Would you stop overnight contact in this situation?

[Cryingatthegym]

I’m looking for some outside perspective as I’m feeling really overwhelmed and don’t want to overreact. This is long because I've tried to include everything.

I’ve been separated from my ex-husband for 18 months and we have two young children aged 3 and 4. They currently spend time with him 2 nights a week.

Before Christmas, I raised concerns about the condition of his house and safety issues. He agreed to sort it, and on that basis I allowed contact to continue. Over Christmas, he took the children away for several days to visit family.

When they returned, my youngest (just turned 3) had a bad head injury that happened during his father’s care. I wasn’t informed and he didn't get any medical attention at the time. I took him to the GP, who made a safeguarding referral to social services.

This prompted me to properly look back through my photos and messages, and I’ve realised there’s a wider pattern I hadn’t fully appreciated before. Over the past 6 months I can see around 22 injuries that occurred during his contact time, including 8 head injuries for my youngest (3 of which I’d consider significant) and 2 instances of sunburn. The injuries are mainly bumps and bruises, but it’s the frequency and pattern that worries me, particularly given their ages.

So as not to drip feed, I’ve been raising safety and wellbeing concerns since we separated. These include:

• The cleanliness and safety of his home (significant clutter, mess and fire risk).

• Hygiene (children often returning unwashed or in soiled clothing).

• Lack of supervision and general safety (including car seat/road safety concerns).

• Not putting them in appropriate clothing for the weather.

• Nutrition and routines.

These concerns have been raised gradually over time, not all at once, and when I try to raise things I feel they are minimised or dismissed.

Nursery have also raised concerns about unexplained bruises and my youngest’s wellbeing. They've said they feel the inconsistency between homes may be affecting him. I’ve also had support from Women’s Aid due to past domestic abuse (towards me, not the children) and they've made a number of safeguarding referrals based on things I've told them.

Since the most recent contact I’ve noticed behavioural changes in both boys, including repeated wetting and increased fear around accidents (e.g. being very upset after minor stumbles and worrying about being told off).

Social care have previously advised me that because the children have one protective parent, they can’t intervene unless their father consents, and that if I don’t feel the children are safe I need to exercise my parental responsibility and stop contact.

I’m now considering stopping them from having overnight contact (but allowing daytime contact) because I no longer feel comfortable with the level of risk. However, I’m struggling with guilt and worry that I’m overreacting. This would also mean losing my only real chance for a rest, and I’m already exhausted.

I’d really appreciate honest opinions. Does this sound like a proportionate response? Would you stop overnight contact in these circumstances? Or would you give more time/take a different approach?

Thank you to anyone who makes it to the end of this.

Social services aren't there to support safe parents to stop contact though. That's a private matter, not the remit of social services.

How much evidence do you have? Any police records or DV service involvement when you were together? Can you get GP records with all the injuries and when they were reported? Any photos of the condition of his house? Will nursery write a report?
Court would likely order a section 7 report by cafcass. Cafcass are hit and miss, some are great and some terrible. The key for you and your position is whether you have evidence of the harm he poses. If you do, you stand a good chance of contact remaining short and not overnight.

I'm shocked you didn't lead with this.

Since the most recent contact I’ve noticed behavioural changes in both boys, including repeated wetting and increased fear around accidents (e.g. being very upset after minor stumbles and worrying about being told off).

bluntly its a clear sign they are being terrorised by him.

The physical harm also speaks to being ignored/left in unsafe conditons.

The only place this fucker would be seeing them is supervised in a contact centre.amd if he didnt like it. I'd see him in court

I'd be logging photographing and videoing
Injuries bed wetting, comments they make and taking them to the GP to log it.

When our 3 yo fell through a frozen pond I got the initial details from our 4yo. After several phone calls to exh he admitted it.
He had explained ds wearing his cousin's clothes as him having splashed on a puddle.
Trip to the beach - exh and new gf on the pier.. 2 small dc down on the beach alone... 3yo fell and needed stitches along his eyebrow..
His next week end dc back to the beach effectively unsupervised in rock pools. At the time there was a 'spate' of df's murdering their dc because they hadn't got their way in court.. I spent many weekends an absolute wreck... As soon as they reached early teens they stopped seeing him.

