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Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

Lone parents

So fed up with the court system

47 replies

snowflakesandstrawberries · 12/01/2017 14:39

This is going to be a lost ranty post to complain about the injustice of court and to panic about losing my babies!

Left abusive exh in 2012. He vanished, then started court proceedings in late 2013 saying I had taken the children. DC refused contact. He denied DV. After psychologist report and cafcass interviews, FoF was stated as not needed and court agreed he had assaulted me on just 3 occasions but that had no relevance on the case and I had to stop referring to it.

Contact centre was set up. DC continued to refuse contact. Returned to court. Contact was increased, and to be at exh home. DC refused to go. Returned to court. Contact was to continue, I had to take children to him and leave him there. DC ran off and were generally hostile to him continually. Returned to court. Threatened with enforcement. Exh assaulted DS, I reported to police, exh denied. Returned to court. Contact time increased. Exh has now had me labelled as implacably hostile. DD remains unhappy at not seeing friends, not being allowed out (cafcass describe my taking them out for days out as doing it on purpose to make dad look bad!), extreme poor state of house, abuse continuing. DD calls childline. Other parents make reports to organisations. Return to court, where it is recorded that I made these people, including DD do this. Enforcement threatened, including switch of residency. DC becomes ill on exh day of contact, so I "force" him to take a day off work to look after her. Return to court. Change of residency threatened. Given a last warning that if anything else happens then the children will be removed.

Then I was assaulted in front of the children. I stupidly reported it to the police as I was injured (continued pain six months later). Surprise. He denied it. We are now returning to court, with the application saying I have made contact unworkable with my constant allegations and it will never work. As the police recommended, I contacted nspcc, who contacted SS - this has been described as me getting any agency to try to collude with me. SS contacted cafcass, who told them that it was being dealt with and this was historical so no need for them to be involved. Also, because the police records show that I informed them of previous dv when asked, I have broken the order that said dv never happened. At the first hearing, the judge called for reports etc and then ended with "and let's see if snowflakes can manage to not call the police again before then". He wants the children to be removed, with possible contact with me on a Monday and Tuesday.

I'm terrified I'm going to lose my babies. The DC hate being there, will have to move to failing schools and will never see their friends or maternal family. They have no toys there and aren't allowed out. They literally sit on the sofa all weekend waiting to come home. They aren't getting a say in this, as cafcass haven't seen them for over 18mths yet report to court that she sees them all the time and have a good relationship with them. When she does see them, she just chats about other stuff and never mentions dad.

To add to all this, he is fully funded by LA. I'm now in debt.

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bibliomania · 12/01/2017 16:11

That sounds awful, OP. Might be worth also posting on the mn legal thread, as there are some solicitors who post on there.

Are you happy with your solicitor? Might be worth talking to an organisation like Rights of Women, as at this point it sounds like decent legal advice is the most important thing.

Every sympathy as well! Have you had the same judge all along? I've had at least one judge who made some odd things but subsequently had a full fact-finding hearing with a different judge after which things got better.