Refuse holiday

[mayinthesun]

I have a five year old daughter. My ex came involved in her life two years ago following him taking me to court for access. Prior to this, he had no involvement for the first three years of her life.

Court order has worked for the most part but every time there's a school holiday, he's taken her and refused to return her. The last time was this whit when he refused to return he and then phoned me and threatened to kill me.

He now tells me he's booked a holiday for summer for a week but it's right in the middle of the six weeks. For the last three years, he has refused to return her as planned and kept her for 3 weeks, which I'd never agree to. I'm worried he'll do it again. Over Easter, he kept her way beyond agreed court ordered time and refused to give her back, same this month. It happens every time and he gets abusive and violent every time I challenge this. When my daughter is eventually returned, she's always clingy and sad because he isn't a consistent prescence in her life.

I now want to refuse permission for the holiday because I suspect he will do the same thing he's done over the last three years, but i don't want to anger him or prevent my daughter from enjoying a holiday if he does return her as planned. History tells me he wont though. What should I do?

Back to court I guess

Have you reported these to court each time? If you think it's a serious risk you'll need to take him to Court.

You'll need to consult your solicitor and potentially go back to court.

You need to take him back to court. I can only imagine how awful this is for your and your Dd.

Have you been to court/the police all the other times?

Surely he should be having supervised contact only given the violence?

Thanks all. It's so stressful. If I refuse, is the onus on him to take to court and argue his case? I have a residency order so I know he needs my permission

I can’t remember the terms but a residency order with terms he must return .

This needs to go back to court

If my child hadn’t been returned even once he’d never get her again. He could take me to court and I’d say supervised or nothing. He’s violent and abducts your child. Not a chance

God this is so reassuring. Thank you. I was worried I was overreacting

Refuse permission, then he has to apply to Court for a specific issue order. When it goes to the Court make sure you tell them about all the CAO breeches. Have all dates documented like in a diary. At the very least it will scare him and hopefully get him to behave. But if he is breeching the child arrangements order you can call the police, its essentially abduction not to return her when he is supposed to. I would be having the police remove her if it happens again.

If you are worried say no. Go back to court and explain everything. You do need to make sure however that any court order you have has power of arrest if your child is not returned. The police will only be able to do a welfare check without this and they cannot enforce your child being returned.

Did you tell the police he threatened to kill you?

I feel for you, we are in a similar position with my stepchildren. They live with us full time except during the holidays their mum has started refusing to return them. We finally get them just before school starts back (except once when she kept them until the first day back and took them to school in their own clothes) because she doesnt want to do school drop offs and picks ups. When we get them back they are emotionally all over the place and we discovered that she has been telling them that we are refusing to take them back and we don't really want them here. Each time we have gone to try to collect them and she has come out and refused (the kids were unaware of this so it seems like she has been keeping them to the back of the house so they don't know we're there at all). We have phoned police and social work (who were the ones that recommended to the court that the children do not live with her) every time and each time they have done absolutely nothing. We are keeping a record of it all and our plan is to return to court however the truth is I don't have much faith in them doing much other than telling her not to do it. She is so damaging to their mental wellbeing (for this and many other things that happen while in her care) however at the same time she's their mum and they want to see her so we don't feel like we can stop that without them hating us, even though it would likely be in their best interests.
Your daughter doesn't have that same relationship or history with her dad though so if you're able to, I just wouldn't allow her to go over the holidays unless there's any possibility that a court would give an order based on this having happened, whereby he gets no access over the holidays. I don't know if they would be likely to do that though so might be worth speaking to an experienced family solicitor to get their advice and thoughts on it.

This is so good and such good advice

I would also record any phone calls in which he refuses to return DC, threatens violence etc. Whether it's mobile call, Ring doorbell, text messages. Keep logs of everything. He can deny everything and then it'll be your word against his and most of these abusive fuckers can be charming, persuasive ones too when there's a need to act rational for professionals.