to wonder if contact is always in the best interests of the child

[paddleduck]

Before I start I should say, I have no first hand experience, obviously do not know these people personally and accept my opinion may be unreasonable given the above.

Yesterday I took my dc to a soft play with some friends. While there a set of grandparents came in, closely followed by a couple and another boy of school age. The grandad was carrying a little girl of about 3 or 4 who was hysterical. She looked petrified and was clinging to her grandpa with white hands. She couldn't breathe for her sobs and she was drenched in her own tears. She just kept screaming 'I want to go home' 'no no no' and whenever the man from the couple approaches her, she begins screaming 'no please.. go away.. Don't want you!'

I found it so difficult to listen to her sobs, it really made my heart ache for her. Her grandparents kept cuddling her and talking softly, periodically trying to put her down and encourage her to engage with this couple. The woman part of said couple just kept standing around with her hands in her pockets rolling her eyes and huffing, man kept doing silly faces etc trying to engage little girl.

Any who, my friend visits this softplay weekly and said she'd explain when we left.

Friend explains that it is 'contact' .. The man is her dad. Woman is new wife and school child is new wife's son from previous relationship. Older couple are paternal grandparents. Dad was violent and hurt the little girls mum, so they have split and grandparents meet with the dad for supervised contact weekly. She says this softplay scenario happens every week for around 8 months now, with the little girl being distraught at every visit. - she knows this because the mother of the little girl is her aunties life long friend.

I found the whole thing so upsetting to watch and haven't stopped thinking of that little girl. The more I consider the situation the more I feel that after so long of these awful contact sessions, it would be in the child's best interests for the dad to leave her alone. To remain contactable for when she is older, if she wants to.. but that if a child finds being in your presence that distressing then that's not good to keep putting g her through that. I understand how difficult that would be as a parent. . But I almost felt it was selfish of him to keep pushing her like that. Long term she will anticipate the meetings with anxiety and they may never make progress like this? Of course he could have just not been a violent partner in the first place and my disgust over knowing what he's done makes me want to say he doesn't deserve access.. but if he's getting it someone obviously deems him not a risk to the little girl right? And presumably he has PR

Anyway. . Am I bu to think he should walk away?

How would you pursue a no contact order

but how do you define safe contact Wakey?

One of the last contact orders we had was that contact be supervised by DS' godfather who has always refused to take sides and has made it clear his only interest is DS' welfare, at no point was DS to be alone with his father and DS adores his godfather, physically there was absolutely no danger to DS, he had a big man who he trusts there to make him feel safe and most people would consider that to be safe contact, however by that point DS was so damaged by previous contacts and so afraid that there were literally no measures that could be introduced to make contact work. (although i do wonder if his Dad had accepted that solution when I suggested it at mediation 5 years earlier whether they would now have some sort of relationship as the bad contacts wouldn't have happened.)

If a parent has been violent and abusive in the past, or is indeed, still violent and abusive towards others, that does not preclude the child from having "safe" contact with that parent. This is what supervised contact achieves. It ensures the child remains safe from abuse and harm during contact.

I understand the point you are making.

And I still disagree with it.

Adikia hope your ds is now ok, sorry you both had to go through that.

but how do you define safe contact Wakey?

Does WA not define it in the report which is quoted above? Presumably, it varies from situation to situation, but the WA report is clear:

"When both your children and your ex-partner (the non-resident or 'absent' parent) wish to see each other, and this can be arranged safely and without major problems, this is likely to benefit everyone concerned."

Its clear that when is comes to this issue, WA does not represent the views of all victims, some of whom believe that no contact is better than contact.

Aeroflotgirl the counsellor was through camhs, arranged by the school and she referred to the psychiatrists, I paid for the first assessment, his father for the second, hoping it would contradict the first.

I stopped contact and was taken to court, I then kept refusing any contact and breaking court orders, stalling until the psychiatric assessments were ready, as I said I nearly lost DS doing it, I also had an enforcement order and was fined for contempt of court twice, there was also a suspended committal application, meaning i was one more missed contact away from going to prison. It's not a route i would recommend and no contact orders are extremely rare. DS' father is a convicted paedophile and DS was conceived through rape when i was 15 (his father was 22) you have to have extremely strong evidence that there is absolutely no way of facilitating contact and have exhausted all forms of supervised and supported contact before a judge will even consider it.

