to think family courts are a flaming joke!

[tryingtobeabetterperson]

I have read so many posts on here, groups on FB and other forums of desperate women who have left abusive partners to protect their children just for the courts to award contact and the abuse continues because unless it becomes physical the courts seem loathe to make contact supervised.

I know all about children needing fathers but even abusive ones that will hurt them or screw them up emotionally??

/rant

Spero its not my case i am talking about when i was a foster carer it happend it still happens children travell for hours for contact

Also with my own case with my ex who poped up after 10 years i was told this very clearly that the only thing stopping contact would be my ds telling crapcass he didnt want to see him that if ds was yound contact is heavily favoured and that a brief window of indirct contact would happen followed by dircted contact

Not true spero, they are only interested in previous convictions.

Not true, not true. They are interested in evidence of past behaviour. A conviction is clear evidence, so too are doctors reports, school info, witness accounts.

Well I wish I was in your area. Fighting for contact is an uphill bloody battle in every case I do.

Spero i wish i could they are costing me £80 ph

I was told the courts on the whole dont want to hear about historic behaviour and are only interested in how contact can be started

I have been told the fact he has never paid a penny to me whilest his other daughter attends a private school will fall on def ears

His conviction for dealing in crack will classed as erelvant has he has done some crappy drug course in the jail

They said the only thing i have on my side is the fact i have kept ds in contact with his side of the family will put me in a good light

And the fact ds is 13 :(

What does probation say? You can't just 'do a course' - you have to complete it and demonstrate some benefit.

Of course past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour so I a astonished that people believe this is simply ignored.

Of course everyone is allowed to demonstrate they have changed but they will have to show this.

There seems to be this belief that the courts simply rubber stamp contact - nothing could be further from the truth in my experience. I act for men and women so I think I am exposed to the wider picture.

At 13 his wishes and feelings will pretty much determine the outcome. At this age they cannot be 'forced' into contact.

We seem to be having a trial by anecdotal evidence!

Thanks Domjolly and Hoping for your experienced and knowledgeable posts. Spero please stop patronising me. You are putting words into my mouth - I am not "being naive", I do not have an "unrealistic view" and I am not "polarising views that all men are aggressors".

I just quoted the FACT that in 90% of cases it is the FATHERS that leave the children. Mothers generally don't.

'I just quoted the FACT that in 90% of cases it is the FATHERS that leave the children. Mothers generally don't.'

Rubbish.

90% of resident parents are mothers, it doesn't mean the father left.

Trial by anecdote isn't helpful. But I have hundreds and hundreds of 'anecdotes'.

Polly - sorry you think I am being patronising. But read back what you have said about the state of motherhood. It is utterly unreal and idealistic.

Dom I think you must have misunderstood my post. I apologise if I wasn't clear, I'm trying to type and toddler wrangle at the same time so am probably not being as precise as I could be.

I did not mean that an absent parent, if proven to be absent through their own choice and had made no effort to have contact during that time, would never be allowed contact. Whilst I agree that someone who buggers off for years when there is the hard work of child rearing to be done and swans back in when the child is old enough that contact would be fun days out for the absent parent with a well brought up, nicely mannered child to show off to their mates should bloody well have to explain where they were during their absence and why they have suddenly reappeared, I do not at all think it should be a blanket ban of, say have no contact for 4 years, kiss goodbye to seeing your kid again. Quite aside from the fact that abusive exes would simply check in every 3.5 years for a day just to keep the option available to them, it doesn't allow for redemption for parents who lost their way. A 'one size fits all' policy would be utterly wrong for, say, a heroin addict who kept away from the child because they weren't fit to parent them, subsequently had help, got clean and spent time working on rebuilding their life so they could be a positive influence on their child. Should that person be denied the chance to be in their child's life, and the child denied the opportunity to start to build a relationship with their parent?

Unless there is a real safety issue that preceded the lack of contact, then I do think it is right that some form of contact take place. As Spero said, that should be indirect to begin with to introduce the idea to your child gradually but assuming that goes well and your child wants contact then I'm afraid I don't see any reason why it shouldn't happen.

Spero I think you'll find the plural of anecdote is Anecdata

Interesting though... When does my experience of hundreds of cases over many years tip over from mere anecdote to hard data?

There is such a divergence here between different people about what is really going on that I don't know how to explain it.

Well I didn't know that. Every day's a school day. Anecdata. Now to find somewhere to use it

Not you Spero! I meant other posts. You along with other practitioners will have a broader view. Sorry that pist should have popped up earlier in the discussion but took ages to load so it looks odd where it is!

*post not pist. Fat fingers

From my point of view, each case you have experience of would be one data point. Those data points could be grouped according to pre-set characteristics such as whether your client was male or female, applicant or recipient, abuse alleged or not, type of abuse if relevant and outcome, then a statistical test done to see if there is a statistically significant difference in outcomes or if it is merely perception. However since all your cases have one major commonality, you, they could only be viewed as one subset of data in a larger picture. To be classed as reliable, actionable data your subset would have to be added to that of hundreds of other subsets and further statistical tests run in the resultant figures, to weed out confounding factors like geographical location, income level for clients, observer bias and the like.

It would be fascinating to see the results but really, who can be arsed to collate all that?

I have often been accused of being brainwashed by the system or just offering up anecdotes - but I would really like to know why there is such a disconnect between the system I know and the experiences of others. Something is going very badly wrong.

Maybe it is just the general inability of the courts to deal with emotional issues. I don't know but it is really worrying. The men's groups say it is all in favour of women, the women's groups say opposite. Clearly not both can be right but neither have any trust or faith in the system.

I think its not helpful to start calling brain washed i think everyone has ther own experince to bring to the conversation

www.familylaw.co.uk/articles/Cafcass11112010-5642

I wonder if it is an issue of perception and belief. Both parties believe they are in the right for whatever reason. An abuser may not see their actions as remotely wrong so feel that they are being unfairly kept from their children. The victim of an abuser may want to keep their children as far away from harm from the abuser as possible so feel that no contact at all is the only correct course of action. Neither party is likely to be happy with a compromise so both feel aggrieved at the outcome and feel they were treated unjustly.

The abuser goes back to his support circle and tells his tale of how the court listened to his bitter ex. The victim goes to her support circle and regales them with how the court are putting her children at risk. The court feels it has done the best it could with the information and law available to it. One case, one outcome, three very different viewpoints of it depending on the bias of who is retelling it.

Hoping, Ithink you have it in a nutshell.

I agree with most of that article Domjolly - where I think we disagree is that I think a lot of the problems are structural due to under resourcing - there was a massive increase in care apps after Baby P so lots of CaFCASS energies diverted to care cases.

S I think that sometimes they do a poor job, not because they don't care or they prioritise contact at expense of children, but simply because they are overworked - hence phone interviews or not reading reports, neither of which is good practice.