Ex husband making false allegations to Cafcass

[scaredmam2026]

Name changed for this thread and posting on AIBU for traffic.
my ex (split 3.5 years ago, divorced almost 3) has applied to court for a child arrangements order to see our son who he hasn't seen for almost 20 months.
To cut a long story short, there was DV during the relationship (physical and emotional abuse from him) and after the relationship ended he continued to be verbally abusive, aggressive and threatening, harassing me etc and behaving like this in front of our son who was 2 at the time. Due to all this i went to the police (i had contacted the police on a few occasions prior but never followed through for fear of repercussions and kept giving him chances to change and be a family etc) and they advised me to get a non molestation order, which I did and it was granted but that ended mid 2025. I heard nothing from him after that until I got the letter about the CAO application. The police are preparing a case for the CPS for various charges but obviously this can take years.
Fastforward to now, Cafcass did their telephone intervie to prepare a safeguarding letter for the court. I told them all about the abuse and the impact this had on our son and why I had to stop contact due to this behaviour. I have received their letter today and it details mine and my exes phonecalls and during his phonecall he has told them that I was physically abusive (punching him etc) as well as controlling and he suffered verbal and financial abuse!!!
I am absolutely gobsmacked hes made these allegations, he has also denied some of the things I told Cafcass about but said there were "incidents". I honestly cannot believe he has outright lied to them and made these accusations against me, I never once was abusive in any way apart from probably namecalling etc during arguments which of course I was going to do to defend myself, and there was one incident where he strangled me and I fought back to get him off me as I thought he was going to kill me. As for the financial abuse, I have no idea where hes claiming this, we got joint UC at one time which was paid into my bank account as I already had all the bills etc set up to my account from when I worked and paid everything! What are the chances the court/judge will see through this and see hes doing this to get back at me and to disrupt my life?? Our son doesnt even remember him as its been so long since hes seen him. I feel that hes doing this as another form of abuse to cause me emotional stress and drag me through court and try and paint me as this awful person and try and get things granted in his favour. I genuinely was so shocked when I read the letter I couldn't believe what i was reading!

The fact that he’s only mentioning this ‘abuse’ now point to it being fabricated OP.
You reported abuse at the time it happened, you have evidence to support your allegations.
You can provide evidence of the financial situation.
You can provide evidence of having a non mol.

Gather all your evidence to show he’s being a dick OP.

Judges see this sort of thing all the time, as do CAFCASS They rarely have 'proof' either way, they will look at what's plausible. The fact that you successfully got a non mol is significant. Not sure if you reported the attempted strangulation but the courts take that type of attack very seriously also. Please don't panic.

In my experience of family court and CAFCASS, the CAFCASS social worker will fact check everything they can. You have a lot of evidence - police reports, statements from friends and family, text messages etc I’d imagine, as well as of course the non mol order.

He on the other hand has no evidence because he’s talking bollocks. Of course not everything can be evidenced and CAFCASS can make decisions based on who is likely to be telling the truth, based on patterns of behaviour which can be evidenced.

I wouldn’t worry, the courts will have seen this a million times and understand that abusive men use the court system as a way to further abuse their victim. The most important thing is to get the CAFCASS officer on side, as the judge will nearly always go with their recommendation. Just be helpful and polite, try not to get emotional or sling mud, gather all the evidence you have.

What are the chances the court/judge will see through this and see hes doing this to get back at me and to disrupt my life??

Pretty high.

Your ex may not be aware that the court will almost certainly order police disclosure which will show your reports to them over the course of the relationship.

The courts are (or should be) well aware of post-separation abuse and the risk of an abusive partner using the courts as a vehicle of abuse.

The problem you have is that he has not been abusive to your son, so he will probably get contact via a contact centre for a set time until he has proved himself to be acceptable and allowed time alone with your son. I know this is not the answer you want, but they look at life that is best for your son.

This is DARVO I hope /expect cafcass will have training on this dynamic.
the fact it’s just being raised now won’t help his case. Also even if it WAS true it just demonstrates how much conflict there is between the two of you and maes them less likely to put a child in the middle
of that by forcing coparenting. Don’t worry.
it’s likely they will order some contact though.

I know they will order some contact which isnt ideal. I know he hasn't been abusive directly to my son however he did act this way in front of him, dragging him away from me at handover giving abuse etc. This behaviour was all incredibly traumatic for my son and he suffered developmental delays as a result which the paediatrician put down to "adverse childhood experience" which is awful. The fact he has waited so long to apply to court now just screams the fact he is using this to mess with me and distress us. We have done so well and come so far and finally settled and have a good life, good routine, and its like he knows this now and wants to ruin that.
I wish my child did have a parent with whom they had a good relationship and I could co parent successfully with and I tried really hard to make this happen but unfortunately thats not the case.
I had family members give police statements at the time of reporting things, he made serious threats towards a family member of mine and this was reported and statements given etc. So there is evidence to back up everything I have told them about abuse etc.
The only thing I no longer have is all the text messages etc as that phone broke last year, nothing backed up and I have a different phone now. Thats what worries me. As that would've shown all the times I tried to get him to get a CAO and be consistent even stick to something informal between us and he never ever would.
Just seems unfair that someone who has behaved as he has, consistently let his child down by not seeing them for weeks/months at a time and popping up again every so often to have them then disappearing again, never paying a penny towards their upbringing and then going almost half their life without seeing them can just apply to court and be allowed contact. Its barbaric really. And in my opinion its absolutely not in my son's best interest to have anything to do with this man who I know would use contact to question my son and try and poison his mind. He was trying this sort of stuff before. I would never be able to relax when he was with him.

They may not order contact in those circumstances. The courts are moving on from "contact is always in the child's best interests" and if they're persuaded that his interest here is in controlling you, not in developing a relationship with the child, they won't.

Can you get the paediatrician's notes?

You never know - it was a battle lasting two years for me (he didn’t see my DC during those years), but I went from being told he would definitely get supervised contact, to then because of his mental health issues he would need contact to be supervised by a psychologist, and I’d have to pay for it because I was working and he wasn’t 😵‍💫. And then finally, becuase of the fantastic CAFCASS officer and the barrister I had, a zero contact order was granted. It’s rare but it does happen.

Really similar situation OP, down to what happened to you and age of the child. I’m sorry you’re going through this. You’re welcome to message me.

Hi, going through this now. What was the end result for you?

Yeah mines done the same.
Honestly I'd love to say CAFCAS are trained to see right though it. My officer has eaten it all up. So document, everything. Get all the proof you can. Be factual to a t. This is a child arrangements order, it's about the child, not you. They believe in the idea that a bad husband is still a good dad (false, abuse towards a woman drastically increases the risk of abuse towards a child.)

But honestly, mentally prepare yourself for him getting access to your child.

The laws and guidlines indicate he wouldn't. But abusers are star manipulators and CAFCAS officers are young women who haven't had the joy of learning to see through an abuser first hand.