To be exhausted by family and criminal court

[Newmum1998]

Been going through the court process for months.
My child's father abused me psychologically and I reported him to the police not really expecting them to do anything, he was harassing me after the relationship ended and was making my life hell in every way possible so I was given advise to report him. To my surprise the police charged him for domestic abuse and our case ended up going to a
trial date. To cut a long story short on the day to prevent it going to trial I accepted a bargain plea for a lesser offence, still domestic and still meant I was granted a non harassment order which I am over the moon with. I really was just so scared to go to trial and between this case and my experience of the family court system I am just so done with it all.

He also at the same time applied for contact to see our child. To cut a long story short he was not a good father and used our son as a way to control me and was very volatile to me in front of our child and took no part in caring for our child. Our child is 13 months.
The family court process has been rubbish..he has pulled the mental health card and said some of his behaviour (the few things he is willing to admit because he has no choice as there are witnesses to certain events) was due to him having a breakdown and he is now on medication and stable. Now this is when I have to add that when I reported my ex to the police I discovered he had previous convictions for abuse and it’s for very similar things he did to me. But to cut a long story short family court are accepting that he only behaved in the way he did (a way that was harmful to our child might I add) was only due to his mental state at the time and fear of loosing the child as a few incidents are when I attempted to leave however he has priors for very similar things with an ex girlfriend who he didn’t have any children with so that explanation doesn’t make sense to me ???

On top of this his parents have statements about what a great dad he was and to sum it up ex and his family are saying some of the things I’ve said ex did to me I did to him and I am just making malicious allegations. Although they admit to knowing he had previous domestic related convictions but attempt to downplay them by basically saying their son has been unlucky in relationships. Now obviously I told the court about all the incidents of him being volatile to me in front of our son and the family court don’t seem to care ? In fact we recently had a report done and the reporter left out the majority of incidents I described to her and really glossed over the ones she did include and made them seem not nearly as bad as they were but she has included many allegations my ex has made about me. She was just very, very selective in the information she included in her report. She did admit to having concerns about some things but recommended contact starting in a contact centre and from the sounds of it it’ll probably progress to then unsupervised contact.

I suppose what has annoyed me the most about it is that ex lies and they listen and I present them with evidence he is lying and they don’t care or even bother to include it in their report..why ? I am just so done with it all and I couldn’t even sleep at all last night as I couldn’t stop thinking of the unfairness of it all. I know what he was really like and it’s frustrating that the court doesn’t see that and I’ve been painted in a bad way by the reporter at times as things she has wrote are not entirely correct. I’m only looking out for my sons bests interests.

I’m also a bit disappointed in myself for not standing up to him in trial but I really am just so exhausted by it all...not really sure why I am posting on here but I think I just needed a vent 😓

Has anyone else been through a similar situation and how do you get over all the lies told about you?

You may find that he doesn't bother with the contact centre. I know it's hard but try not to worry until you need to. The positive is you've got the non molestation order and he's pleased guilty to abusing you.

He now maybe even won’t have to do contact centre and is trying to get out of it.. so might not even have that

I am several years out of family court. I think our reporter thought she was a novelist, the way the report was written, and she also left out speaking to people she was ordered by the court to talk to (just taking my ex’s word for what they would say!).

I did not get legal aid and the whole thing has left me in a financially precarious position. What was ludicrous was that social services told me to stop contact and let matters go to court, but then no-one, but no-one gives you any support to take it through court.

At some point my ex met someone else and his entire interest in pursuing me through the legal process and looking for additional contact (to what the court had ordered) stopped. I could tell he had met someone else without him even telling me. After six years (six years!) it all just stopped.

to your question, how to get over the anger? To some extent, you don’t because the situation is anger-worthy. On the other hand, it needs to be channelled out of your house and away from you and your child, so if you can find a counsellor or talk to someone from Women’s Aid or do things which allow you to expend physical energy and get in touch with your body and relax your mind (I used to swim a lot). But more importantly, don’t feel ashamed or like you have done anything wrong. A year or so ago, I realised the great burden of shame I carried around that this had happened. That I had been left practically penniless trying to protect my child, having been put in a position of needing to protect my child, and not having the words or the way to express to anyone what he had done. There are so many layers to it. It is really, really important to keep in touch with your friends and family and not feel something terrible has happened that you cannot or should not speak of. Have fun with the people you love and who love you and don’t let this experience define you.