Cafcass lies, courts are biased towards women who have genuine domestic violence cases

[ishapp1]

I am a woman who has been through DV, the violence started when I got pregnant. Ex was obsessed with my body image at a tiny size 4, he demanded I have an abortion to which I refused given that we were married for two years . I went on to have the baby and he made it clear that that I’ll be solely responsible for the child’s physical and emotional and financial needs. I was young at the time and accepted this, when I fell pregnant the second time he beat the pregnancy out of me; I lost the baby.. By this time I was suffering from depression and seeked help in the form of therapy. A year later I fell pregnant again and this time The beating sent me into preterm labour at 26 weeks gestation, I still went back to him after he begged for forgiveness. I eventually left him for good when the second child was 3 months old, by this time I was a size 8 and was getting called fat everyday. I finally plucked up the courage to report incidents to police when he started threatNing me for leaving him. I became children’s primary carer for the past three years but allowed him to have children for weekends and holidays.
A year ago he had asked my permission to receive benefits in the name of one of the children for housing benefit purpose as he couldn’t afford his rent, I felt sorry for him but my family warned me not to trust him so I refused. After this I received several calls from police and social services about alleged numerous abuses towards children made by my ex and non was followed through. He was building a case against me by using my depression.
Four months ago after taking the children for the weekend he refused to bring them back at the agreed time, he text to say “see you in court” after I called to ask why he was taking long to bring them back. At the first court hearing he made so much allegations that the judge asked me to prove my mental health and other issues whilst banning me any contact, second hearing judge didn’t read any of our statements, ex didn’t have evidence but I had over 50 of them but I was self representing myself and his barrister got more chances to talk. He had claimed children were scared of me and not wanting to talk or see me, judge took their every word for gospel and ordered supervised visits. His solicitor dragged her feet to issue the order judge ask them to write up and ended up waiting a month until next hearing when another judge ordered supervised visits again and it took two months from previous hearing before I finally got contact.
Supervised visits went great as his claims were refuted, now Cafcass have written a section 7 report that only put forwards his lies as factual evidence without any documents of prove, I presented Cafcass with evidence put she warned me to stop sending her emails as it wouldnt be fair on the other party😦Then she told me anything I showed her as evidence she would not put in her report😔acknowledged him to be a high risk dv perpetrator, recommends he takes a course to reflect on his behaviour but also recommends that children stay with him as they have been through a lot and any change could affect their education and emotional wellbeing😭 and oh oldest child at 7 expressed in her wishes and feelings interview that she wants to be back with me❤️youngest is only 3 so she was not interviewed, but she disregarded the oldest child's wishes saying she was confused😞 She didn't do any investigations on my side in regards to the children's school they were attending whilst in my care🙄Now final hearing to take place next week.
My ex has used the courts to get these results and courts allowed him to continue the abuse, so for all you guys blaming women and saying court treats women claiming false dv highly. WRONG…
The family court can be biased on both sides. I could go on and on about the amount of fatual errors in her report🙅🏾 more than 20 errors😢 I I can’t think why they acknowledge his violence and abuse but yet favoured him.
1: is it because I was self represented?
2: is it because am black and he’s white (hate to use the race card) but I'd imagine had he been black this wouldn’t have turn out this way. The report
The only reason why they were forced to acknowledge his abuse was because there were mountains of evidences I presented but even that was not enough to stop the abuse that is still taking place in the courts.
PS: I am so confused with the family court system, please help me understand…!
I worked all the hours I can whilst kids are away ( I am also due to have another baby in a few weeks whilst going through all this stress) and now I have a representative... Thank God🙏🏾

I'll keep you posted on the outcome...

[ishapp1]

So supervised contacts went great☺️ They praised my parenting style more than I give myself credit for!!! Oldest child exposed dad for not facilitating phones calls that she request, children coming into supervised sessions in clothes with logos saying "I love daddy" (this guy wanted me to flip😫) My psychiatrist wrote a statement which explains no issues or concerns in regards to my depression and declared that the only thing that is grinding me down is ex's hostility towards me in regards to contacts with children.
Previous school reported that daughter raised concerns about dad's behaviour (didn't know this until it went to court)😕 It sad that he wants to drag them to court when most good fathers don't have the access to their children as he had. He had them for every weekend, half holidays during half term, gets to take them to his parents all summer holidays in a foreign country, doesn't pay his £19 a week child maintenance and he wants to wipe me out of their lives as if I was trash😢

[Starlight2345]

I wish I had something helpful to say. I wish you all the luck..

The system sucks..

I had a great CAFCASS officer who saw through my ex but seems I was lucky.

