To think that not paying child maintaince should be a criminal offence like tax evasion

[ReallyTired]

One of ds's friends has a father who is extremely well off, but has been terrible about paying maintaince. The man has taken no interest in his child, and the mother has found getting maintaince out of her ex is like getting blood out of a stone. The little girl is living in adject poverty because her father owes thousands. The man is able to afford a whole host of foreign holidays and can easily afford to support his daughter.

I feel that men who hide their income for maintaince purposes should be jailed. Even if they have second families.

[Mayisout]

I do think it should be an offence not to pay maintenance but wondering how these men who are the love of someone's life, who they choose to have children with can turn into such shits.

[BoffinMum]

I am perpetually astonished at the number of non resident parents who wriggle out of paying child support, and I would be keen for their passports to be confiscated and for attachment of earnings orders to be made easier for people to arrange. It seems a very weak area of law.

[ElectricalHoHoHoBanana]

My ExH paid (after a long struggle) for our two DDs (one has SEN) he hasnt seen the eldest (now 25) since she was 13 (he threatened her when she approached him about changing her name to my new-old-maiden name, he told her he would disown her if she did, she swore she wouldnt talk to him again. She was 13 ffs!) and he last saw DD2 (now 20 with SEN so stuck at about 10) 6 years ago- he just didnt turn up to take her out. he hasnt sent either a xmas, birthday or kiss my arse card since. BUT he did ring the CSA every birthday to see if he could stop paying for DD2....he is a charmer. TBH not a single member of their fathers family have sent them anything since he left.

And now he doesnt have to pay he has totally disappeared off the face of the earth. I saw a mutual acquaintance a few weeks ago and apparently he talks about the DDs as if he just saw them a few days before! I think he gets info from their cousin who is a FB friend.

he probably goes round saying i have stopped him from seeing them....i didnt have to do anything. he did it himself.

I have a new DH he is fab with my girls....a supportive and practical dad for DD1 (shelves, moving flats, cash) and a loving and patient daddy to DD2. DD2 says "old daddy didnt like me but my new daddy does" ....shit a brick....i dont know what i would do if i came face to face with him!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[ElectricalHoHoHoBanana]

i did once suggest he had the girls and i would pay him the CSA money .....funnily enough he turned my offer down...

[gettingeasier]

Well it took longer than expected for someone to pop up and ask why do women choose feckless men. Hilarious.

I agree with niceguy , if there were consequences to these men it wouldnt happen so much

I hope you and your DS have a better day today Amazonian

[Shabbatastic]

YANBU and of course it should be a criminal offence to wilfully neglect your own child.

The CSA have been at best utterly flaccid. They need me to locate him, provide contact and employment details. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? They have powers yet refuse to use them. If student loan co can locate me and take from my earnings, why can't CSA?

I think we need a MN campaign!

[meddie]

YANBU and I would love to see this become a criminal offence. Its too easy for non resident partners to walk away and conveniently forget their first children, go play the happy singleton and then start a new family if they feel like it.

[ChocHobNob]

Agree with Collaborate.

[Tanith]

I think the reason the CSA don't use their powers these days is because of the uproar in their early days when they were accused of hounding fathers and blamed for some suicides.
My friend was working for them at the time and had a nervous breakdown because of the relentless abuse she got from the parents she was dealing with. I know she wasn't the only one.

[corlan]

''Why do so many women choose partners who are arseholes who do not give a fuck?''

The obvious answer is that we don't think they will behave like this, anymore than you think your partner will behave like this.

The idea of blaming the single parent seems to be quite common - usually from the 'hard of thinking' amongst us. It's convenient, because then all you have to do is look down your nose at others,feel smug and not actually feel compelled to get angry about the situation.

[Booyhoo]

in the situation where a NRP claims to have no income (either not down to pay tax or claiming any benefits) they are being funded somehow. there has to be a paper trail of who is paying their utility bills and if they dont have beills in their own name then they must be living with someone who pays them. as much as i would hate to see partners of these neglectful parents suffer financially i think it should be possible to order that the person supporting the NRP should pay the CS. it might make people think twice about getting together with a shithead parent who doesn't take their own repsonsibilities seriously if the new partner knew they would end up paying for it. it could also reinforce the message that these children need to be paid for by someone and if the NRP wont then the person closest to them will have to.

i also agree with confiscating driving licences and passports from those parents who dont pay. they cant really afford to buy petrol or travel by plane/ferry if they cant feed their children so wont need them.

[FestiveElement]

I'm not sure someone else should have to pay the CS on behalf of an NRP, that seems a bit unfair. But the NRP should be accumulating debt that has to be paid back. This debt could stand until death, and then be paid for out of the estate if there is one and it isn't paid off in the NRPs lifetime. It should be paid to the state if the RP is claiming benefits, or directly to the RP if they aren't claiming benefits.

