To stop ex from having DS again until lockdown is over

[MysteryFrog]

DS has been staying at his dads every other weekend as per the court order (although ex has been messing around adding days and changing times without warning which has been stressful). DS (8) was at his the weekend just gone.

DS has just told me that while he was at his dads they went for a drive with low fuel and no phone, the car ran out of fuel on the road too far away to walk home so they left the car in the road and hitchhiked home. I’ve texted ex about it and he genuinely doesn’t seem to see why it’s an issue that he put DS in a strangers car during a pandemic.

WIBU to stop contact until lockdown is over because ex has proven that he can’t keep DS safe. (To be honest it seems like a dangerous situation to me regardless of the pandemic)

Take it back to court. If you haven't reported all the breeches, they no- you can't juts arbitrarily now decide that he's not stepping up. Arrange a lawyer, go back to court. What exactly would you be asking for? Are you trying to stop the child spending time with his dad? Is that what he wants or you want?

Okay, in that case, stopping contact might well not be detrimental to your DS, and getting legal advice would make sense (as there's a court order in place which means that you need to tread carefully).

@theThreeofWeevils he originally told me it was too far to walk home, when I made the first post, but has since told me where it was which is definitely within easy walking distance.

Until lockdown is over is because it will be a lot easier to sort going back to court etc once lockdown is over

There is a massive back story but it’s largely irrelevant, the main thing is that ex has a history of being very irresponsible and is unlikely to change

Obviously I want my son to be able to have a healthy relationship with his dad but his dad is making that very difficult. I spent years trying to facilitate contact but ex wasn’t interested until I got into a new relationship and had another child.

I even used to let him spend every weekend with us when DS was a baby (he wouldn’t take him on his own) he would sleep til early afternoon, eat enough food for three people, didn’t contribute financially (until DS was 3), and then would disappear off for the afternoon and usually come back in the dead of night drunk and stoned so I had to put and end to it after letting it go on for far too long because he wasn’t actually spending any of the time with DS and was draining me financially.

I know that’s not entirely relevant to the thread but gives an idea of the kind of person he is and proves that I have actually put a lot of effort into trying to maintain their relationship

He also had a habit of leaving DS with strangers at festivals
Did you have a thread about this last year?

Cos if you did then i'm surprised you're allowing him unsupervised contact.
If he behaves on supervised contact but reverts on unsupervised, then you stick to phone/face time/supervised contact only.

I don't like the idiotic tone of his text, blaming the hills!
He just doesn't care about his son's safety or welfare.

@monkeymonkey2010 I think I did yes! Unfortunately I didn’t have solid proof that he’d done it (he did admit it to me but only in person not through text) so even though I raised the issue in court one of the many times we’ve been they weren’t interested because I didn’t have enough evidence.

You actually contacted safeguarding? What is it you want them to do?

Also how many times has this been in court?

@Hillocrew for advice, which they were happy to give me, they were very helpful. I’ve got what I needed from this thread thanks to the poster who pointed me in the direction of Coram so won’t be coming back to it now.