to feel so disheartened at the family court system

[currantbunsforeyes]

Ex has been harassing me using the courts for years. He's had prohibited steps order placed on me by making up lies that I'm a flight risk, appealed decisions, etc.... This has gone on for years until I was awarded sole res due to his ongoing harassment.

Despite this he's still taking me to court for shared res. There was a stay (prevention order) to stop him for doing this for two years but now they are up I'm back in court. The judge has asked for new hearing and agreed to ex's request to leave out old judgements from bundle! WTF!!! The old judgements shows how his harassment and constant harassing using courts led to me ending up with sole res.

I feel like there is no point, no consistency. I've been doing this now for eight years. PS I'm generous with contact. Dcs have alternate weekends and mid week overnight stays with him.

Are the family law court system that messed up?

Sorry, that comment should have been to Aeroflot! Sadly, I just don't trust anything they say in their manifestos.

I will vote Green but more of a protest vote than because I passionately believe in their policies (in fact I am not entirely sure what their policies are).

Spero that makes me very happy.

I am glad to cheer you up!

I think the reasons why the system fails are many and various and trying to pick one reason out of many and elevate it to the main or sole cause is not helpful.

yes, I am sure there are misogynistic judges out there. But not many, and they are a dying breed, quite literally. They will be replaced by others of younger generations and less blinkered views. I am sure there are some professionals who mimimise or don't understand issues of abuse but I hope they also will be replaced.

But I am concerned about what sock says in that she has noticed a definite shift in the quality of decision making in the last 2 years. I wonder whether there is a clear link there between the lack of legal representation for vulnerable parents.

Fwiw I think we need to start thinking how we educate and help people at a much earlier stage about abuse because by the time it gets to court its probably too late to achieve much. People need to get help to stop being abusive and they need help to get out of abusive relationships at the first possible opportunity. But I have no clue how we could go about achieving that.

Better mental health provision for children might be a start. In my view, most of the men who physically abuse are made, not born that way. I am not so sure about the emotional abusers. That is possibly a more complicated problem. They are usually highly educated and intelligent and know what they are doing and resistant to seeking help.

The problems are CAMHS are not always great.

Antisocial and Narcissistic types don't stop with therapy it just makes them more skilled.

I think recording meetings and handing out transcripts has its place, too much human error and room for opinion stated as fact in reports.

Thanks Spero, it really is about voting the best of a bad bunch, really, seriously there are only 2 definite parties, that gave a serious chance of getting in. Yes rather like Doctors and Nurses, you have to have some sort of emotional detachment or it will wreck you. There have been posters on here, who have horrific experiences, I do think about them and it plays on my mind . As a professional in the field, you have to distance yourself somewhat.

I agree Spero totally. There are those out there, I feel they tend to be of an older generation where women were second class citizens, thank goodness they are being replace be younger on the ball professionals.

I will never forget the cruel barrister in our case, she was worse than my abusive ex. I don't know if she was just a nasty piece of work who wanted to destroy me for her own issues or if she believed ExH. I am glad there are so many good guys out there.

I think recording meetings and handing out transcripts has its place, too much human error and room for opinion stated as fact in reports.

I absolutely agree with this.

Yes, I agree and more judges ordering that their judgments be published rather than hiding behind confidentiality. I think m ore damage is done to children by keeping family proceedings confidential than is ever caused by it being published that their father had an affair or thumped their mother.

I agree lotus, more transparency is needed.

You may be interested in the Transparency Project which has been set up to examine how the family courts can be more accessible. iPad won't let me link but if you google it it should be in first page.

There is definitely a move to publish more judgments, but as the TP notes, unless you also have access to the evidence at the trial, the judgments don't necessarily help you completely understand where the judge was coming from.

But I am concerned about what sock says in that she has noticed a definite shift in the quality of decision making in the last 2 years. I wonder whether there is a clear link there between the lack of legal representation for vulnerable parents

Ask yourself this, if someone can produce the same results without someone like you then what is the point of you? You know they can't I know they can't all but the most deluded folk know they can't.

Fwiw I think we need to start thinking how we educate and help people at a much earlier stage about abuse because by the time it gets to court its probably too late to achieve much. People need to get help to stop being abusive and they need help to get out of abusive relationships at the first possible opportunity. But I have no clue how we could go about achieving that

Just throwing out some random observations now and none of them negate the fact that in essence I agree with your thoughts,let's just say we have a couple where one party is abusive and one not but they have not yet reached a trigger point for the prep for abuse to be notched up and then they do. That trigger point is a pregnancy(given that is the most common one) the steps that tend to happen before physical violence start happening the overt isolation put downs ect ect and the pregnant woman reads these signs correctly and runs,what happens next? Well we have a woman about to give birth and the other parent is an abuser yet she has nothing at all to back her up with that, no evidence no nothing all she's got is the known behaviours that people in the field acknowledge lead to the type of abuse thst she would be able to 'prove'.so what we end up with is exactly the same situation only we have no smoking gun and a abuser sat there saying I haven't done anything.

Better mental health provision for children might be a start. In my view, most of the men who physically abuse are made, not born that way. I am not so sure about the emotional abusers. That is possibly a more complicated problem. They are usually highly educated and intelligent and know what they are doing and resistant to seeking help

I agree not withstanding I know several EA who are thicker than pig shit but it's the classic "what are you complaining about I didn't hit you"

One thing I like to consider and you may wish to at your meeting is how can we change the "we won't get involved it's a custody dispute" attitude that is rife when ever abuse without police evidence or prior SW involvement is alleged when divorce/contact is going through court. That attitude assumes the accuser is lying to prevent contact and hugely contributes to the problem.