[Booyhoo]

i know. i struggle with the concept myself i really do but if they are financially supporting this person then they are essentially providing an income. i do think there needs to be harsher consequences and more effort made by CSA to get the money. if someone is willing to quit work and go without claiming benefits then they have money somewhere or someone is bankrolling them. this needs to not be an option for them and if making the person bankrolling them responsible for the CS makes it harder for them to avoid payment (and essentially get food in children's mouths!) then i think it should be an considered.

i'm not sure how allowing them to accumulate a debt til they die would be much of a deterrant. firstly, someone savvy enough to get away with hiding income all their life is also going to be savvy enough to set up their estate so that it looks like they aren't leaving anything to take the debt from. secondly, it doesn't help the person raising the children to get food just by knowing that the NRP has debt accumulating. unless something would be set up that the Govt paid any deficit in CS payments and teh NRP would owe the debt to the Govt but i doubt the Govt would go in for something like that. they know they would have to spend a fortune to recoup the money and whilst it's the PWC who is losing out ATM it's not costing the Govt anything so why would they take on a debt? nothing in it for them.

[Booyhoo]

oh i missed that last sentence in your post.

why would the debt be paid to the state if the RP was claiming benefits?

[FestiveElement]

Because depending on the benefits claimed, the state may well have paid to raise the child.

[FestiveElement]

I don't see why, in cases where money isn't recovered until the child is grown up, the money should go to someone who had to rely on state money to bring up their child.

Of course, if the RP was working and paid the majority of the child's costs themselves, then the money should be returned to them.

[izzyhasanewchangeling]

Its quite complex though, in our case, DHs ex claimed as a single parent for years when she wasn't - he didnt agree with this and he was listed for example on the council tax -as he paid that, all his tax records showed him as living there, there was no attempt at hiding on his behalf.

This was in the days when the CSA did chase NRPs where there were benefit claims so he was always worried the CSA would come chasing him for children he lived with.

He did not see any of the money, paid all the bills etc as if she wasnt claiming, the money did NOT go on day to day expenses or indeed the DCs - but DH was faced with shopping his own wife.

So under suggested things here, I would end up paying money to a woman who committed benefit fraud and subsequesntly did not pay for her own children.

And if you are dead, where is the right of appeal?

It would have to be very robust.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

The reason why you cannot lump none payment in with none contact inprisonment is because maintainance and contact are two different issues one should not impact on the other.

And its very rarely the same parents who are involved in both issues.

There are plenty of very valid reason to block contact ( obviously not if your being spiteful because that's not a valid reason) there are no valid reasons for not paying the small % with account taken for your own household arangements that the csa ask you to unless the csa have worked it out wrong.

And for information single parent does not automatically mean on benefits.

And nobody else should be made liable for a nrp's payments they are the parent not anybody else they hook up with.

[izzyhasanewchangeling]

we are talking about a woman who flew off the handle when DH claimed CB for his children and she is the exception rather than the rule, it did all catch up with her when she put in a claim for SC who was living with us, first we knew was when we had all our CB and TC for the children living with us (including mine) stopped, because of a duplicate claim.

[Meglet]

dococonut yes, with abusive parents then there is a case for leaving it alone and not rocking the boat by asking for maintenance. 'Luckily' I had the police involved with XP and had the CSA involved before he cut all contact, I certainly wouldn't have risked flaring him up by asking for money out of the blue. Even if I heard he was a millionaire I wouildnt ask for more, we can survive on what he pays and he doesn't bother us.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Izzy she sounds like a utter twat as well as a criminal.

[izzyhasanewchangeling]

Absolutely - obviously all this was a ling time ago - we've been married a long old time.

Of course she tells a different story and butter wouldn't melt these days - but the truth is the truth.

She would have you believe DH is a neglectful non paying father and it simply isn't true.

The damage she has done her children is untold - they all ha've massive issues - and I absolutely hold her responsible for that - they have spent years being punished for loving their father.

[TinkerMcJingles]

I didn't get a very good response on AIBU to this (but hey!!) I personally am annoyed at the fact that men, such as my ex-husband, who get large pay outs from their previous jobs (in his case over £50k) do not have to give a penny to their children. He is happily supporting his new gf and her children on this money but I don't get anything for our child. I am also not getting any maintenance so a double whammy.

I am totally in agreement with the fact that non residents parents who don't pay should be jailed. The CSA do not enforce their powers nearly as often as they should.

[flow4]

I do understand parents with abusive exes not wishing to claim maintenance... But if child support was always automatically due, just as tax is, and administered by HMRC just as tax, tax credits and benefits are, then this would perhaps take the emotion out of it. IMO, some abusive exes continue to abuse, even after the relationship has ended, by withholding maintenance. I would be glad to see this nasty little abuse of power thwarted.

[threerings]

If you stray into the congestion charge and forget to pay it then the powers that be will chase you down hunt you down for payment you are not getting away with it. Even the balliffs turn up at your door via the courts for unpaid parking fines. What does this say about society that a car is worth more than a childs upkeep.
just think of the daily charge of congestion charge is rated higher than the measley five pounds a week csa payments for a living breathing little human being child. The Government should be ashamed of themselves and so should the non payers of cs.
It offten puzzles me why any decent women would lie down with a man knowing that her new partner does not pay for his offspring by his exp.
A national advert should be run in primetime T.V of how these men ahem should be shuned by the public as the scum that they are.
And we should start a petition of making this a criminal offence all it needs is a hundred thousand signatures for it to be brought up in parliament so lets go for it MNS.