Child Arrangment Orders and unprofessional Cafcass officer

[MaryB123]

Hi all,

I need some advice and I'm hoping someone on here can help.

My child is 1 year old and his father walked out at 16 weeks. He was extremely emotionally abusive and controlling towards me after my son was born and after he left. I agreed to supervised contact twice a week at my property as I had numerous legal threats but this recently stopped as I had to call the police after he became extremely verbally abusive to me in front of my son. He took me to court and I had a hearing for CAO last week. The cafcass officer was totally biased towards my ex's contact requests. He ignored all my allegations of emotional/verbal abuse and the evidence I brought with me including police and professional reports. He stated emotional abuse is subjective and I cant prove it. His whole conduct was unprofessional at one point accusing me of being controlling and difficult. It was a horrendous experience. I was forced to settle for unsupervised contact every Saturday as I was told he could recommend every sat/sun. I work full time so I would never see my son. I've raised a complaint and have a support worker from Womens Aid looking into this. I'm also considering asking permission from the court to contest the order.

Does anyone have experience of bad cafcass officers and how did they deal with it?

I had an undertaking granted so my ex can never contact me. All handovers are through a contact centre. I also have agreement my child will live with me with the contact being every sat with his dad.

His father is now starting to demand access to my sons nursery even though he's going to see him once a week stating these are his PR.

Can he do this? Is this in breach of the order which states every sat for contact?
Can he take my child? If he does can I get the police to get him back as I have an order?

I'm at my wits end with his behaviour and its causing me no end of stress.

[NameWithChange]

This sounds awful and I am so sorry you are going through this. I don't have much advice of any use but wonder if posting this in 'Legal' would get you some help?

. Keep strong.

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

Are you happy for the child to have a relationship with his father at all?

[stolemyusername]

Is there any reason that your son shouldn’t form a bond with his father. The issues are between you and your ex, it doesn’t mean that he isn’t/couldn’t be a good parent.

As a father I would say that yes he does have rights to information about your son from his nursery (whatever updates you receive he is entitled to receive also). This will also apply as he grows up to school reports and parents evenings.

[Atenco]

Maybe you need to post in legal, OP.

[gotoglow]

Hi, I've pretty much been through your situation it extremely tough, but you can do this.

If you have an order than yes he must go by this order. Is that a contact order? or do you have a Non Mol order or restraining order?
If he turns up to the nursery, if may be a good idea to give the nursery a copy of the order. Explain the situation to them. They cannot pass the child over to the father without you knowing If it not on the order, so will have to make contact with you first.

Caffcass need to ensure that they are looking after the mental health of the parent where the little one lives ( main care giver). If you are finding the situation stressful and its effecting your health you need to tell them this. You have a right to be heard.

This advice is just from my experience...

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

OP doesn't seem to think the child should have any relationship with his father. This is extremely sad. You also say you would not get to spend time with your child if you work all week and that this seems to be a valid reason for him not to have a relationship with his dad??

[HouseholdWords]

The father walked out On the child and the OP. One might then infer that it's the father who's not interested in a relationship with his son, particularly if he is abusive towards that son's mother. Abusing your child's mother is not the way to develop a relationship with your son.

[Sistersofmercy101]

Controlling and abusive...
So daytoday did you miss that bit of the OPs post or were you just ignoring it? As resident parent OP is trying very hard to fulfill PR and SAFEGUARD her vulnerable child... But hey, apparently according to SOME people it doesn't matter what abusive behaviour a 'father' is capable of, he should be allowed contact no matter what risk of emotional and psychological harm he poses...

[Ineedfun]

Is there any reason that your son shouldn’t form a bond with his father.

Erm...did you read the op? How is someone that is emotionally abusive and controlling a good father figure?

It's naive to think this man is separating out these relationships. It is well known that lots of abusive men continue to abuse women through their children. Unfortunately the courts are way behind in acknowledging this but progress is being made very slowly.

Sorry your having a tough time op. It's good you made a formal complaint, your experience sadly doesn't surprise me. Women's aid are amazing advocate in these situations IME. Can they help you seek some legal advice?

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

All I said was did the OP not want the child to have a relationship with his father.And how sad that is.

[Sistersofmercy101]

daytoday no. It is NOT 'sad' that OP is protecting her child from an abusive person.
What's 'sad' is that YOU are engaged in victim blaming by insinuating that OP is at fault. The fault lies with the abusive person because of the way that they choose to act means that the OPs DC needs safeguarding from them.

[Ineedfun]

But is it sad daytoday? And I'm asking in all seriousness.

This boys father has behaved so badly the police have been involved. The op has an injunction out against him because presumably she's is frightened and intimidated.

The guy is unwilling or unable to maintain a civil, cordial relationship for the sake of his son.

Does this constitute a good parent? Most parents aim to guide and protect children from stresses of day to day adult life rather than create huge amounts of stress and drama.