Yes, there are police and Women's Aid records and I have lots of photos of bruises and injuries and messages where I've raised concerns with him directly. I've also had my solicitor write to him twice about my concerns.

The first two bad head injuries I didn't take him to the GP for though, because my mum is a medic so I had her check him over instead. I'm kicking myself about that now. I don't know if nursery would write a report, it would be really helpful if they could.

Edited to add I have a couple of photos of the inside his house, taken on the sly through his ajar front door.

I just feel so completely overwhelmed by all of this.

Oh bless your heart OP. I was in a similar-ish situation- not the injuries, but the state of the house and the kids being inadequately cared for, coming home smelling, and seeming to get a bit more nervous. But my ex was very good at presenting like a good, loving father, and any hints of things that were off were convincingly explained. He also had a lot more money than me, so he could take them on holidays, on nice day trips etc, which they enjoyed, and I really wanted them to have experiences with their dad.

Then a few years ago, everything came to a head. I found that the children were being neglected, the house was filthy, no adequate facilities, no violence but a lot of aggression. Contact stopped and fucking hell, I feel awful every single day for not picking up on things before I did. As you have, I'd seen the house from the front door, but the rest was so, so much worse. My kids love him, but even now, years later, they suffer because of his unkindness and neglect- it's a heavy mental burden to carry.

In my case, as is true often, I think, my ex was the boss in our relationship and that carried though even when we split up. The dynamic didn't really change just because we were apart. I felt fear and I felt stupid for raising my concerns; He would be perfectly reasonable, but then would pick out something he believed I had done wrong, so as to deflect. I am very aware of that now- when a relationship ends, you are allowed to change the dynamic. It's extra hard when the kids feel guilty for not seeing him, or not seeing him as often- they've been trained to be extra sensitive to his wants and needs, and it takes an age to grow out of that. These men are so good at doing the little boy lost thing.

Hugs to you- it's bloody hard. But I think that posting this thread means you're already on the path for standing up for your children, and that is a wonderful and admirable thing.

Given this I'd be very concerned (very reasonably) that this isnt "neglect" ( ignoring them to the point they injure themselves) but he is actually beating them...

Contact needs supervision or do be limited to a softplay centre or something.

@Cryingatthegym id stop contacting altogether and let him take it to court.
This way you can ask for supervised visits .
Your children are in danger and I don’t think you can be sure his abuse hasn’t turned to the kids.

Please don't take advice from people who haven't had significant experience of how family court works in reality.

I had a similar situation- dv relationship, MARAC reports, WA support for me and my children. Everyone told me he'd lose contact at court. My health visitor, GP, nursery all supported me. But when it came to hearings everyone backed off and said they couldn't get involved or that my own self reports weren't sufficient evidence etc. I wasn't even able to bring up MARAC in court because it's all secret and no paperwork. I was criticised for submitting a detailed diary as judge said it was a sign of obcessiveness (even when I was told to do this by multiple professionals). The bed wetting and anxiety was blamed on me because they were 'fine' with him. He got more contact and my significant evidence of things like untreated broken arm, repeated UTIs only after contact, infections from nappy rash etc was entirly ignored.

I did eventually get the professionals to see what was happening but it took years and them being old enough to tell people independently.

My advice would be to seek support from relevant DV groups related to court. Get kids into play therapy (womens aid often offer this for free). Do a parenting course like Triple P to show willingness to work on your own parenting (not saying there's anything wrong with it, but court will want to see you being proactive about the kids behaviour too). Then reassess.

You have taken your child to see a medical professional after a head injury. This means this is documented and there's supporting evidence.

You have had concerns raised by nursery about unexplained injuries. Again evidence.

You have evidence of domestic abuse against you.

Do not let him have the children again.

His response could go one of three ways:
He tries to confront you and turns up at your house - potentially abusive. This means you call the police and there's more supporting evidence of a problem.

He can't be arsed to do anything, because thats effort.

He takes you to court and then starts accusing you of being crazy / making stuff up / harming the children yourself. But your kids will be safe and you have plenty of evidence to back you up. His main objective will be to gaslight you, intimidate you, get you to doubt yourself. Just keep gathering evidence and speaking to domestic abuse charities. Get advice. It's not you - this is how men like this behave. Keep this in your head. This support for women exists for a reason.

