Financial abuse?

It’s not financial abuse, it’s just life parenting with an ex. No court will force him to see his child and they can’t do anything CMS can do

OP Court is a waste of time for you. A Child Arrangement Order lists the times and days that you have to make your child available. It’s not a list of times and days that he must pick up the child. A CAO means that you’ll be able to make plans with dc because you know when dad won’t be having him but as he doesn’t have to turn up, you can’t make plans for just you because you don’t know if he will turn up or not.
You will potentially be in legal trouble for not making the child available. He will face no legal consequence for not turning up.

TBH I would be more concerned about the conflict of interest in you working in HR but accessing his information. I hope your employer is aware of the relationship and the risk of you abusing access to information about him for your personal gain.

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Name and shame him on the local Facebook

I can absolutely see that he’s using financial control and he’s getting some sort of pleasure out of it. My ex was the same during our divorce, he was on £200K/year whilst I was on a 5th of that and had our kids 100% of the time but there were months when he claimed he couldn’t afford to pay me. The more angry and frustrated I got with him the more trouble he caused me so in the end I had to just keep communication to a minimum and completely emotionless. It’s hard but it’s the only thing that seems to work, these sort of horrible people feeds off of hurting people.

he never said he wouldn’t have his son

the OP assumed because he didn’t respond to the repeated question

That is definitely not financal abuse.
He would have been told to stop paying you once you went to CMS as you could argue that was not maintance but a gift when he gave you money.
A lot of people can be on contract work earn very well and work hard for a few months then take a break not uncommon.
Confused by you going to court over him seeing his kid if he keeps cancelling court can't make him see them.

That is not okay of course but the reality is if you take it to court and he’s not working then he’ll be told he has to be £0, and if he says he doesn’t want any time with your child no court will force him, so you’ll be no better off.

Your child's name is shown in a message

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court aren’t going to force him to see his son op

He's a shit dad not financially abusive.

As others are saying you come across as trying to provoke a disagreement. Shit as it is we have to keep our cool and use tact when dealing with shit fathers because if you get his back up and turn it I to a fight only your child will suffer. Also if you piss him off he can walk away and never look after the child and you honestly cannot rely on CMS to take the money from his wage once he gets a job, technically they can take the money but reality is they won't.

I have a shitty ex like this it's infuriating and you are not unreasonable to be frustrated but you absolutely must not let that come across in the tone of your messages. Short and factual with meaningless pleasantries like "hope you had a good Christmas" and grey rock all his attempts to rule you.

Yes but my understanding is that is a private arrangement.

What is the actual agreement?

It looks like he agreed to a certain sum(£500)? Is that monthly? Has he paid regularly so far? Is that money in exchange of you doing all drop offs/pick ups? Did you change that arrangement this month?

What are you actually going to court for?

on the basis of this thread
the Op tells absolute porkies

and he most certainly did NOT “tell” you he wouldn’t be having his son anymore

If he’s paying you £500 when the CMS would say he owes you nothing as he’s not working atm how much do you think you’ll end up getting?

What’s the court thing you’re both talking about? Court won’t award you child support. I don’t understand.

The picture from those messages is rather different to the one you originally painted. You’ve been getting money even though he’s got no income. It’s not his problem you don’t have a new job lined up. It’s not his job to give you money for savings.

It’s not financial abuse. Has he been paying you £500 a month but you’ve gone to CMS? That was a bit silly if you had a private arrangement and he’s currently unemployed or self employed.

He’s winding you up on purpose and you’re falling for his traps. He’s not committing to paying or contact because he clearly enjoys pissing you off and your replies make it clear that it’s working.

Stick to a parenting app so the conversation stays on track or pretend it’s a work thing. So when he says he might or might not see ds, tell him to let you know when he decides and don’t discuss it further etc

You’ve applied for CMS so stop discussing money until they tell you a number. As he’s living off redundancy then it’s likely to be low but it sounds like he’s the type who will enjoy having CMS chase him too so get ready for some fun and games like him changing his address, taking a series of jobs until CMS catch up etc

This is in no way financial abuse. Just a shit father. You need to calm down and be rational about the situation (and maybe look up the definition of financial abuse)

this poor baby

You come across worse than the dad. Your messages are very passive aggressive.

By those messages it looks as though provided you do the transport, he is willing to pay you £500 a month maintenance plus spend time with his son.

Is that something you could work with?

you relentlessly push this op when the sensible thing would have been to just pause