Anyone around to pull me through the next hour?

[Oak99]

Just dropped my 4 year old off at contact centre to see his dad for the second time (first was 2 weeks ago). Lots of domestic violence and courts prevented contact for 4 years due to this. They've now decided contact in a contact centre is OK.

His dad was told to turn up 15 minutes early, which he did. He was then to wait in the room until I dropped son off 15 mins later. This is to prevent us coming into contact. He has told them he needed to nip back to the car and will be back. He's then proceeded to wait in his car for 10 mins until I walked round the corner, got out of the car when he's seen me and gone straight into the contact centre with our son. He looked at him and said 'come on then'. I didn't get to say goodbye and was just left stood outside not knowing what the hell just happened.

Staff came out a couple of minutes later and apologised.

He's trying to intimidate me. This is all going to go wrong. My son is now in the centre without having had a goodbye from his mum. He looked awkward when he went in.

I feel awful that I put my own emotional safety above a goodbye. But I froze and just watched them walk in.

I'm now sat in a park feeling sick.

Is anyone willing to chat this through with me? Am I being dramatic? I don't even know anymore.

I‘m just curious - what are the consequences of you not complying with the court order?

Yes; he is. He wanted to demonstrate to OP that her making him go through this process could be thwarted by him.
He wanted to show her who was calling the shots - not the contact centre, not the courts, not her... him.
He wanted to be seen taking his son from OP, not meekly waiting in a room for his son to be brought to him. He probably couldn't cope with the emasculation of this.
So yes - his action was intimidating, in that it was an exertion of power on a deeply psychological level. Not all intimidation is a hoodie and a forehead-to-forehead square-off.

I would say keep on turning up, let him harass you, the more he does it, the less chance of unsupervised (or any) contact in the future. Make sure that every incident is documented for when you return to court.

This will count against him though. Popping out to your car to get your phone/ tissues,etc.. doesn’t take over 10 minutes. Does the contact centre have CCTV covering the entrance? This will show how long he was gone
The supervised contact is his trial period so failing that will reduce the likelihood of unsupervised contact. Make sure your feelings are logged along with the supervisors report.

So if staff saw this happen-now what?

What utter idiots they were.

When he left the room Op should have been contacted & the vist cancelled imo.

I’m so sorry OP - it must have been a torturous hour for you. It was a typical controlling tactic and so, so horrible for you, but try to flip it around…if he’d behaved perfectly and done what he was supposed to, it would have gone in his favour and the contact visits would probably have increased. This way, the staff have now seen for themselves that he hasn’t changed and is still abusive, so he may have just shot himself in the foot & made your case a lot stronger…..

Hopefully there is cctv of him sitting in the car waiting.

Bastard!

Wouldn't this behaviour be a reason to stop contact? He had his chance, he showed he's still abusive

Thats a good point. Can the solicitor who represented you request it?

Aww you poor thing! Must be really difficult. However, don't worry about the impact on your son. He'll be fine and will love you no matter whether you say goodbye before he goes with Dad or not. Don't make a big deal of the effect on him. However, you do need to take care of yourself! No you're not being dramatic. Just complain to the centre and make them promise this can't happen again.

When I was training to be a social worker I supervised contact at contact centres a lot. The staff will notice and record. They have to record his arrival, any incidents etc so it will all be logged and not looked on favourably
. Sending you big hugs x

Give a man enough rope op. . Biding your time and making sure you stick to the rules will pay off ime.

Sorry this happened OP.

Don't want to stress you out but are there wider safety concerns with this e.g did he know your car registration number prior to today? Did waiting in the car enable him to see it?

I agree with others - put it in an email to contact centre and state how disappointed you were that he was allowed to come into contact with you

Is he stupid? Does he think that his little power play would go unnoticed by the supervisor? It will be documented and it will not be looked on kindly.

Can you negotiate a system where they discreetly call you when he’s confirmed inside and waiting? He mustn’t know about it though. This sounds like part of coercive control, these little things are important to document, as others have said.

How many times / how often is the contact centre ordered? Are you due back in court for a directions hearing after a certain amount of time to review how it's gone, and comment on any reports provided by the contact centre staff? What's the stepped progression?

OP I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. It must be absolutely heartbreaking to have to allow contact with this man.

Write it down, give a signed copy to the contact centre and say you want it logged. It's evidence of your ex breaching the no-contct order; and also that he failed to put the needs of the child first. A 4 yr old needs a proper changeover procedure, goodby to main care parent, hello to the virtual stranger father he's not seen for years, , and the clear assurance of what's about to happen to him ( I'm going to play with dad for a bit then I go home with Mum".)

If Ex keeps that up he's likely to lose use of the contact centre and have no meetings with his son.

Hopefully it'll be on CCTV. He sounds like a nasty man.

Hope you're okay and hope DS is well. X

He's not exactly followed the rules of the contact centre, I would check if this is grounds to stop contact. Having been through all of this, it sounds as though he's using your son as a pawn in a game. Hope your OK x

Op is feeling scared and intimidated! Why on earth would you suggest that she keeps putting herself in that position!

@Lizzt2007 - because it sounds like OP has already been to court and there's a child arrangements order in place.

You cannot simply just decide one day that you're going to stop contact because of one incident like this (obviously there are far more serious safeguarding incidents by which you would absolutely need to and have reason to stop contact immediately, but this isn't one of them). Court doesn't work like that. If OP doesn't "make her child available" on court ordered dates she could be held in contempt. A pattern of behaviour needs to be evidenced, and the contact centre needs to provide reports.

It’s very obvious this is noted by the centre/you.

It was premeditated and manipulated.

If things should escalate you need everything written down/noted, so that the full measure of the man can be seen and then the correct view taken.

The contact centre are now saying that because they didn't give us the times we are meant to arrive in writing they can't note it as Intimidation and will put it down as a mistake. I honestly give up.

Don't give up. I know you've probably been down a long hard road with this already. But he is giving you the tools to bury him with here. This is what I think you should do:

Regardless of what the contact centre says, you can write to them, and set out in minute detail what was agreed regarding arrival and handover. It doesn't matter if it was verbal, just write down what you were told to do, what you were told he would be advised to do, and who told you. Record when that was told to you, by what method. Every little detail. If it's true, it can't be disputed. Ok so it wasn't in writing. But you were told, and so you acted on what you were told. He didn't.

Record exactly what happened at handover, and why it was unacceptable.

Record exactly what the response was of the member of staff at the time, and who that was.

Finally get on record what you want to happen next. He needs it put in writing what acceptable drop off arrangements are. You need an acknowledgement that this will not happen again in the future, and an understanding of what the contact centre will do in order to facilitate your safe handover. And insist that your letter is added to the contact centre record for your child. If you can, also send a copy to the court, directly or via your solicitor if you have one.

You're going to have to be the squeaky wheel, keep recording every single incident and issue in meticulous detail. Courts can't act without evidence. But if he's going to behave like a shit and hand you that evidence, then use it to your child's best advantage.

You're going to need to find some strength to negotiate this part of your life. But you've made it this far. Keep going.