Yes, that was kind of my point, for the posters saying report every incident to social services. They provide fuck all support once they have assessed you to be a safe parent, it’s a civil legal matter.

Is he a bit shit and uninterested generally?

If so, you might be better off cancelling the next few visits due to sickness or something and see how it goes.

If he’s really pushing for contact to restart obviously you’ll need to put something more official in place. But if he’s generally quiet shit he might not push to see them if you’re not encouraging it…

@Cryingatthegym Id do this .
If you give day contact I doesn’t seem like a real safety concern it comes across as half hearted .
Use your parental rights to with hold contact .

Smoky court has supposedly improved since I went through it 10 years ago. My experience was SS told me to stop contact but wouldn’t back me in court. Abusive ex (who I left because he hurt dd and he didn’t deny that in court just blamed me because I “was so hard to live with” judge thought this was reasonable) ex got contact every other weekend. Police and SS now won’t do anything about kids injuries because of the court order. Disgusting system.

in your situation I’d still stop unsupervised contact. Offer a contact centre. Look up your local ones and send him the links to their websites. You need to conduct yourself in all contact with ex as though it’s going to be read by a judge. If you stop contact and don’t offer supervised this will look bad in court. If you offer supervised you have that to back you up this isn’t about parental alienation as you are trying to find ways of contact happening safely. expect to loose in court but he may never take you to court anyway and you may get a safe court order they do happen.

do a SAR immediately now. To SS and to nursery. Because SS will refuse to give you any evidence for court unless ordered to by the judge and the judge probably won’t order it. If you do a SAR even with things redacted you can show there have been multiple referrals made about the children’s safety it’s not coming just from you. Nursery may well also refuse to give you any evidence so a SAR to them showing there have referrals they have made and their accident and incident log of all the injuries following contact with dad will be invaluable!!

im not a lawyer so do get legal advice. Get the book family court without a lawyer by Lucy Reed. It’s a very very helpful book even if you do get a solicitor. My ex kept taking me back to court to make me pay legal fees over and over so I self represented in the end and I feel strongly if you have half a brain most people are better off without a solicitor. If you have the money though a barrister for the court dates is worth it. Find one who specialises in DV. Woman’s aid often have drop in sessions with solicitors you can access free for advice. Also rights of women used to have a helpline which was absolutely amazing, you had to try over and over again redialling and it would always take over an hour to get through but it’s free and they know DV and family court.

whatever you do you can’t really stop overnights and still allow daytime contact. That undermines your argument it’s about safety and a judge will say if you are ok with some unsupervised then your concerns are malicious. So you have to stop all unsupervised or allow it to continue until the next incident you feel gives enough evidence it has to stop.

@KimHwn you've just described my ex perfectly. He comes across as meek, mild mannered and caring. He was so controlling and abusive to me and DD during our marriage and eventually violent towards me. But he did it all calmly and with a smile on his face.

He cannot be in the wrong or tolerate criticism and he's a master at manipulation. Everything I raise he deflects by focusing on my tone, my reaction, my mental health, things I've (allegedly) done or not done. Anything to take the focus off himself and to give himself a sense of superiority. It took me a long time (and a lot of help from ChatGPT) to learn to recognise his tactics and how to grey rock him effectively.

@sunshine244 I'm so sorry that was your experience. That's my nightmare worse case scenario and why I've been hesitant to pull the trigger on this. But I really don't think I can continue to stand by and not act.

@Burntt thank you for your advice.

My rationale for daytime contact only is that I don't want to be seen to be acting irrationally or maliciously by cutting off all contact. I was thinking that far less harm is likely to come to them in 2 hours in a public place than behind closed doors or for days at a time, however I'm still allowing them to have a relationship with him. I'm trying to be balanced and fair.

Oh you absolutley have to act, but it's better to take your time than rush into it and regret it later.

Your solicitor will hopefully be able to give advice about how pro shared care local judges are.

My advice would be to reduce anything that sounds like blaming your ex and only focus on the children. If you go in all guns blazing blaming your ex it won't go well. But if you can show you've considerd other options the kids might be having issues too that will be taken much better. Hence recommending play therapy and a parenting course.