Even then mine is only no direct contact, the judge made it very clear that DS still has to be given his letters and parcels and that he does still have a right to a say in things like choice of secondary schools.

Best bet is to talk to a solicitor but be prepared for a very long and costly legal battle and know that it is very much a long shot and the more likely outcome is a change in residency.

I think the law regarding this needs a huge overhaul. Maybe MN could work with Gingerbread and Women's Aid to do something to protect children?

Ds's father didn't see him frequently so I waited until ds was old enough to decide on whether to continue contact for himself. His father's only seen him 4 or 5 times since ds was 3 (he's now 15), and he wasn't as bad as some of the ex partners some people have written about on here (just a drunk bully). It's very hard to get that balance.

Does WA not define it in the report which is quoted above? not really it just says contact is beneficial when arranged safely with no major problems, not whether they mean physically safe or safe from emotional harm or what they consider to be a major problem, it's basically saying contact can be positive if handled right and if the child wants to see the NRP, which it doesn't sound like the child in the OP did.

It's ridiculous that you had to go to those lengths just to protect your child.

Thanks Bongobaby, hes doing brilliantly now, when I came home and told him his face lit up and it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. I'm slowly coming to terms with it all and have had so much support from his school, especially the HT.

I'm speechless at the process you had to go through Adikia.
You nearly lost your ds because you wanted to protect your child and keep him safe. Wtf is wrong with the family courts and Judges putting children through this.
I say again are these judges trained in aspects of dv. Even though clear cut evidence was put infront of the male judge at last hearing the judge said we need to be clear about what Bongo is complaining about!

Goodness, Adikia That sounds so stressful for you. Your son must be really proud that you're his mum

Someone needs to do something. Far too many children are harmed and it's unnecessary.

I also don't think that child contact matters should be held in county courts. One minute a Judge is sitting on a hearing about Rent arrears, evictions, small claims then the next that same Judge is sitting on a Hearing regarding a child's safety,contact. Sometimes with an abusive violent parent being the cause.

Are they not held in the Family Court? They are here. REMO applications are held in the family division of the magistrates.

Adikia - hats off to you for your bravery - that must have been so hard but boy was it worth it :)

The system definitely needs an overhaul, it's ridiculous when children's welfare is still put at risk by being handed over to an abusive parent (male or female) in an unsupervised setting, and they can do plenty of damage even in supervised contact - snide comments, undermining the other parent, threats, putting fear into the child etc. It's horrifying :(

My hearings have always been heard at County Court and this has been for years. I do think that it would of been better to of had it heard in a family court setting.

The sad thing is I can see why courts need the evidence, I know women who have made up all sorts of lies out of spite and who have used their children as weapons or poisoned their minds against their Dads so I can completely understand why the judge couldn't just take my word for it, unfortunately I can't see a way of stopping women like that without making people like me suffer.

I wonder about the training judges have too, the first judge we had was clueless but in fairness assigned our next hearing to a more experienced judge, as he openly admitted he didn't have the training or feel confident in making the decision in such a complex case, the second judge was actually pretty good and I think genuinely believed he was acting in DS' best interests, hence he kept trying to think of ways to make contact safe and workable for DS but he still had to work to the law, he actually shed a tear reading a letter from DS at the final hearing and noted in the order that he was troubled by the case and hoped he had chosen the best of two undesirable options.

Bongo, how old is your DC? are they old enough to write to the judge with support from someone impartial?

DS' father is a convicted paedophile

That should mean automatic no contact and no PR.

I tend to think the same should apply to convicted rapists.

I do not understand the courts' thinking.

I studied family law, Nanny0gg. Their thinking (or what I was told by my lecturer) was that just because they had done XYZ, it doesn't mean they would abuse their child. It's the same with criminal law, previous offences are not mentioned during a trial so they don't sway the jury. Each case is treated as a first. In family law the relationship between the parents is irrelevant, it's how that parent treats that child.

Crazy. Leopards rarely change their spots.

As they say, The Law is an Ass.

It's move on since the Victorians, where a father would automatically get custody no matter what.

Thank you akaida very much. I am glad your ds does not have to see him anymore. I think my friends might have to do the same.

the justification we were given was DS is a boy, all the children his father has raped are girls.

I am Adikia