[ishapp1]

Lucky you had a good experience with a Cafcass officer... Mine was really bad, she refused to look at all my evidences from schools, domestic violence support services, police reports, family support workers, medical reports of dv, emails, basically everything... She said "it wouldn't be fair on the other party, like it's fair that the children have been taken from me in an ochestrated manner just to reverse the status quo🙄

[ishapp1]

So yesterday was the final hearing, I was convinced the judges will go with the recommendations that the Cafcass officer suggested... I searched the net far and wide and it was disheartening to see that it was rare for judges to not go with Cafcass report, I gave up the hope of ever being a full time mum to my kids...
At the beginning of the the hearing, my ex's barrister crossed examined the Cafcass officer in less than five minutes with 3 questions
1: why didn't you press the children more for why they want to be back with mum?
2: why are you recommending our client to go on a course for his abusive behaviour?😩
3:how long would the course take and where?
My barrister spent an hour cross examining the Cafcass officer, I lost count of the number of questions, she was forced to refer to every evidence in the bundle that she had initially refused to look at ( this officer knew I was self representing myself in previous cases so she was not expecting this for sure, she took advantage)
When my barrister rest my case, the judge looked at the Cafcass lady and asked? So Miss...., would you agree with mother's council that had you looked at all these evidences and investigated her side more thoroughly the outcome of your recommendation would have been different from the one you proposed for children to continue living with dad?🤔 She shamefully replied... Yes😒 I would have made a different recommendation🤗
So I am officially part of the few that got lucky to have a judge throw the Cafcass officer's report out and order a different Cafcass officer😳
Children would also have a 16.5 guardian ad litem. I get more contacts with children unsupervised and moving to weekends and half holidays until next final hearing...

So for anyone out there who is facing the problem of a biased Cafcass officer, just go through every paragraph and dissect each error, I was lucky that everything she lied about I had a piece of paper to refute it, my solicitor didn't advice me on getting more evidence but I made it my business to cover all areas eg Cafcass officer like I predicted would lie in court that she exhausted all resources to come up with her conclusions ... She never contacted kids previous school to check their previous attendance, wellbeing, progress or the support they would receive if the judge was to order the kids to come back to me😶 She lied that she contacted the school before my barrister slapped her with a letter from the school that I collected from the school on my way to the hearing that confirms she didn't make no contact😝 That was the moment she realised... damn this woman was right when she told me at our meeting that she would do all she can to get her children back🤗

[destiny180280]

I am going through court. We already had a final hearing and a section 7 where it all came out dad abused his children not just physically. However a week after the final hearing dad had the kids and took them to a theme park and left our 4 year old girl alone so hencan take the other child on a ride. My son told me and i tryed to talk to dad about it but ignored and didn't reasure me so I called social services they said stop contact however I told him I wasn't going to stop it. I just had words with him. A couple weeks later he served me with an enforcement order and said I stopped contact. Here we are again only it's a different lady now and she is very strong on fathers rights. I received the report yesterday and angry to say she twisted everything I said and lied about things I said I did. I cryed because she is saying I am isolating my children from him. The 2 elder boys don't see dad because he used to abuse them. Fair enough it's their choice. It also he had a new partner as soon.as we split. On the scene before we sit hmmmm. Only he tryed to force the boys to see her straight away and they didn't like it. They asked dad to choose between her and her kid and his own kids. He chose the partner. Cafcass say they have no right asking dad to choose. Well yes they do why should a child have to respect the parents choices but a parent dont respect the child. He follows my son and calls and texts even though they leave leave them alone. I left dad so the kids could be safe and happy. He even admitted the abuse yet now cafcass say they may take my daughter and give her to dad. How is that right or safe . It puzzles me really does. The cafcass report lied about loads. I can fight it in court but my solicitor said the judge has taken a disliking to me so we shouldn't upset her. She don't like me as I cryed in court as I said I didn't want dad taking her to see a frisnd due to this man twisted my son's arm. Bullied my other son to the point he has no confidence. As this man said he will never have friends no one will like him and he wil be gay. The judge said he can still take the kids to him because he hasn't been arrested for anything. So how am I supposed to protect my kids. I may as well have stayed with him at least I will be there if he does anything

[onefootinthegrave]

Sorry to read these posts. There's an event tomorrow for International Womens Day that some of you you might be interested in:

//www.facebook.com/events/145762909452360/

From what I've seen there are many injustices in the family courts, with violent fathers being given custody of their children, denying victims of domestic violence and their children protection. I remember the Women's Aid research, 19 child homicides and I know in several of those cases, the violent man was given access to the children they killed by judges in the family courts.

I really feel that many more mothers and children are at risk from violent ex partners. Surely there must be some way to make the family courts open while still protecting the identity of the children involved?

I am going to go, and wanted to let others know it's happenning incase anyone going through the same thing wants to come and share their experiences, and get support if they need it.