Have a child arrangements order in place. Kids stay with their dad every other weekend 2 overnights. I left during the pandemic due to DV. I've encouraged the relationship with their dad but he's never wanted any more contact than that as he says it gets in the way with work so he doesn't do school drop offs or anything, or get involved with any extra curricular activities like sports or swimming lessons etc. He owes a lot of child maintenance and doesn't think he should pay it at all, have had numerous DEOs in place over the years. I have had to return to vary the CA order once already due to safeguarding concerns but after the section 7, overnights were reinstated. Court prefers contact with both parents, and tend to ignore DV and paint it as a "high conflict" relationship instead. So in those proceedings he did give assurances that there were child protections on devices, that he wouldn't leave the children alone, that he would take medical issues seriously, so this was all in the spotlight already... Anyway...that's the background.
Recently one of my children had a serious accident and their dad left them alone in a public place for over an hour, bleeding and crying. This is not unusual, and it has happened before, one child returned bleeding and I needed to take them to A&E for stitches. He cannot handle any sort of crisis, its not panic, and he doesn't acknowledge it, he denies it, but I think its more a lack of empathy, he doesn't register if someone has hurt themselves, or if something serious has happened. He just walked off, returned, and then walked off again, didn't comfort or ask if child was ok. I fell down the stairs when I was heavily pregnant and he just looked at me, expressionless, didn't help, didn't say anything, and got really angry when I questioned it. Its hard to explain but its a definite thing.
He finally did take them to hospital and they were treated with facial stitches, had to stay in for observation etc.child missed a lot of school as was so traumatised, and has refused to see dad since and never wants to see him again. Another issue came up at the same time with a smartphone that he gave to the children which hadn't been wiped. Contained photos of their dad playing with himself, and lots of him naked with close-ups of erections, as well as years worth of explicit images and videos. When I looked at the photos there were also selfies of the kids, and videos they'd made of themselves, interspersed with the explicit content, so looks like they've always had access to the phone, they both knew the passcode, it was the same one as during the pandemic, so I even knew it, he hadn't changed it. There were lots of messages with prostitutes and loads of porn searches with worrying searches that look like bordering illegal to me, but its not my world so who knows. Point is it was all accessible to the kids, nothing saved in folders or any parental controls, no attempt to hide any of it.
Anyway, my question, I've suspended contact as social services said that I needed to exercise my PR and have it investigated by professionals, the police said the same. He's gone all out DARVO (Deny, Accuse, Reverse, Victim Offender). Its hard to understand as its all evidenced and can't be argued against but he's convinced I am evil personified and I am alienating the children from him. I've been encouraging phone contact and they have spoken to him but until the court pick it up and list a hearing I don't feel comfortable sending the other child for in person contact - one is still refusing all contact anyway. It just doesn't feel safe to me - it never did before as I have always felt deep down it was unsafe - I left because of DV after all, and that was extended to one child too - but you have to go with what the court say so I have sent them off and almost held my breath every time as it has felt like an accident waiting to happen. I don't know what to do, but it just doesn't feel right to send them now I know all this, and knowing now what they've been exposed to for so long - I had suspected because they have terrible nightmares after contact. But now I've started questioning my decision as he's reacted to such an extreme, but he also wont call the children himself, they have to call him, he's made a big thing about that, and he's not asked after the one who had the accident at all. Its all really weird and I'm just wondering AIBU?