Stepchild contact problems

[Ellarosejay]

Hi

I have a few questions which I would appreciate anyone with any experience or knowlege helping me with.

My partner of 4 years has a son who is seven years old, before I came along my partner was only allowed to see his son for a few hours every saturday, once we moved in with each other he was allowed to see his son fortnightly from friday to sunday, we had a few problems along the way with his mother being very demanding, such as he apparently needed his own bedroom at our house for 4 nights a month as it wasnt fair that my daughters (who live here constantly!) had their own rooms and he didnt, so rather then argue we gave up the study and decorated that for him, then his mother kicked up a fuss that my eldest daughter has a tv in her room and it wasnt fair that he didnt so we brought him one! One weekend my daughters and I went away so it was just him and his father at our house, however the day after he went back to his mother my partner had a phonecall to say that my daughter had kicked him so hard on the leg that he had a great big bruise, after my partner explained that this was impossible as my daughter was in a totally differnt county for the whole weekend the story got turned around to say that my partner done it to him! She took him to the police station and had it photographed and he had a phonecall from the child protection unit, who said that they were just phoning him as it is routine as his name was put forward to say that they were happy it was just a bruise in a place children get bruises. She now says that she has a report from the social services saying that he has been warned, so here is my first question: If such a report exists surely my partner should have a copy?

Everything was going well for about 9 months then after his 7th birthday and his mother had a new baby which was 3 months ago his mother said he no longer wanted to come to our house as he did not like me and my daughter, this was news to us and to this day no reason has been given he just doesnt like us. My partner has offered to travel up to them to take him to the park for an hour once a weekend just to get some precious time with him which looked like was going ahead until the night before when she called to say he didnt want to see his father as he was borring.

It is now three months down the line and he still doenst want to come as apparently he does not want to go out (we do make a point of doing days out when he is here so that he has fun, starting to think that was a bad idea!) and he has now apparently told his mother that his father hit him when I told him to, which is absolute rubbish. My partner would like to file for a contact order to see him but after a lot of research I wonder if it is worth it, if the mother decides she doesnt want to comply with it can it be enforced? What if anything else could be done?

He is such a good father it breaks my heart to see, any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

[Ellarosejay]

Also is there a minimum age that the courts would take a childs opinon into consideration and would they be trained to know if a child was just repeating what a parent had told them to say?