Ok i have thought about posting this since yesterday when the contact was supposed to have taken place.
I have my own take on it, my new DP does also, just wanted a few more opinions please!
Some background to begin with.
My ExP was an evil, violent, and manipulative person
When he left 6/7 years ago it took a long time to get over what he had done to me and my children. He never showed any interest in contact, but did keep tabs on me via his friends, who live in my area.
His mantra was, "If i cannot have you, i do not want anything to do with DS."
Briefly in 2004 he did start having contact with DS as DS's initiation, walking him back from school ect, this lasted approximately a week before he became violent to DS one day because he asked him what he had for dinner and DS said he didn't remember. The violence left DS with bruising on his thigh and a slap/thump mark on the side of his head.
As a result of this i banned all contact, and contacted the police and SS. Police investigation basically came down to 'over chastisement' bruises and a hard slap/punch in the head of a 7 year old boy? Hmph.
So ExP never got any kind of punishment for what he had done, and the police didn't even bother letting me know, after my son was interviewed on camera and everything..what the result of their investigation was, the SW had to let me know
Following this incident, no contact took place until i met my new DP just over 2 years ago. ExP found out on the grapevine, i had not had a serious relationship since i split up with him, you see, that i was living with DP and obviously he saw this as a threat, so started a campaign against me (SS turning up saying they had reports i was not feeding my son, leaving him home alone while i was at work, that kind of thing) And applying for contact with DS.
He was obviously watching my house as well at some point because i also had the police turn up once when my DS was 10, he and a friend of his (13) had stayed at home while me and DP went shopping, i came back to find the police sitting in my house saying i had left him home alone, had to go to police station and do a statement, this was then all dropped as they saw it as a malicious attempt on the part of my ExP so he had something to use against me in contact proceedings.
So all this was taking its toll.
I agreed unsupervised contact at court because this was my DS's wish, so he could go out with his dad. Obviously i pointed out the worries i had re violence but the CAFCASS officer said that ExP would be on his best behaviour given that court was now involved.
During these unsupervised contacts, where ExP would come to my home, collect my son, and take him out, he would harrass my DS for information about me, my DP, our relationship, ect, and tell DS to tell the court he wanted to live with ExP, or "He would make mummy's life a misery"
Well my DS came back home subdued most times during the next few weeks of contact but would not say why. Eventually, he cried and told me everything. Absolutely i stopped the contact, after explaining to DS why i was doing it (emotional abuse and threats)
When the matter was referred back to court, i raised the issues that had happened, and was annoyed to find them not taken as seriously as i would have liked ("Oh, just teething problems") so i refused to allow contact and did an extremely detailed statement covering all of the abuse to which i and my children had been subjected, i held back on nothing. One of the magistrates (a man btw) cried when he read it. I told them i would allow supervised contact. For the sake of my DS, nothing else. So they arranged it, now once a week i have to take DS to a contact centre about three miles away from our home and drop him off + collect him. Its a bit awkward as we only have one car so DP is having to rush back home from work so we can drop him off, but we are managing ok. Yesterday i knew my DP would be working late so i said i would be ok to walk my DS there and DP was going to collect me. We took a nice slow walk down, (am 40+2 pg lol) and arrived to be told ExP had called to say he had a bad back and would not be coming. He phoned half an hour before contact was due to start
The contact centre woman had told him we were coming but were making our own way there, this was in the morning..the only one other time i had to walk there he did exactly the same thing..
I believe he is doing it to make my life hard and regret my decision to go for supervised contact, but obviously i can not prove this. I was really pissed off, DS was devastated (it was ExP's birthday and he had brought him a card) so when DP turned up he, quite understandably faced with two upset people, went NUTS. He thinks that i should pull the contact next week.. at the last minute.
I tried to be positive through all the pissed off namecalling ect for the sake of DS who was quite upset and angry, but was coping with it quite well and patiently, DP was more angry about us walking there and being let down so he was fuming, plus he mentioned the fact ExP might have done it on purpose as we both know how he works. I couldn't say anything bad about ExP because we were in front of my son, even though i could have cheerfully strangled him lol! DP thinks i am too soft a touch and letting ExP get away with what he is doing, and not getting angry.
What do you think? And what should i do?
Am thinking about raising it in court but if he says he had a bad back so could not go to contact, i can not prove otherwise.
Sorry this is long as well!