my friends ex is not letting her see her daughter - am trying to help her

[WhiteConverseSkinnyJeans]

have posted in aibu for traffic but if this bothers anyone please report and have it moved

there is quite a long back story so please bear with me

my friend (DF) has 4 dc, the eldest, is a DD, who is 9. DF was in a relationship where she was suffering emotional and physical abuse. She finally left him last summer and fled their home. She was placed in a refuge and was in quite a bad place psychologically, the children were distressed so Her ex, her eldest DD's father (who is not the man she had fled from) offered to take her DD temporarily. This was on the understanding she would come back and live with DF once she was housed appropriately.

However, he lied to DF and now does not let DF see her DD, he is blocking contact by not answering his phone. She has not seen her DD for months now and is very distressed about it. When she last spoke to her DD, her DD said she wanted to come home, her ex, however, says that she doesn't. He has also moved house 50 miles away and won't disclose his new address to DF, she has no way of contacting her DD other than through her ex's mobile number which he doesn't answer. She does, however, know which school her DD attends. I cant believe he has done this as, up until she went to "temporarily" live with him, his contact with her was sporadic, he never paid maintenance and was not really interested in her.

She has been housed now and is settled with her other DCS, who are in school. But she is still quite vulnerable and doesn't know where to turn for help and tbh doesn't have much support, many of her family judge her for letting her DD dad take her in the first place, I agree tbh but she did it in good faith and it's done now and I think DF knows that she made a mistake in doing that.

I know its an unusual situation where it is a dad keeping a mum from a child, its more common the other way round :( but it would be great if I could get some advice for her as I want to help but honestly don't know how. I just feel so sorry for the child who is in the middle of all this.

Worridmum you are talking shit on all counts.

It's not a foregone conclusion that she will get primary residence if her daughter but neither is it a foregone conclusion that she won't. She was the RP for nine years with little input or contact from dad, and his refusal to allow contact will not be viewed positively by the court.

Cafcass will consider the wishes of a nine year old in making recommendations.

The police would not get involved if she were to remove the child from school as she has parental responsibility. They wouldn't get involved if a male parent with PR did it either. They have no jurisdiction. I don't recommend it until she's sought counsel from a solicitor, but it wouldn't get her arrested.

no its not talking shit on all counts look at the legal section of the what happens to the male NRP taking children from school and refusing to give back to the mother ........ it never ever ends well for the male NRP.

If she goes to court they will asses whats best for the child but they will unlikely strip main residency from the father stright away and likely she will only get EoW access to build up to most likely 50/50 shared care I was just warning her not to do stupid things that would work agaisnt her when in comes to the court hearing as I do have experence in this field of law as I am a qualyfied family lawyer but hey ho tell the OP to do things while not illiegal will make her legal case far far weaker......

"If she was in refuge she can get legal aid if her income is low enough. There's a clause that exempts victims of domestic abuse from the recent cuts."

Will this still be the case as she will not be taking her abuser to court?

As far as I know, Boney. 30 minutes with a solicitor would answer that question for her, but given that her dd has ended up resident with her bio dad as a direct result of her mum fleeing abuse it's certainly a pertinent factor, not to mention the fact that bioD is behaving much like an abuser himself. As a worker I'd have been asking questions about the nature of that relationship too, to see if there were issues to resolve, it's well known that women who have been in abusive relationships often have had more than one abusive partner.

not to mention the fact that bioD is behaving much like an abuser himself

You have no basis for this assertion. You're going on an anonymous account of a hearsay account by someone who has not told the whole story.

"it's well known that women who have been in abusive relationships often have had more than one abusive partner."

As a generalisation this is a fair point, but it may not be the case here.

I also feel that there is more to this than the op is being told.

Perhaps the child is better of resident with her father rather than in an unstable household. But I think your friend should be allowed to see her DD. It sounds as if the poor DD had a terrible time living in a household where there was physical and mental abuse and yet her Mum had three DC's with this abusive partner.

She needs to get proper legal advice. It isn't a good idea to go wading in and removing children from school etc. There may be all sorts of things going on that you don't know about. And it can end up getting the police involved if it gets nasty between the adults. Never good for a child to get caught up in that.

The law in general terms is quite straightforward. there is a presumption that every child should have a relationship with both mother and father, provided that it is safe for that child to have that direct contact. the presumption can therefore be displaced by evidence of things that wouldn't make it safe - violence, drug use etc.

Legal aid has been removed from all private law applications - i.e. applications between private individuals like a mother and father, so not involving social workers, like a care application would. You can still get it if the person you are applying against has been violent to you, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

you have to try mediation before applying, unless you can show good reason to be exempt - for e.g. because you have been a victim of violence.

There might be some useful info here if she is worried about paying for a lawyer.

www.childprotectionresource.org.uk/category/legal-advice/

I'm going through a mildly similar a
situation as your friend, except I regularly have my ds... long story but it was also a temporary situation. I've contacted a solicitor and he's been helpful. I also have exdps family on side to. I really really feel for your friend, it's heartbreaking. Please give her a hug or whatever from me and tell her she's not alone.

sorry wrong thread and wrong poster, please ignore.

