at the same time.

[Yurtgirl]

Mrs Parker - sympathies to you this situation must be really difficult for you and your dd to cope with

My only suggestion is to ask about the home schooling idea on the HE section of mumsnet, they might have some advice re the legal obligations of schools, which might enable you to take her out for a bit.

N1 - I appreciate you have ishooooos you are trying to resolve to do with the CSA but do you honestly think hijacking Mrs Parkers thread is the right place to do it??? She needs people to help her not an argument!

[N1]

To contradict a previous reply. My son was 6 and cafcass asked him outright about where he wanted to live. The answer got me a shared residence order. Ex very strongly oposed. I have to add. Cafcass asking a child for their views and the reporter presenting what the child actualy said is rare.