Hello all,
I posted about my dilemma a couple of months ago. But to reiterate, I have a 13 year old DS. My son's dad and I were very young parents. Throughout our 9 years together, he was physically, sexually and emotionally abusive to me.
Through no fault of his own, he had immigration problems and throughout my late teens/ early twenties, I would help him out as much as I can, e.g., give him money, living with us rent free, buying food etc. Luckily, the immigration awarded him temporary Visa (?) which he had to renew every 30 months. I suspect he would be applying for a British Passport this year or the next.
When he did finally start work, he would refuse to give DS money. He came up with many excuses ('I have debts', 'I have an overpayment that I need to pay back', 'I have lots of bills'). I became sick of the excuses and applied to Child Maintenance (CM), where they would give me around £300.00 a month. At that point, DS hadn't seen DS for 6 months (which was a regular occurrence throughout the years). Then at one point, DS's dad came to my home unannounced and demanded that I stop CM as they were taking out too much money. He threatened me that 'I should do this or else' and then his family members or friends will call me to stop CM and I gave in. DS's dad promised that he will send money directly to him. But he did not as you guessed.
When he did use to work, he would refuse to give me money for DS. He will make excuses that he has a lot of bills to pay, his in debt, blah blah. I got sick of it and applied to child maintenance where they were giving me £300.00 a month. DS dad came to my house unannounced one day and told me that as child maintained are taking his money through direct pay, he is actually paying more than £300.00. He threatened I should stop CM or else. He promised that he will pay CM directly. But he never did as you guessed.
Throughout our 10 years together. He would see DS intermittently. We were lucky if we saw him once every month. At most, DS wouldn't see his dad for 4/6 months at the time. Looking back on previous emails/text messages, I've realised that DS's dad would only get in contact where it was the time around that he had to renew his immigration papers.
Anywhoo, three years ago, DS dad realised his wrong doings and said that he would like to build a relationship with his son. Therefore, for a good two months, he was perfect, providing for DS, taking him out, helping me pick him up from school . However, he soon began to get comfortable and then assaulted me in my home, as well as my personal belongings. It went to court this year and he got served with probation.
Two months ago, I received a call from an immigration officer or advisor telling me that am I willing to write a statement on DS's dad behalf and if I was willing to provide a copy of DS's passport as he will be applying for a British passport this year and Home Office have asked information from me.
I told the officer no. That he is using my son and no that I will not allow it. The immigration advisor then asked me what was the contact like between our son and the dad, as dad claimed he not seen DS due to the lockdown (that is a lie). I told the officer that he hasn't seen DS for two years, mainly due to the injunction and incident but that I have instructed the court that he can have contact with DS, but it has to be supervised and that he would need to be the one to initiate it.
The immigration officer asked me again that if I was willing to provide a statement and I said "no", that I will not allow him to use his son. That he has not made any type of effort to be a father to his son. The immigration officer sounded very unhappy and quickly hanged up the phone.
Following the advice from some Mumsnetters and friends. I decided to write a simple letter to Immigration stating that DS as not seen his dad for x amount of years and that to please keep the information private due to risk of harm. I wrote the letter as I did not want ex to use immigration as way to get in/out of his son's life. Which is very unfair to DS.
Last week, Ex's brother contacted me and said that he was 'very upset' as DS's dad application for the Visa (?) got rejected and therefore he is unable to work. Immigration stated that the reason why they rejected his application is because they had received no information from me and had no idea what the relationship was like between his son and him, despite ex's claims. Apparently, DS's dad is in the process of appealing the decision.
I now feel worried and guilty. I'm worried about what would happen to me if DS's dad finds out about the letter. Would he find out about the letter if appealing? I also feel a bit guilty that I refused to write a letter about the relationship between DS's dad and his son and that maybe this would have helped Ds's dad application? I now feel bad that this has jeopardised any relationship DS would have with his dad. What should I do?