Tread carefully op - I know you want to help but this is very messy . I just hate to take a black and white view as the dad may well have his very valid reasons for wanting his dd with him and not in a refuge . Really sad but sometime I have learnt you cant fix this shit .

I work with a woman who left an abusive relationship and has lost custody of her son. It's heartbreaking .

Short term she needs to get acess and time with her dd and long term - well it might be 50:50

Why do you think her dd would be better of with her mum ft op? Given what you have shared ?

I mean this nicely that you could very dragged into this and it will do you no good

Yes, please do be careful. People can be very convincing when they tell you their story, not because I think they are deliberately lying but because they have come to invest in and believe in their own narrative.

I had a client who bought a friend to court once and I got permission for the friend to come in and support her because I could see that the friend had been told about 10% of what was going on and thus was giving her friend very bad advice and 'supporting' her in a way that was actually quite dangerous because it was encouraging the friend to continue in her delusion.

When we came out of court and the friend had heard the evidence, she was shocked and said she didn't know it was so bad, she hadn't been told anything about that.

But whether this man has good reasons or no reasons for doing what he is doing, if he won't change his mind, if he won't go to mediation or talk to your friend, I am afraid I think the only option is to do it properly through the courts and certainly not attempt any 'self help' like going to the school as this could back fire horribly.

Why do you think her dd would be better of with her mum ft op? Given what you have shared

I just think children should be with their mum, from what I have seen my friend is a good mum, I have known her a long time. and I also just don't understand why her DD's dad is so invested in keeping the little girl when he has barely shown any interest for most of her life up until recently. Mners usually slate these kind of dads.

I appreciate I may not know the whole story though and I am not going to be dragged into it, I just wanted to post to see if there was any advice that I could offer my friend

Thanks for the advice so far everyone

But this woman was in an abusive relationship. Why would any father want their child around that if they could intervene and have the child live with them?

I'm sorry OP but if I found out my stepchildren (no DC yet) were in an abusive situation, DP and I would do everything in our power to have them removed from that and living with us (with their mum having contact, ofc). But I wouldn't want them to go back and live with their mum until she was settled and secure on her own again.

Surely it's parental instinct to protect your child? I wouldn't think he was much of a father if he knew his DD was in an abusive household and just left her there.

I know this is a massively difficult and triggering issue in child protection cases - the perception that a woman is 'blamed' for being the victim of abuse and punished by having her children taken away.

I can understand how that perception arises as the court may well find that if you were in an abusive relationship that exposed the children to violence, you have failed to protect them from this, even if you yourself were the one getting hit.

I can see how this can be very difficult for those in violent relationships as it is often a very difficult and long drawn out process to escape. But I am afraid if you stay in such a relationship and children are frequently exposed to hitting, shouting etc, you may find yourself criticised for not getting them out of that environment as soon as you could.

My DBs ex did this - moving 50 miles away turned off phone - first he knew when he went to collect his DD from school for his normal Friday pick up. School told him she'd left!

I'll never understand the mentality of people like this (unless there is DV involved of course) they really cannot care for the mental wellbeing of the child. And in DBs case when it eventually went to court all of this went very badly against his exP.

DB didn't have residency but he had parental rights - so on that Friday we reported her missing to the police - because she was technically missing from where she should have been even though we knew she was somewhere with her mum, they did log it and they actually traced and called the mother to tell her to make contact with DB that evening. He was able to talk to DD and at least let her know he cared for her. We also contacted SS in the new area to let them know that a child had been moved into their patch with acess being denied - it rang alarm bells so SS called exP and advised her to contact DB and became 'involved with the family'

It's very hard work. I was on the phone in DBs behalf for several hours a day for the first week - chasing up things but persistence pays off. We were careful to log each call and get names of people we spoke to. You'd be surprised at how many times people who may have sounded a bit 'meh' suddenly remember things that they can/should be doing to help when you ask for their name.

Based on what you have told here I'd go with DF to local police station. Log all of this in a statement and explain how worried she is. If she's had no contact with her DD the child she's only got exP or whoever's word that DD is attending school, DD could as far as she's concerned be dead, being kept against her will, or in another country - they will investigate or at least take a statement which is evidence she's tried to find her child.
Call SS and explain - I know not everyone likes SS involvement but your friend does need help.

Then get legal help a free 30 min session,I'm sure SS can advise on this process too.

Start today! Don't let anymore months go by. DF may be vulnerable and stressed and scared but if she wants her DD back home she's going to have to drag up whatever tiny ounce of strength she has to get her.
She's lucky to have you helping her. You're a good friend.

OP has not answered a lot of key questions. Why has df waited so long and done nothing about the situation, contacting police or SS or the courts? Why has she not gone to dd's school, introduced herself as the mother, told her side of the story and then met with dd after school? She does not need to go to the school and take dd away; she could meet her on the playground and reassure dd that she loves her, tell her they have housing, say a bed is waiting for you and I love you.

Itk

I honestly don't know, if it was me I would no way have waited this long