Also worth taking them for a GP checkup. You're worried about the number of injuries and bruises and to rule out any possible physical causes e.g. dyspraxia, eyesight issues, ND etc.

In other words even if you are sure your ex is the problem you need to show you are taking a balanced view. I wish someone had advised me of this as I think it would have gone very dofferently. Otherwise he can just bring up his own concerns and its likely to be ignored as tit for tat.

Sounds like he is being angry with them about wetting the bed. So that would stop.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to post and give advice. I've emailed my solicitor tonight asking her to notify him that contact will be stopped on safeguarding grounds and to ask about applying for a prohibited steps order.

He's not due to have them again until next week so hopefully she can write to him before then.

Yes definitely. I had to stop overnight contact for my ds & exh, my exh is severely disabled with MS & had a couple of major accidents during the night leaving then 8 year old ds to have to ring for an ambulance & get help. I had an appointment with a solicitor who wrote to exh stating the facts & telling him I would still allow daytime contact as usual but that I would be collecting ds each evening & would deliver him back the next morning.

Coming back to this thread for some more advice.

I stopped the overnight contact and he's been having them for 2 hours twice a week in a public place. This has been working ok so far.

However my youngest has returned this evening with another head injury (large purplish bump/graze on his forehead). Dad said it happened after he fell forward onto the pavement. The kids have loosely confirmed this story (they're young so not brilliant at relaying information).

How do I respond to this? Do I take him to the GP again to get the injury logged? Tell my solicitor or social services?

What's concerning me is the frequency of the injuries and also the severity of them. Both kids have had head bumps with me recently (from playing/fighting with each other) but neither have had more than a light mark from what seemed like a fair whack on both occasions.

He sent me some messages this evening which I think were intended to undermine me/make me feel like I've been overreacting to these injuries, so my head is a bit of a jumble and I'd appreciate some outside perspectives.

You can log the injury yourself, with photos and other evidence (screenshot of your messages). I wouldn't go to the GP unless you think it actually requires medical attention.

Just for context, my kids are about the same age, and they get significantly more bruises and bumps at nursery than with us for instance. Because they have less supervision in their games, and are less likely to ask for help. We are ok with it because it's things that happen whilst playing, staff will intervene if there are safety concerns and it is kind of normal for their age.

So, circumstances are very important here. Getting a bump because he doesn't hold their hands on the pavement is one thing, but allowing them to run on the road is another. I think you need to continue gathering as much information as possible about what happens when they are in his care.

I don’t think you’re wrong to be worried about these repeated head injuries. Regardless of how a 3 year old is sustaining these, it indicates neglect to me. If he isn’t getting these injuries in your care then that’s really worrying as, to me, it means Dad is either doing something that causes him to be harmed or not doing something that means he gets harmed. Head injuries for a 3 year old that causes bruises like you suggest are not minor.

I imagine contacting social care will trigger some sort of intervention and I’m a bit surprised that nursery haven’t already made a referral if he’s coming to them with repeated head injuries. It may be worth contacting them yourself for some advice from Early Help? I do understand your reluctance with this though and appreciate wanting to maintain a relationship for your boys with their dad. Ultimately though, you need to protect them and repeated head injuries would worry me a lot, especially given you have mentioned domestic abuse from him towards you. How can you be sure he isn’t deliberately harming your children?

How long has he been having the 2-hour contact for? Is this the first injury?

Where is the bruise on his head? And does he have other injuries consistent with the story (scraped knees, scraped hands from falling). Does his clothing match the story (it’s been wet and muddy here).

I think that the answer to these questions is key here. Kids do get injured and a bruise from a fall on the pavement doesn’t sound unreasonable if everything is consistent.

I would be over cautious and log it at the Gp, that third party log is really beneficial.

I've just read everything and you've done everything right, keep logging it, and ask nursery to log it when you drop them off (they usually do at my nursery and ask me the reason and I sign a form if there is a big/noticeable injury).

I'd continue with the 2 hours contact for now, as accidents can happen but I do understand why it has raised your concerns again with the pattern.

If I am honest, I'm surprised ex hasn't gone to court... but then I was thinking, have you informed CMS about him not having them overnight? My ex only cared when it affected his money and then all of a sudden he wanted them 50/50.

Keep logging everything.