Basically just completely described my case, the one and only time he hit me was when I was pregnant and I left. He maintains that he never hit me because he didn't use his fist (used his shoulder, to barge me right in my stomach) but apparently it's only hitting if it's hands/fists?

All abuse before that was emotional, financial, isolation and sexual. It was all repeated to a GP and counsellor 2 years before DD was born but my solicitor and barrister both said, abuse of me was not relevant only abuse of the child would matter. She was an infant then and there was only no evidence because he hadn't spent any time with her. Now he has and there is tons but the old, you've always been "hostile" to contact and are framing him card gets played.

hard

When my estranged husband best the crap out of me it had been brewing for years until he snapped I knew it was about to happen but did not run before because I knew I needed proof in the way of broken bones ect to protect us all from him in the future

needs that's so horribal that you had to resort to that, you had to endanger yourself, to protect you and your children, it should not have to be like that.

spero I am glad there is a push for transparency in tge family courts, I feel it needs to be. IMHO the psychological effects on the child of bad contact,as is evident in some posters on here, can also be damaging.

Obviously I did not incite or encourage him in any way I just did not run away like normal and let him get on with it and as soon as he had done enough damage and I could I got out of the house and made as much noise as possible so he could carry on in front of witnesses obviously best case would have been to escape when I got outside but I have mobility issues and couldn't so that's what happened.

With out the physical assault and conviction I would not have got the level of protection orders I have and he would have been back to refusing to leave our home.

I am very sorry to read it had to come to that for you to get away and get protection.

Trying to look at it as dispassionately as I can,it was purely because he was significantly emotionally abusive he used to kill my pets sabotage my work steal my money and repeated rapes that I was to embarrassed to ever tell anyone about but until I stopped running any physical violence stuff was pushing and shoving nothing that hurts to much and nothing that leaves a mark.

As far as I was concerned we had been seperated for several years at the point of the serious attack he had been told I was no longer involved in the relationship we had even been to court in an attempt to obtain an occupation order but I had had no joy. He was sitting tight hoping to make things so bad for me I ran away and left him with the bricks equivalent of a few million quid,I couldn't do that because it would have meant disclosing to the other people with a vested interest in the bricks.

On the up side it worked I got my life back granted he nearly killed me (setting fire to a part of the house) and I got hurt but by that point my life was not worth the oxygen it needed. I was dead inside so there was nothing more he could do to me.

The day before I had humiliated myself by having a personal conversation about my situation with the DV officer (as well as talking to my own solisiter)I work with who was very much of the same view about my prospects of getting shot of him without an actual evidenced violent incident and that the level of protection I felt I needed would need a pretty major incident.

Given that I have about 2 decades worth of experance of working with people experancing DV, almost 10 years of uni studying the subject and provide a lot of agencies with relevant training in the subject,how much more hopeless would someone else in that situation feel someone without my professional experance?

If it is any help my dc now are teens doing exams. They were in junior school when we went through court.

They remember CAFCASS what their Dad did and they want nothing to do with him. That is from their own memories of him arriving at contact and starting a fight wit them once I refused to stand near him And he couldn't start a fight with me. They remember him running off abandoning them on shops to chase Women, leaving them alone when he went shopping and how he left them dirty and how he had no food in during contact. They remember it all.

Let barristers and cafcass blame you, in years to come they will be nobodies in your lives and your children will remember. They don't stay little for long.

Really harrowing reading your situation socks , I am so pleased you are in a much better situTion now and you have come out of it the other end. You are amazing, and you have dcs with ASD to boot, which as a aren't of a child with ASD is nit easy at the best of times. Yes myArks it is you, that are left with the damage and to pick up the pieces, once the professionals have been and gone. It is you, who will have to be there in the long term and are left with the aftermarth, rather like poor hard and others like her, who will have to support a damaged and traumatised teen/adult, as a result of the decisions of judges wo award contact to abusive fathers.

Meant as a parent doh sorry

Oh my god sock :( :( :( :( xxxxx
And myarks xxxx

The judge in our case made the last order for no contact. My Exh didn't take me to court for him it was for contact between the dc and his ow. Then midway through he decided to accuse me of munchousens by proxy. The Dr Who diagnosed us gave the wrong information and has since apologised. The children and I were put through psychological assessments and had to release our medical records. I wasn't found to have any ludicrous mental health condition, depression unsurprisingly which is a comorbidity with our physical health condition. Since that time we have all been diagnosed with multiple physical medical conditions. What a bunch of bastards they now all look and are now on paper, shown for who they are bullying an ill family. The legal team dropped the Exh as soon as genetics wanted him to attend a meeting. He didn't turn up.

He abused us financially to this day as does ow now his wife and employer who defraud the dc from child support.

Lucifer will have fun with their souls.

Why the fuck is Spero on a mother's website arguing abstract concepts about biological imperatives?

There is a system in place (prostitution industry/sex tourism) whereby men can fuck women with impunity without any thought to the consequences. This is what men want. This is the society they have designed. As majority rulers men could get rid of this system... but they don't want to.

Therefore men themselves clearly don't believe any conception that may occur important to them. Seeing as men get to make the rules in society, it could be argued that they are acting out their biological imperative to NOT be involved in a child's life, and to basically leave it to mother.

Well, you don't get to have it both ways, Spero. When so many men are behaving like this, you can't stand up and plaintively argue that a father is important to the child. Children are psychologically better off without a person in their life who is hostile to the mother. A man MAY contribute to a child's quality of life but the second he begins harassing or abusing the mother then any benefits that may come from his involvement become null and void.

And it's fair to say that women would be happy to have a NON-ABUSIVE, HELPFUL father in their child's life because raising children is hard and expensive, but unfortunately a lot of men see children as their property and possessions, things that are to be fought over. Hardly helpful to a mother, really.