He abused my child, can I stop him from getting unsupervised contact?

[xkcd519]

My ex-husband used to smack our son, yell at him, throw him across the room, slap his hand etc when he misbehaved. Mainly happened at home, I was the only eyewitness, I don’t have any evidence of physical punishment that I can use in court, although I have some evidence of coercive control/emotional abuse against me. My son is 2 years 9 months old and has a speech delay. I live in England where corporal punishment is sort-of legal.

When I left him, CAFCASS temporarily imposed a child protection plan and ordered that contact would be supervised for a few months while they investigate. Now the supervised contact period has ended and they’ve stepped down to a child in need plan. Is it likely that the family courts will give my ex unsupervised contact?

And Did you not do anything at the time? Report it? 😳

Sorry but corporal punishment is absolutely not legal in England!
you cannot slap or snack a child here.

what have cafcass actually concluded snd what have you state to them?
gave you logged any of this with the police ??

At the time I was scared that he would get angry at me if I reported it. And I believed him when he said my child would get taken into care if I reported anything. And he told me that he would be heartbroken and end up killing himself if I left him. And he persuaded me that I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting custody if I left him or if I reported anything to authorities, due to my ASD diagnosis and mental health history. When I tried to change my son’s nappy or put him in in his car seat he always refused to cooperate, and my ex was very quick to point out that my ‘gentle parenting’ wasn’t working.

My Mum used to smack me and restrain me by pulling my hair when I was a child, so I thought that most parents treated their children like that. One of the main reasons that I moved in with him in the first place is that I didn’t want to live with my Mum (and when he started shouting at me and criticising me all the time I thought that was normal because I grew up listening to my Mum shouting at and criticising my Dad all the time). Plus I come from a Christian family who are very much believe in ‘marriage is for life’ and ‘forgive your enemies’.

And Did you not do anything at the time? Report it?

OP did the best thing she could do for her child and left. That takes a lot of courage. Well done OP for getting through the worst.

It doesn’t sound like it was a one time thing though and op left instantly sounds like it was a prolonged situation so op didn’t do anything to stop it at the time so I can see why it looks malicious now with no evidence, it’s not uncommon for women to make false claims of abuse to stop fathers getting access to their children, this is why it’s important to report things at the time.

Is this in Court currently?
CAFCASS do not put in place CP or CIN Plans - this is the responsibility of the local authority - have you a social worker involved?

Yes I have a social worker involved.

I’ve started filling out the online form to apply for a child arrangements order, I’m now trying to decide whether I will go as a litigant in person or whether I will somehow be able to find the money to pay for a solicitor. I don’t qualify for legal aid because I have more than £16,000 in savings, although most of that money is on a 5 year fixed deposit which cannot be withdrawn before maturity and under the terms of our prenuptial agreement I need to pay some of that money to him. I’ve tried getting free legal advice from various places, but they all just say that the situation is too complicated and they don’t have enough experience to advise me. I am considering paying for legal advice, I’m not sure which solicitors to go for and how to get the best value for money when paying for legal advice. At the moment I’m staying at a family members house four hours drive away from the family home, my ex wants extended periods of overnight contact due to amount of travelling involved and he says that he can sue me for all the expenses involved in travelling for contact.

Honestly @xkcd519 Id write down what you’ve written here and send it to social services detailing your concerns. Put in about your own reflection about the situation and how you asked other peoples advice because you were impacted by what was normalised for you growing up which is obviously what you are doing on here but I do thing social services should be made aware of the level of serious mistreatment/abuse your child experienced at the hands of his father.

Unfortunately smacking is still legal in England. It's only Scotland and wales that have banned it.

The defence of reasonable chastisement in England remains.

However what OP has described goes way beyond that.

But I'm assuming that this hasn't been reported to the police nor charges brought so that is a challenge.

OP you've done the right thing leaving him. Another pp has suggested writing all this down and sharing with your social worker. That's a good idea.

This is not correct.

So what are t he current contact arrangemants and what is the CIN plan to acheive? Who was supervising before? I would suggest that you get some legal advice bu maybe following that have a look at a direct access barrister which can be more cost effective.

At the moment my brother is supervising contact every other weekend.

I'll look into direct access barristers then. My brother has offered to lend me money to help with legal fees but the budget will only stretch so far.