So mum stopped child contact after child was coming back with bruises with dad. Mum took dad to court to safeguard the child. Court proceedings are taking a very long time - 7 months in and there has only been 2 very basic hearings with not a lot done at all and still another year or so in sight to get it finished.
Due to the nature of DV and all the past history - multiple injunctions, multiple arrests, even CAFCASS said the phone call they had with dad showed a high level of coercive control and abuse towards mum - the judge put a no contact order in place at the last hearing. Dad was ‘distraught’, let out some tears and begged to do anything to see the child.
There has been a change in circumstances meaning that the child (who has a disability and high care needs) now needs to remain at home for a few months and is going to need high level of care and support. Mum’s solicitor offered dad the chance to draw up a court order outside of court (the judge would still have to sign it and agree) that allows safe and highly supervised contact with the child and there is a few terms and conditions to go along with that (changing behaviour and parenting courses etc). Solicitor also offered him this high level of contact for 6 months and then review in court to sort out the order later and resume if needed, once things with child had settled down.
Dad has now decided that he doesn’t want to do that and even though he has been told mum needs to be able to fully support the child emotionally mentally and physically at the moment, he still wants to continue with court to be able to tell everyone what a bad person and mother she is, even though this means he won’t see his child for potentially another 5-6 months at least.
Does he genuinely have the right to want to defend himself in this case or given the fact that he is highly narcissistic and abusive, is this more likely to be a control tactic to attempt to carry on abusing the mother and actually his intentions are not about seeing the child at all? (Abuse through court litigation is a very well known thing)