AIBU to refuse contact?

[SugarWay]

First time posting, on behalf of my friend who is asking for advice.

Her story is that she fell in love and got married and became pregnant and her daughter is now 22 months old. The relationship started going wrong when she was pregnant, lots of nasty violent things happened, and as soon as she could, she instigated divorce proceedings and the divorce came through about six months ago.

Since the divorce came through, her ex has become increasingly unstable and she has had to get a restraining order against him. He broke that, and so she changed her number and moved house. He followed her home from her dad's one day and then went through her dustbin to discover her new number from a pizza box. Police arrested him outside her new house three times and he has now got 12 months probation and community service.

It was a clean break divorce. He has not asked for any contact, nor paid any maintenance since the divorce.

Now he has applied for contact. My friend suspects this is only a ploy for him to remain in her life. She has refused contact on the basis of his unreasonable behaviour and that he has had dozens chances to behave like a normal human being and act like a dad. As she says "he is never going to change"

Now she has now received court papers from his solicitor. She is very very worried as she does not want her daughter to have any contact with her ex at all. She is even prepared to go to prison over it.

What advice can people offer? Does anyone have any similar experiences that they can share. What sort of things does a court look for when deciding on such things?

Thanks in advance!

mediation should not be used if violence is a issue,it also cannot be ordered if dv is an issue.

its very possible to get a no contact order if one is actually warrented. she needs to see someone from a domestic violence intervention partnership or simmerler service if her solisiter is saying this is not the case or is unwilling to present her instructions to assist her.they can help with court reports and helping her express her views to the solisiter

to get a non contact order (that will get reassesed how ever many times the ex feels like it till a judge gets pissed off with him) there still needs to be a risk to the child or mother. the recent amendments to the childrens act stating that dv has to be taken into concideration with child contact should make this a little easyer than it was a few years ago.
talk to justice for women they are a free legal service who specialise in domestic violence issues and child contact.

however she does need to asses if no contact is genuinly due to risk or because she would prefer not to deal with it, if its just not wanting to deal with it then contact center is the way to go.

if its genuine risk then just stick to your guns take every legal step you can to stop it,move how ever many times you need to and get the best legal advice you can use as many direct service provision domestic violence services you can shout about it from the rooftops make cams aware of all the issues and risks and get advocacy support with doing it.

feel free to pm me with your genral location county is enough and i will locate the details of any dv advocacy services in your county and the 2 ajoining ones (just incase you dont fancy telling me the exact correct county) it may take me a few days because im not in my office much but i dont mind.

But remember if he doesn't lose interest then a contact centre is only supposed to be for short term. The court will expect it to move out into community fairly soon.

If he has really held a knife to this child then I think he needs an urgent psychiatric assessment. If your friend agrees to contact now she is making her position re his violence a lot less credible.

ment cafcass as well as cams

A friend has a restraining order for life against her exP (he has been to prison for what he did) and despite the dcs witnessing some of his violence he still has access. However, she drops off at the ILs and they bring them back. She doesn't see him.

im not sure why i crossed out justice for women i ment to bold it.

im probally going to out myself now but i run a dvip as part of my work and have spent nearly 18 years providing domestic violence services (direct services as well as training and court testomony),yes violent parents get contact but a huge amount of the time its because of ineffective legal support.
in cases where the violence is such that it creates a significant risk to the non violent parent or a risk to the child what kathrinekathrine described is perfectly correct.
in a circumstance where a child was threatned with a knife i would go as far as to say with decent legal and dvip support it would be the most commen outcome.

The Police DV team were superb in my friend's case.

It shouldn't be seen as a 'game'. I think the police are usually pretty good, but if women don't report stuff or then agree to contact despite serious allegations, it can really muddy the waters.

I know that it can be difficult initially to break free and find the courage to tell someone but once you have, like the ops friend, don't piss about deciding on an 'approach'. If you think your child is at risk then make sure the court and CAFCASS know exactly why you believe this.

This is awful. I wasn't aware the courts were willing to put parental 'rights' over the safety of a child. He should obviously not have contact. Sorry i have no advice, just wanted to express my shock really. It's very surprising they don't take abuse to the mother into account, it's not healthy for a child to be around someone who has abused their main care giver even of they havnt abused the child themselves.

Still here, still thinking. My duty is to support my friend. She's done a brave thing to embark on this difficult course of action.

I need to decide whether to advise following Spero's suggestion of sticking to her guns "come what may" is the best course of action, or whether Kladdkaka's suggestion is perhaps the more prudent?

I think you should gently make her aware that he is likely to have contact. Get her to report everything and keep a diary

Also, to krum, it's not 'parental rights' it's the child's rights, as per the children's act. A right to know both parents

I think the child's right to be away from an abuser is more important. Knowing both your parents is not important if your parents are bad people.

Good morning does anyone have any further thoughts on this? I am still very much in two minds on this. Thanks again.

Does your friend think this wretched knobber's main motivation is to maintain contact with her? If so, bear in mind that under no circumstances can an adult be forced to maintain a relationship with another adult and by insisting on supervised contact and someone else to do the handovers she can prevent him having any access to her, which sometimes makes abusers give up and go away.
Also, a man with a history of abusive behaviour has to comply with supervised contact before he gets anything more than that; if he refuses to turn up when he is supposed to, he would have to demonstrate very good reasons for this to get the court to approve any requests for changing it.

Hello Solidgoldbrass, yes I think my friend does believe that is main motivation. He said as much when he had contact whilst they were still married, and he has not asked to see his daughter in any of his phonecalls.

The child has no bond with her father, to such an extent that when the last "ambush" contact took place, she even flinched away from her father.

