Wife wants step children back.

[stephen8]

My step children 7 , 8 and 10 (wife's daughters) have lived with me full time now for 2 years 7 months, in this time their biological dad has seen them once and mum has seen them around 15 times.

Neither one of them have paid towards the children or bought them anything in this time, I have fully provided for them. Yesterday evening, I received this email from my wife.

Dear stephen.

Hi.

I am letting you know that I have recently rented a house in x area and will shortly be moving into it. I will be coming to collect the girls on Tuesday the 12th novemeber.

I think it's best you step back and don't have contact with them. They will need time to adjust and settle in, and contact with you will confuse them and make them unsettled.

Please can you make sure the girls' things are all packed up and ready for the 12th.

Thank you.

I am devastated, these girls are my daughters, I've been in their life for 6 years and for the last two and a half years I've brought them up myself, they call me dad I'm the only parent they really know. I've not spoke to the girls about this yet but they will absolutely not be wanting to go and stay with their mum, infact they don't even want to see her, she's let them down too many times now and the trust is gone.
Has anyone been through this before? Do I have a leg to stand on? I'm assuming I have no choice but to hand the kids over on the 12th? She has financially ruined me with her gambling addiction, I don't think I can afford a lawyer, I'm aware I'm not biologically their dad but I'm the only dad they know, it would destroy them to be taken from me.

If she were registered I'd love to know how her safeguarding training and policies justified to taking absolutely no action at all in this unusual situation.

Exactly.
I also wonder why nobody at any of the groups these kids attend have flagged it up either.

The kids must have been upset when mum left. They must have told someone.

I don't even get how a tutor can effectively teach 6 kids at at least 3 different stages at the same time.

If it was a registered school, OP’s DSD’s wouldn’t be ‘home schooled’. They would be attending a school. Childminders are different. Most tutors (as opposed to tuition centres/tutors via other providers such as APs where some are registered and others are not) are not registered schools.

This isn't private fostering, he is classed as a close relative, it's a private family arrangement

This is worrying. It may well be the case that the children have a more secure home with op and he is the only adult in their lives who has ‘stepped up’ . But this is not something that should ever have been able to remain under the radar legally and from a safeguarding point of view. There are three vulnerable children here and Op does not have any parental responsibility. What if one of the children had needed medical attention. Op was in no position to consent to this and still isn’t. Surely even the most naive of people would recognise that a legal process needed to be followed, to protect these children more than anything else.

There's always a duty SW on each day responding to new referrals. Entirely possible there was no Section 47's to deal with meaning the SW could go on this duty visit the same day.

@Mickey79
Yes I think it's worrying too.
If the kids had been in a proper school I'm sure they'd have flagged to SW.
SW could have assessed the Ops suitability to provide a secure home.

I can't believe any man would be so stupid as to leave themselves so open to accusations.

Not really. Referrals are screened in the MASH before they hit the desk of a duty social worker. Absolutely impossible that there were no urgent referrals to screen in MASH that would have taken precedence over this one. Therefore it's impossible that this particular referral would have been screened, sent for allocation and a visit completed within a few hours. It would have sat in the MASH for 3 days before being sent to a social worker for a visit. Guarantee. I've worked in MASH, I know how busy they are and how they prioritise.

So many bits just don't add up.

Wonder what SW made of the tutors set up?
And why the tutor never thought to flag the unusual set up to them?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ca21e22e5274a77d9d26feb/EHEguidanceeforparentsafterconsultationv2.2.pdf

For those interested in the rule around home education.

Bottom of page 20 is where it sets out the info on unregistered schools. Tutors can't provide full time education as its parents responsibility in home Ed- they can only be used to supplement not as sole education.

It does look like tutor can have up to 5 children (so long as no child has EHCP or is looked after). However childcare laws state if you are paid to care for over 8 year olds more than 2 hours a day you must be ofsted registered. Under 8's you need to be on the early years register regardless of hours worked.

So possibly OP isn't breaking home Ed laws as he said they do home ed meet ups etc so it's not just the tutor providing the education.

But the tutor is walking a fine line/this is a loophole in the law calling it tutoring not childcare to get out of registration and regulations

So possibly OP isn't breaking home Ed laws as he said they do home ed meet ups etc so it's not just the tutor providing the education.

