Can I break contact agreement trigger warning cp issues

[Chillyegg]

Can I break contact order if I believe there are CP issues1
Today 18:58 Chillyegg

So I have a residency order. My DD lives with me legally and goes for visits to her dads every other weekend. My dd legally lives with and has to return to me there is also a prohibited steps order in place meaning my Dd father can’t take her abroad. However I have to provide contact every two weeks. My dd goes to contact at her dads parents house and stays there mainly being looked after by her aunt.
On Tuesday my dd’s aunt was violently assaulted by dds dad in front of dd. She wrang me distraught saying she had wrang the police the children had witnessed everything and he’s taken the children out of the house with no clothes. He then wrang me screaming down the phone as my child screamed in the background with his son asking for mummy. The police found him arrssted him and my dd was left with her dads girlfriend who she has a son to. The house is shit hole. My mum and I got talked it to her house which isn’t two hours away. She came back very distressed. Dd’s Dad then sent me a spew of text and the next day saying it was my fault and that he had a right to see his daughter that dd didn’t see anything and that it’s a family matter.
I logged everything with the police and social services have a solicitors appointment Tuesday and have police ready to be about if he turns up Thursday to pick his daughter up.
Should I by rights be able to break the contact agreement on these grounds. What else can I do. I’ve blocked dds dad because he keeps trying to FaceTime and call dd. And show her things 🤷🏻‍♀️

Fucking right you do. What an arse hole he is. Keep her safe.

I think (and I'm no expert) you have two options, either wait for him to take you back to court for breach of the order, in which case I would imagine the court would think you had done entirely the right thing in protecting your DD. Or you can apply back to court yourself and make a case for (at least) supervised contact only or (preferably) no face to face contact at all.

You are absolutely doing the right thing keeping him away from DD and it sounds like you've done everything else by the book so I would hope the court would back you up and help you protect DD from him either way.

You must be raging and devastated all at the same time, sending you an un-mumsnetty hug, don't forget to look after yourself in all this

Your solicitor will advise you.
My guess is that you will need to go back to court to amend the order, and that in the interim you can suspend contact due to safeguarding concerns.

I stopped DD's contact for a similar issue as advised by the police and social services.

I was told by not doing so it could be seen as failure to protect, no order though and I've no idea how you could balance the two.

It sounds like he would rage against no contact and he may even dig himself into a deeper hole if he is being abusive towards you now, so keep on keeping records of what he’s doing. It’s legally not something there’s a straight answer to because it will depend on the decision made in court, in light of this issue, but you can of course stop contact and then he may or may not take it back to court and you would go from there. I would pre-empt it by taking it back to court myself and asking for the current arrangement to be halted due to massive CP issues. I wouldn’t be waiting quietly for him to apply back to the court, because I think by the sounds of him he would do that... some men just shuffle off and walk away and leave the situation. The fact that he’s harassing your DD after what he did, I think he would almost definitely go back to court for access, so I’d get in there first and put your reasons down first. I agree with pp and wouldn’t be giving any access at all either, I’d be dragged to court rather than abide by a non-workable and quite frankly dangerous court order. Incidentally, how come he got the prohibited steps order, is there a history of this kind of behaviour?

Hello, I am a family lawyer and yes absolutely this is a real CP issue and it doesn't sound like contact is safe at the moment.

My suggestion is that generally if there is an order in place and you want to change it, it is almost always better to apply to court to vary it. However, given that the police and social services are involved I can't see any court accusing you of acting in contempt of a court order if you stopped contact unilaterally, or at least until police/social services investigations have concluded. I would be very interested to know what they were advising, if I were your lawyer.

Not in uk but hypothetically this is what I’d envisage- you getting some form of crap at some point either way.

A) refuse contact, get brought to court, asked why (as the bad guy at this point) you chose to stop access. You explain and produce ss and police records plus texts. Judge either tells you off for breaking order or says you did the right thing to protect your child.

B) you allow your child to continue to see ex while you launch things in court. Court asks you why- if you had such concerns you allowed child to return to the situation.

Option a is better. Keep police and ss updated with anything he says or does. If he’s giving you abuse I’d bar his number, tell him you’re doing so to stop any further rubbish and tell the police you’re doing so. Then get yourself to your solicitor and get it back in court.

I cannot see any Judge telling anyone off for not adhering to a contact order in these circumstances but you will need clear information from both police and social services. Any judge will be critical if an order is broken for no clear reason. You have a very clear reason - but you will need to provide evidence for the court.

@Spero I’d love to introduce you to one I know of- his reputation precedes him if I say batshit logic and mysongny... I never take anything for granted these days.

There are indeed individuals - as there are in any walk of life - who behave in disappointing or even shocking ways.

But with a supportive police/social worker report then I still hope that 99% of Judges would take a sensible and pragmatic view!

Fingers crossed that is the case here.

Childrems services will likely be in contact with you and advice no contact.
Update your solicitor and stop contact. Arrange for a new hearing and provide logs and request a supporting letter from childrens services.

Your daughter will likely need support herself after witnessing violence. You can get in touch with your local domestic violence services who should have children's workers. Hopefully they have childrens independent domestic violence advisors (CIDVA or kidva) who can give one to one support to your daughter through appropriate means. Cahms don't provide this.