Hello, im not a mum. Im a dad. Hope that's ok. I need some advice and you girls have a very good reputation.
I recently separated from my wife. She had been violently abusing me since the birth of our daughter. I tried many times to get her to seek medical help but she refused. In the end she was arrested for assaulting me and criminal damage (she smashed Ipad, tablet, laptop, Xbox, mobiles phones and steam mop).
She is a non EU citizen and was in the country on a spouse visa. After we separated she had to apply for a new visa as parent of a british child. We have a daughter together who is 3. she was denied the visa due to her criminal conviction (12 month conditional discharge). She has appealed and I believe is still waiting for the results of this.
We did have social services involved due to the domestic violence, although she never hurt our daughter, only me. The day before my daughters 3rd birthday a social worker turned up at the house with my wife. We had agreed a temporary custody arrangement until we could get into court. The social worker said she was going to give my wife a lift to her friends house as I was due to leave the house the following day and she didn't want to be around.
I was due to collect my daughter the following week. I spent the whole week trying to contact my wife for the collection arrangements only to be told the day before I was due to get that I needed to speak to social services (my wife told me this). So I call social services and they say they have no objections to me having her in my care and were pretty confused. They later contacted my wife and she accused me of being drunk and said she was afraid I would run off with my daughter. I volunteered for drug and alcohol tests (I haven't drank in 7 years and not used drugs since I was a student) but they said they could not tell me where she is because my wife had asked them not too. So I couldn't collect my daughter as we had previously agreed.
After this contact from my wife completely stopped. I would occasionally get a 90 second phone call with my daughter (every 2-3 days) but these have stopped now as well. She has blocked me from all of her social media and blocked all of my phone numbers. She is stopping me from having any contact with my daughter.
I have been to the solicitor but due to us not knowing where she is its taking a little longer to get everything in motion.
Social services have confirmed they have know issues with me having her in my care, the only person stopping me and my daughter from seeing (or talking) to each other is my wife.
Is anyone on here able to offer any advice on how I can get access restored. I realise I can do the legal route, but she is making this as difficult as she can. Also would anybody know if her behaviour in stopping my daughter and I from having contact will hurt her application for custody when we get to court?
Thank you, I hope somebody can advise. This has been the worst month of my life, its so hard to not have a clue where my child is and to not be able to see her or hug her.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.
Divorce/separation
Contact denial
8 replies
Readingram01 · 23/03/2017 21:28
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.