The kids are at the tutors 6 hrs a day 5 days a week with 3 other kids. Well and truly over the line. While the Op works full-time.

Incorrect. The girls attend 6 hours Monday to Friday and always have done.
The girls are home schooled they attend a tutors' house alongside 3 other children,

I had been hoping the OP would update and clarify a lot of the obvious discrepancies.

As someone with professional experience in this area the timescale of a first solicitor's appointment in a child residency private law application one afternoon followed by a hearing the very next day is totally unheard of to me and I'd like to know more.

In which case common courtesy would be one final post thanking all helpful posts, brief summary of the MRA, and a dignified goodbye.

I agree with the observations that this thread is most likely trolling, but I still believe in my last post that the community should take the OP at face value and advise accordingly for the following reasons:

1. If the OP is genuine anything else is cruel.

2. The expression "don't feed the troll" is excellent advice, and serious quality advice has vitamins, minerals, but no carbs or sugar.

3. The true value of public advice on MN comes from the education that it provides for 3rd parties reading the thread. Regardless of the accuracy of the OP, the thread is of value to everyone else.

Home ed laws?? Did you know you don't have to follow the curriculum. As long as they are getting some form of education. There's no handbook on how to homeschool you're pretty much left on your own. Someone does come out to check that everything is okay. My children were registered at a school so it triggered a visit from the home education department. If your child has never registered at a school then they are classed as missing children. They are meant to register that they are homeschooling with the local authority but a lot of families don't know that unless they join the homeschooling community.

Hope you get custody and Parental Rights for your daughters Stephen..you sound like an amazing person and father x

Mumsnet is very left leaning/feminist and some will think a woman can do no wrong and all men are evil I'm afraid. Hope everything works out for you and you get a legal resolution sorted quickly x

@ThatRareUmberJoker yes we know home education is no where near as regulated as it should be.
However these kids aren't getting a Home Education they are being tutored full-time by a private tutor who is breaking the law on the boundary between a private tutor and an illegal unregistered school.

I doubt the Op will be back but taking everything at face value, none of it adds up.
I know nothing about the speed of SW or family courts but posters are also saying that doesn't add up.

Maybe the tutor wasn't aware. Maybe she assumed he was their biological dad since they all call him dad.

If she was an above board school she would have been legally required to ask for birth certs and who holds parental responsibility.

OK give the tutor benefit of the doubt not knowing he wasn't the bio Dad.
That still doesn't excuse the tutor for effectively running an illegal school.

What did SW make of the hours these kids were spending with the tutor?

I have electively home educated my children since the 90s, with the oldest having long left uni after getting his degree, and the youngest studying for professional qualifications even though he is still younger than most kids take their GCSEs.

I am firmly pro EHE for children in the right circumstances and do not consider a child being educated that way to be a red flag by itself.

The situation the OP has described absolutely does count as an illegal school/unregistered setting due to the number of children and the hours they attend.

Most larger EHE study based groups take the time to ensure they do not exceed these hours or numbers when they are set up, so the information is well known in larger active EHE circles who keep on top of the various laws relating to EHE.

If she were following anything remotely resembling proper procedures she would be well aware of the real relationship.

OP’s 3 DSDs are attending the tutor’s house 6hrs a day, 5 days a week with 3 other DC. That is a full-time education (for the purpose of looking at unregistered schools, full-time is typically considered 18 hours by the government. Although that isn’t set in stone legally so some settings will only provide 12/15/16/17 hours for fear of being seen as an unregistered school) even if the DSDs are attending home ed meet ups as well. The tutor is running an unregistered school assuming the 3 other DC are CSA which I suspect they are otherwise the OP would have said so when posters questioned the set up.

I hope all went (and is still going) well OP. Echoing others - this is MN and many will take this abusive woman's side simply as she is female. I know well that a step-parent can be a million times better than a biological parent. I would not swap mine for the abusive, nasty one who I have chosen to have no contact with for years now, and would absolutely feel the same as your eldest had I been forced to go live with them as a child.

There's also no shortage on Mumsnet, of misogynistic men who come on here with fake scenarios because they get off on sitting back and watching women supporting the menz and attacking other women who can see through the behaviour.