Unreasonable visitation and moving away

[Stressedmamma19]

Hello!

The father of my child, whom I was never romantically involved with (I'm gay, and he raped me) has been granted parental responsibility and he was given visitation in a contact centre. He requested every 2nd weekend for sleepover and a night through the alternative week for a meal. We were building up to this, though I was against it wholeheartedly.

I recieved a letter stating he is now wanting week day sleepovers. My daughter is away to start nursery and he isnt going on her forms so therefore cannot take her or pick her up from nursery. He also stated he cant commit to a specific 3 days so my daughters expected to just be free whenever he has the days off work. I'm finding this very unreasonable. Is he likely to get weekday sleepovers??

We tried residential contact at a weekend a few times. She came home dirty, strange Mark's like bruising to her chest and a burn to her nose, and then a complete behavioural change. She went from sleeping all night in her bed, to screaming and crying for hours, no calming her. She would sleep at her door on the floor and needed to be as close to me and my wife as she could be. Because of all these factors we stopped residential immediately and the behaviours have stopped. Shes back in her bed full nights no crying and is pretty much her normal self again. So I'm also trying to stop sleepovers until shes old enough because it really did impact her negatively. However if a court was to grant it, could they grant any random days the father has free?

Also, me and my wife want to move away with our daughter. Still in scotland, maybe 50 miles away maximum. It's because we live in a small town and theres nothing here for our daughter. Theres no soft play, or groups just a small town with a park and a handful of shops. I hate being here, I cant bare banging into my rapist daily. Can he do anything to make me have to stay in our hometown? Theres nothing here for us,my daughter gets fed up because we cant actually do anything theres nothing here and we could move somewhere were theres more activities, choices of schools etc

Your psychologist is wrong
Report the rape ,report to social services as well.make sure the courts know you were raped.

How did he know he is the father of your child? I don’t get why as soon as you decided to keep the child you didn’t move far away before he saw you were pregnant.why are you allowing him near the child .
This should of been reported as soon as you decided to keep the baby .
I get your upset ,but your first thought must be for your child,who must not be left alone with a rapist .
I hope to god he’s not named on her birth certificate,if he is why?..

This sounds like a horrendous situation.

OP are you reporting all instances of your DD coming home with marks etc?

And unfortunately until there is a formal record of his rape then he cannot be treated as a rapist in terms of contact etc.

Whose idea was the overnights? Is it court ordered? If not, never agree to it again, if it is; then you need to be formally reporting the instances of changed behaviour, marks etc and making the legal case for it not to happen. If you don’t report all this formally the court can’t take it into account.

Crazyoldmaurice doesn't sound so crazy. Psychologist is YOURS and not your daughter's.
Would think your child's welfare would come second but it sounds like it does!
Run!

Omg how is this even allowed

How naive of me, I assumed children as a result of rape would have father access denied unless they were named on the birth certificate.
Just did a bit of research and Councils seem to encourage rapists to seek PR to support their right of family life.
What about the child?!
What about you?!
I think you, your wife and child would do better if you lived on the other side of the world and start a new, away from this horrendous man.

I have no ideas what the legalities are but in your situation, I would leave. Get as far away as possible from him.

Can I ask how he found out he is the child's father?

Please don't run away. The contact is court ordered so you could get in trouble.

Can you move 50 miles away but drive back EOW to the contact centre? Did you report your daughter's injuries and behaviour to SS when she came back? Please do so. Please kick up the biggest stink you can.

Huge sympathies about your PTSD, it must be awful for you. If you can find the strength, please report your rape. He won't be treated as a rapist until he is convicted of something. Could you report him in the new area where you are moving to? If you currently live on a small town you mightn't get the proper justice due to corruption, nepotism and police having their own knowledge of the people involved.

to you and your daughter. This post is horrifying.

For anyone asking, hes not on birth certificate but I was made to do a DNA test because he wanted to know my daughter if she was his. He was my friend, he knew i was gay so I dont sleep with men so the baby had to he his, he hasn't asked to go on birth certificate but hes never getting on it

I’m sure plenty on here won’t agree with me, but I’d just go. Move and don’t tell him where to.

^ This.

and the 4% who voted YABU, well I hope that was a mistake.

I'm so sorry for you. Sounds awful on many levels. You shouldn't have to interact with your rapist. He is a rapist and therefore should not be trusted with the care of a child. This is backed up by the response your child had to time spent with him. Based on these things, my advice would be to either demand he have absolutely no visitation or 100% supervised visitation where she is transported by the supervisors so you don't have to see him OR just run. Move far away and do whatever you have to so he can not find or hurt either of you again. Yes it may be illegal but if you are being failed legally then you do what you have to so you're both protected. Again I am so sorry, it seems so unconscionable that you have to face this.

Legally he could get an interdict to stop you moving away if he got an inkling you were planning to do so. Legally if you have court ordered contact you have to stick to that or you could be held in contempt, the worst case outcome being jail.

I feel for you so much. Did he raise court action to force you into a DNA test? I would absolutely be arguing against any increase in contact given the behaviour displayed.

I almost always advocate for both parents to be involved to amicably being up their child/ren, but not in this case.

Just move OP. I would make it as difficult as possible for him to ever find me or my child and be as obstructive as possible with regards to contact. Please do take this matter to court and report him for every concern you’ve had.