I'm not shire how helpful it is to their development tbh.

[Fresh8008]

If he was emotionally abusive and controlling towards you then supervised contact with you in the room was not a good idea. But he is the father and still has rights to know his child, which the Cafcass officer agreed with.

Seeing his child once a week seems reasonable, not sure why you have a problem with this because you don't have to be there. You get to see your DC 6 nights of the week. Not sure you should contest a CAO that you have agreed to, especially if nothing has changed. And there is the risk that you will be seen as the one being difficult and the father might get greater contact time.

The father still has PR and has every right to be in contact with the nursery/school etc. PR are different from contact times.

What is it your actually stressed about, you have no contact with the guy and contact time with DC is now settled.

[user1493413286]

What do you mean by access to his nursery? If he wants reports from the nursery or some level of phone contact with your sons keyworker to hear about his progress then that’s reasonable but there would be no reason for him to go there as extra contact would be in breach of the order. Also if he isn’t supposed to contact you how do you know this?
As part of the court order does it say your son is to live with you? If it does then he can’t go and collect your son from there but I’d give the nursery a copy of the court order and make it clear he can’t be released to your ex. As contact is saturdays there is no justifiable reason for him to attend the nursery. If your court order doesn’t say that and it’s just a verbal agreement I’d go back to court to have that put in.

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

Ineedfun
As I said before it is sad that this child should not be allowed to see his father. Maybe I have read the OP wrong but I can't see reference to a situation where the child is at risk. I see the mother has been on the receiving end of emotional abuse but that does not in turn make him abusive to the child iyswim. That is an entirely different matter between the 2 parents. With regard to nursery I don't understand what sort of access he wants? Is it a progress report for instance or is he wanting to show up and take the child. I have only commented on the information in the OP.

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

And the OPasked "can be take my child". The child has 2 parents here and has a right to a relationship with both of them.

[Sistersofmercy101]

What IS truly sad is that children are being essentially forced to be exposed to abusive people. This is sad because the children are essentially told that this person and their abusive values are acceptable.
Therefore these children run the risk of internalising these damaging values and behaviours and repeating them later on in their adult life. The cycle of abuse continues, all because childrens welfare is put behind the shortsighted and nonsensical idea that being a biological parent trumps being an abusive awful role model who children should be protected from following in the footsteps of

[HouseholdWords]

all because childrens welfare is put behind the shortsighted and nonsensical idea that being a biological parent trumps being an abusive awful role model

Particularly we turn a blind eye to men who are abusive. We are living in what feels like a hailstorm of evidence of men's abuse of women & children, but it's been normalised.

[lollipop7]

To all the people on here bleating that a child needs both parents and a relationship with both, stop for a second and consider this.

If it were YOUR child growing up in this kind of nightmare - witnessing psychological tyranny, terrible scenes of crying and arguing, emotional abuse, provocation , smear campaigns, latent violence and bullying, being used as a pawn to continue the mission to destroy their other parent, being physically hurt and terrified or humiliated and subjugated themselves but not quite enough to be deadly - then trust me you would challenge that supposition.

I'm going through it now.
It is hell. Hell on earth

CAFCASS have totally let me and my children down despite loads of evidence support from professionals. They ignored my MARAC forms, safeguarding risks You name it and decided "supervised" contact involved six hours a week being taken anywhere by my ex and HIS mother who hates
Me and wants them back there.

You go figure
But in the meantime don't trot out parenting cliches because the fact is creating a child doesn't give you the right to cast a shadow over the life cause they share
Your DNA

[flirtygirl]

Sistersofmercy, Household and Lollipop so true.
Im sure these people bleating on have no clue to the damage these abusive men do to their children.

A visit is never just a visit and noone listens when you ask for supervised visits.
These men will always use it as an oppurtunity to get to their ex through the child, giving the child untold damage.

Yet a child has the right to two parents and the dad of the year has a right to see his children. FO a child has the right to be happy and secure.

Anyone who has experienced da or ea will tell you that the ea was worse, so why are we inflicting it on our children? Only for the cycle of abuse to continue and likely carry on to another generation, as children grow up to repeat the abusive patterns learnt from their childhood.

I wish people with no experience of this situation would stfu and stop bleating on about men needing to be parents.

These men are not good role models and parents and need to be cut out like the cancer they are.

What finally made me leave my abusive partner was the harrowing stories of mumsnet outlining the effect that their childhood had had on them 20, 40, 60 years later after being brought up in an abusive household.

The damaged children too often grow up into damaged adults even after the mother has left.

I was in the fog (fear obligation guilt) but now i can see clearly what i had to do to protect my children. I left and im divorcing and im moving as he is so dangerous and toxic.
Now society is telling me and women like me, to put them back into weekly harms way and myself too.

No im not doing it and when i move im going no contact for good.