Mediating with compulsive liar

[solice84]

Is there any point?
He is an alcoholic and lies and lies and lies
I have attended my first mediation meeting and he is due to attend his
Personally I think trying to mediate with someone like this is a complete waste of time and money for all involved and I need to go straight to court over custody of dc
But will this look bad in the eyes on the court if I have refused to mediate ?

Unfortunately, you do have to....but my alcoholic, lying ex managed to make himself such a prick and turned up drunk. Did me a massive favour as they finally believed me 💐

But you don't 'have' to
You only have to attend the MIAM to apply to court but I'm worried it will look bad if I don't proceed with mediation but then I also worry it looks bad that as I'm worried for the safety of my dc that I wasted time trying to mediate which will not reach a successful agreement and will end up going to court anyway .
He even lied about when his MIAM meeting was .

You can issue form A and still carry on with mediation while you wait for your first hearing.

@Mumof3confused thank you
I'm surprised my solicitor didn't mention this
He has now told me he is going to put dc in a nursery closer to him
Nothing I can do about it
He had lost his driving licence and job now through drink
He still thinks 'the judge will laugh me out of court'
he only wants 50/50 so he doesn't have to pay maintenance and to get his choice of school near him
He pawns dc off to his mother most of the time in reality

I tried a few months back and it was a waste of time.

My ex lied about where he was living on the legal aid forms, tried to charm the mediator into thinking he was Dad of the year.

I actual left the 2nd session as it was a complete joke.

Go to one session and then sack the mediation. You should not mediate with an abuser and how can you mediate with a liar? I fell into this trap and spent far too much money trying to mediate and when that didn’t work trying to negotiate. Just issue Form A.

I went to one session, he did not attend and it was signed off for the court by the mediator. It is in your interests to co-operate with the court.

This is exactly what I'm doing now
I'm going to one joint session.
We won't reach any agreements
I will be laying on thick the extent of his addiction which he probably won't be expecting and stating my demands which I absolutely will not budge on
I don't believe my dc is safe with him but I also want to do everything by the book
I don't believe he would hurt him deliberately but his drinking means he could be neglectful

And of course he's delaying everything as much as possible
He rearranged his MIAM 3 times and has chosen the very last date given by the mediator for the joint meeting

Classic. I would fill in Form A and bring it to the appointment, get your mediator to sign it there and then.

Your solicitor should have told you about the Form A option. But definitely do that. You definitely shouldn't mediate with him as it won't be fair to you. Also, whilst using a solicitor, see if this can help you too. https://www.iamlip.com/ it guided me through my entire divorce because I couldn't afford to pay for my solicitor. Honestly it really did help me understand what exactly was going on and what I could do.

Hope all goes well xxx

Sorry
I've only just realised what Form A is
We are already divorced
This is purely about child custody

Ahh I see, box 2 on here should help https://iamlip.com/help-guides/child-arrangements/. Maybe you can get answers there. I read that it's the law that you need to mediate first but you can be exempt for certain reasons.