Sugar

I think the easiest thing for your friend to do would be to say to courts / write to the solicitor and say that she has concerns about XP having contact with DD due to:
Lack of contact for 6 months
Knife incidents
Stalking behaviour towards your friend
etc etc

However, she would be willing to offer contact at a contact centre as a means of facilitiating contact. It is the responsibility of XP (or his solicitor) to source and pay for contact centre. State that she would be expecting the contact to take place at the centre for at least 3/6 months, upon which if XP had demonstrated a commitment to DD, it could be (subject to XPs mental health - i.e. no more crazy stalking) move to unsupervised in the community with handovers taking place at the centre.

Due to the restraining order in place (enclose copy) stating that XP cannot be within x yard of her, she will arrange for an appropriate adult i.e. family member to take and collect DD from the contact centre.

Again due to the RO and XPs unreasonable behaviour in the past she is not willing to enter into direct contact with him regarding DD, and mediation is not approriate due to past violence, however she is willing to communicate with him about important issues re DD via email only. The email address for him to use is xxxx@xxxxx

This makes it very clear to him that there is no interaction with your friend to be had, and if that is his motvation for contact he wont keep it up.

Excellent advice from MagicLlama. Because when an abusive man makes no effort to maintain a reasonable schedule for supervised contact, it shows pretty clearly that his intention is to make a pest of himself rather than build a relationship with the child, and courts usually see this.

FYI a dvip is not part of the police dv team they are in addition to the police team they often train and advise police officers as well as social workers,health care staff and courts as well as solisiters.
They are usually a 'one stop shop' intended to provide and assist from a multi agency angle and every staff member working for one will have constant access to the most up to date dv training availible to provide service ussers with support tailored to their suituation this may also mean attending court with you providing info to the court as well as anything else (housing advice ect) you personally need. And most staff there will at the very least have a masters in dv multi agency policy and practice,

No way in hell would I offer anything untill I was forced to,it sends mixed messages to the court it's like saying "he's so dangerious a real risk to the child he once held a knife up to the child and threatned him child is frightoned of him I need to protect child from him but I expect after 3 months at a contact center all will be fine"

With genuine dv and genuine risk to the child the onus is not on you to be reasonable the onus is to protect the child. The safety and justice for all legislation and the childrens act are there to protect you and the child

He has held a knife to this child and you ate still debating about approaches? Unreal.

If you agree to contact at a contact centre you are saying that you do not think he poses a serious risk. Then either this knife incident is being massively exaggerated or your friend is putting her child at risk.

He needs a psychiatric evaluation. I really don't understand what the debate is all about. If this kind of behaviour is found to have happened by the courts, it will be taken very seriously.

The difficulty I see with the with the knife incident is, I assume, its his word agains your friends? It happened 15 months ago, and it wasnt reported at the time.

I assume as hes unlikely to admit to doing it, and there will be no other witnesses (bar involved ones of the friends family) then its up to the judge whether it warrants a fact finding hearing. Its then up to the judge whether he finds this behaviour happened or not.

Even then assuming the behaviour is found to have happened, I am assuming (and its possible I am wrong) that supervised contact will still be awarded, as its still important for the child to know its parents, albiet with the risk minimised.

She also offered a contact centre immediately after the divorce, despite the knife incidents already have taken place, which was turned down, so why was she prepared to then, but not now?

KK..are you ILT?

KK, sometimes a little empathy doesn't go amiss.

Sorry not been online today. My friend is determined that the father should not have contact. She has been incredibly tolerant towards his behaviour until very recently, but the incidents since the divorce have made her determined that he should not have contact. From an outsider's perspective, it is clear that being nice and reasonable has got her nowhere. As a friend, I am trying to advise her as to her correct course of action. Thank you.

WRT mediation in cases of domestic abuse/violence they will consider you suitable for shuttle mediation providing she is willing. This type of mediation is when she would arrive before him (given different appointment times) and leave before him, and they would be in separate rooms. So would have no contact and mediation takes place in that way.

It was something I accepted to do (my ex chose not to pursue it after initial appointments, he was using it to see me)

Magic llamas, exactly. If these things are not reported and then contact is offered, it makesmthings verydifficult and potentially compromises the safety of the child.

Yes, some kknd of contact will be what the court aims for. BUT supervised contact can't go on for ever. A some point he will be taking child out, next step is overnights. It is very important you know just what kind of risk he is. He could be a nasty manipulative knob end who will give up when he realises he can't control his ex OR he could be dangerous enough to hurt or kill someone.

That is why I suggest psychiatric evaluation. If he is genuinely interested in his child, he will agree to be assessed or you can ask the court to set down a fact finding hearing.

I am also a trained mediator. I can not imagine circumstances where I would agree to mediate where there were such allegations of violence, shuttle or not. For a start, I would be worried about my own safety.

I too was in a similar position to your friend OP, my EX-P also pushed through for contact which i contested due to violence/drink/drugs (all of which the children witnessed). He was awarded contact at a contact center, This was almost 4 years ago. During that time he had another child who was taken and put up for adoption due to his "issues".
Now he is trying for increased unsupervised access with my children, i am trying to stop him with everything i have at my disposal, as he is still a danger. I was told by social sevices that if this was granted they would get involved, it is a nightmare all around. Court do not listen, at the last court hearing i was "told off" by the judge for missing one session. He misses loads, they shrug.
Women have NO rights in court, what your friends wants she is unlikely to get.

The reasoning is that the children have a right to a relationship with the NRP parent if they want it or not. No matter what these Fathers for justice people say, the courts are (in my experience) heavily weighted in favour of the NRP