STBEX has stolen my passport

[mollythemaid]

I've just found all our passports and birth certificates (including mine and my adult dd) plus marriage certificate and all other important documents have gone missing, along with all the dcs. I'm certain the stbex has taken them. Obviously the children's passports, well they belong to the dc so I can't stop him having those, but can I report mine and dd's as stolen to the police?
I don't think he'd take the dc out of the country, I think he's just taken them as a spiteful/control thing. He's an alcoholic and a gaslighting compulsive liar.
What do I do? Help!

He hasn't returned her passport? Or her adult dds? 🤔

She would need her marriage certificate to file for divorce so that stops that in its tracks plus the children are currently living with her in the house where they were kept so they shouldn't have been removed from.the child's house

I see Fathers for Justice have rocked up

OP, if he doesn't return them within the next week or so, contact the passport office and report the younger DC's as lost. Otherwise you run the risk of not having them when you need them.

I'd contact the passport office and report as stolen. How old are your DC? If teens I'd tell them to report their passports stolen too. Get new ones issued. You can get certified copies of birth certificates and your marriage certificate, through the post. It only takes about 7 days but I think you can do expedient service which cost a bit more but you get in 4-5 days. You need your marriage certificate to get a divorce.

You can order copies of the birth certificates and marriage certificate.
He is a dick for punishing you by taking your passport - especially as he probably knows about the new job.
How long until you are likely to need passports for the kids? Your oldest should have her own passport. If she knows that he's taken hers then is he likely to return hers to her? Is he likely to take the younger ones abroad? I don't know if you can ask that "passports remain with you but you will hand them to him 2 weeks before his holiday" is a condition on the Child Arrangement Order

Hope he isn't using your IDs to get things online my first marriage he did that. Once the divorce started it all came out bigger than I could imagine and after 2 years of having to prove it wasn't me owing debts I was cleared of over 20 grands worth

He has returned the OP's and her adult DD's Passport.

The OP has posted this.

He hasn't returned the younger children's passports though. That's what would set alarm bells ringing.

@DameKatyDenisesClagnuts you should see what he thinks about rape. FFJ is the least worst of his opinions.

@FrippEnos So we are going to pretend that the usual response to a woman leaving her husband isn't to take all of the important documents including passports, bank statements etc?
Errrr. I'm not going to pretend anything. I'm also not going to make up hypothetical scenarios and then accuse the OP of them. At no point did she take his personal documents. He took hers and DDs. And yes maybe dd should hang on to hers but not sure how that is relevant. What is relevant is that dd didn't want her docs being stolen by her father. You seem to have some bitter rhetoric about women and what they do during a breakup which is very peculiar

So if you are saying he is entitled to keep and hide the dcs docs then so is she. So in that case she didn't do anything wrong. The only one stealing anything was him as he stole the op and adult dd passports. You seem confused.

"A child should always have their own passport which is usually kept by the parent with primary responsibility for that child’s upbringing i.e. the resident parent."

Whoever the minor(s) live with should have the passport.

pantypant

You seem to have some bitter rhetoric about women and what they do during a breakup which is very peculiar

Interesting how its ok for you to make stuff up.
Are you always this hypocritical?

Mine is based on what you wrote yourself. You just made stuff up that was in no way demonstrated by the OP

I was referring to the response on here that it is ok for the OP to take the passports etc. but not him.

Which posters on the thread have proved several times.

The law says the resident parent should have the passports of any minors.

He clearly took the kids passports out of spite, unless he also took the kids with him too and they are going to reside with him.

There is no specific rule as to who should keep the passports of minors. If an agreement cannot be reached through mediation then a specific order can be applied for.

@FrippEnos as there is no specific law regarding who holds the passport then obviously the sensible and logical thing would be for the resident parent to hold them. In addition, mothers automatically gave parental responsibility by law. Fathers don't.

Whatever you may want, it is not consistent with the set up of this particular family for the father to be holding the passports.

Passports don't actually belong to you or the children, they belong to the government.

He's looking at 10 years in prison, that might make him think again.

Or, you could just apply for a new passport, you can have a second (and occasionally a third) UK passport.

I don't think you can have a 2nd or 3rd Uk passport. I'm pretty sure when you apply for a replacement the old one is void. If you still possess it you have to send it in to them and they sight it and void it. If you've lost it they just void it.

The courts will rule that the resident parent should keep the passport.

@sashh That's not quite true. What is written in the passports (property of HMG or whatever the wording is these days) refers to the act of granting the passport which can be revoked under certain circumstances. If the circumstances are fulfilled, then the passport reverts back to being the property of HMG. The actual document technically belongs to the person who paid for it (which is why, in cases of separation where minors are involved, you often get one parent claiming ownership)

You can, but under very strict guidelines. (Airline employees who cross multiple borders daily, people who for various reasons cannot travel to one country because of connection to a hostile one etc)
A contentious separation isn't one of them.

It's quite common when people do business in the middle east, a stamp from Israel stops you going in to a lot of other countries.

HicIocusEst

The courts will rule that the resident parent should keep the passport.

And that is very different from what you posted, and the court may rule it is not always the case.

In the 29 years I've been working in the field, I've never known the resident parent not to have been given the passport.

Have you?