I hope you and your daughter have a happy future away from him.

So the police know he raped you but it has not be taken further? Is that correct? Why not.? (I know a lot of people find this and I understand it can be traumatic to pesue and does not mean by anymeans that it didn,t happen, )
If the child had bruses and burns then surely you reported them?? What came out of that? How did he explain a burn on the nose?
Ofcourse any contact needs to have a pattern and can not be haphazard best for now to stick to contact cenrte. If he takes it to court then you will have to decide then. Don,t just up and leave, ofcourse you can move away bu if court says you need contact you need contact. But you could say your too traumatised to see him and other arangements may have to be made but has you are talking to him and have previously let yur child sleep round his that may be hard to arque. AS far as ss is concearned at the moment he is accused of rape byt necesserily guilty so they have only your word to go on.

He's not on the birth certificate? If it were me, i'd (1) move and then (2) change all your names so he can't find you.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I would also do what previous posters have suggested and go through with reporting him for rape. I know how terrifying it is. I have PTSD. I wasnt raped but was sexually assaulted when I was 9 and never told anyone. My therapist sat and cuddled me on the toilet floor for an hour after I told him, I was in such a state and I couldn't go through with court so dropped it but if I had a child it would be different. She is the most important thing in the world to you. Don't risk her being the one crying on a toilet floor in 20 years time. Take the kid and run. Do a moonlight flit, arrange everything on the quiet, don't tell anyone, move as far as you can manage, another country if possible and don't go on the electoral roll. Do you or your wife have friends or family living abroad who could put you up while you get on your feet? That sick fuck would not be getting his hands on my daughter, court order or not, he'd have to kill me first.

This is awful, I feel you and your DD have been let down legally that a rapist can be part of your lives

Can you try your MP?

if he has been given parental responsibility by the court you can't change the child's name without his permission
also you can't go abroad for more than 28 days without his permission,
he can get what is called a "prohibited steps order" to prevent you moving but he is highly unlikely to get one to stop you moving 50 miles away as in Scotland that's probably only about an hour away so it would not make access difficult. he would probably get one to stop you moving abroad or to Cornwall, but you might find you need to do the travelling to the contact point rahter than him coming to you
I do not say this lightly but I think if your number one concern is your child I think you have to put yourself second and report rape to police asap and deal with your ptsd at the same time or later

at present there is no need for any contact above that is ordered by court at contact centre so just do that and nothing else

If you report the rape and he is charged then he would be subject to bail conditions such as not contacting you either directly or indirectly or via a third party. You could then withhold contact with your daughter on the grounds that he would use her to contact and/or harass you. While he's on bail, quietly move to the town 50 miles away without telling him and without leaving forwarding details. My honest opinion is that he's not the least bit interested in your daughter for her own sake, he's interested because she is a means by which to control to you. If you did move away and he wasn't allowed contact for several months while waiting for the rape case to go to court, his interest might fizzle out.

if you move abroad because of hague convention you can be ordered back ignoring courts could ultimately end in you losing custody

courts rarely grant random days of contact it is set and if you are working on a day of contact you arrange childcare just like other parents do when they are working

you would almost definitely be able to move within scotland to nearest big town a court would not for example stop you moving from Forres to Inverness or Falkirk to Stirling they might stop you moving from Dumfries to Thurso, generally if you can travel to desired location easily in less than 2 hours it will probably be OK

Not to mention that moving abroad isn't really a practical step, is it? You would need to move somewhere where you would have residency, where you could work, speak the language, etc. It costs a lot both financially and emotionally to up sticks like that and I doubt many here would have the resources to do it, never mind advising someone else that they should "just go abroad. Now."

Move away and appoint your dw as a legal guardian.

Once the election is over it might be worth contacting your MP to see if there is anything they can do.

And painful though it will be, if you are able to report the rape formally so it gets taken to court then hopefully it would mean that you could get the access order overturned and orders to keep him away from you. It takes a sick ducker to be a rapist but if knew you and was your friend, if he knew you were married and gay so unlikely to be using contraception and didn’t use it himself it sounds like this was some sick plan he cooked up to become s dad and have some sort of hold over your life for the next 30 years and more. So he’s not going to give up easily.

I can’t believe that rapists are being encouraged to get parental rights - that’s some sick fucked up misogynistic policy thought up by a male. That’s the sort of thing the Daily Mail should be campaigning against when it picks stories out of mumsnet!

In a practical point of view I would take pictures of your dd immediately before dropping her off for contact and as soon as she gets back, if you have to hand her over, as well as make mini videos just chatting to her about how the trip went (being very careful to be neutral do they can’t be used against you) to make it a normal thing and establish patterns if needs be to help support your case long term. Maybe do similar with trips to granny or friends with the same neutral questions to show she is happy visiting others.

Went through similar with my daughter.
Was her ex bf raped her.
He met my baseball bat in a parking lot 4 years ago.
She got pregnant and we moved far far away
I let it be known if he dared ever to try to see my grandbaby I would put him 6 feet under ground before he could blink an eye.
He was locked up for child endangerment and other crimes not to long ago we found out.
I was justified and you will be to OP.
Move abroad.
Keep your child safe
To hell with him and a court order.