Hi all,
This is my first post and couldn't find the right category so not sure the AIBU is the correct one so please bare with me as I am in desperate need of advice and feedback from people's experience.
I've got three children, the eldest two from one father. We separated five years ago and get on very well. I have a baby girl with somebody else who turned out to be a violent drug addict. It's been two years of hell with everything ranging from threats to kill (NFA by the police as it was his word against mine), other threats (he reported me to the police for crimes I obviously committed - they never even interviewed me about it). I took a non-mol order two years ago at the beginning of my pregnancy, he apologised around the baby's birth and told me he had changed (eg no drugs) and I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt but he went back to his old ways within a few weeks.
Anyhow long story short, he has now been arrested and charged with three counts of harassment and the trial is early May.
My question is as follow:
If he were to try to go to court for access to the baby in the (near or not) future, do Family Courts look at domestic violence/ behaviour outside the family court to decide on access?
He has two other children from a previous relationship, had custody of the then 13yo who is now 18 but has not seen his younger child who is now 10 in three years on court orders. Even supervised visits have been declined.
He is not on the birth certificate (pls no bashing, it was probably the best decision I ever made). He has never shown any interest towards the baby, only to try to control me but as much as it pains me to say, he doesn't love her. He's never contributed to anything financially or else towards her (which is ok with me).
Based on this, can Parental responsibility be refused to him?
Before people start telling me that i knew how he was and that I made my bed and should lie in it... no I didn't... He was quite put together when we met and like most abusers, he was very good at projecting the perfect image at the beginning.
And as we are in a AIBU thread, AIBU to feel completely deflated, alone, disgusted with myself to have fallen for somebody like this and to sometimes finding it hard to be carefree (as much as I try for the kids).
Thank you very much for ay kind of replies you can give me.