Family court - help!

[purplemilo]

What do you do if the barrister of the other party (I’m litigant in person), writes a draft order after the FHFRA, then send it to court and inform me afterwards that they’ve done it. But the order doesn’t reflect at all what was discussed, agreed and ordered in court.
The court then sealed that order well over a month later.
The barrister did the same on a previous occasion which absolutely steered the direction of the final hearing exactly the way the wanted.

But this time they went even further. They’ve sent the draft order to the court 20 minutes BEFORE the hearing started. Mind boggling.
And then very slightly amended it and sent a slightly revised version to court whilst I was driving back home!!!

I am so upset and so unwell because of this. It breaks my heart in a million pieces. The court order is a one sided document that somehow got sealed. And in fact, I was wasting my time writing a brilliant position statement and spoke ok, because they had already decided BEFORE the hearing what they want to have in the order.

I’m losing the will.

I feel helpless!

• Ive already applied for a transcript and sent that to court
• Ive sent a C2 application. They then asked me to send a concise / bullet point version and I did that.
• I’ve now made a formal complaint at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service/about/complaints-procedure

what else can I do? Can I put in an urgent C100 (new)?

I also reported the barrister to the Bar of Standards (same as 2 years ago)

Please help. I feel like there is no point in me going to the next hearing, gather all the evidence and write a damm good witness statement. Because all of that will be a waste of time. The barrister will write an order before the hearing even started.

The thing is, the court are so overwhelmed with cases and backlog so big. I feel like the barrister knows this and uses this to write pretty much whatever they want, because they know the court won’t go back and have the time to check it carefully. They certainly won’t have the time to read through the 30 page transcript.

Sorry I have no idea, but it might be worth asking MNHQ to move this to legal advice, this sounds very specific and you probably have a better chance of getting advice there.

What is an FHFRA? I just googled it but it didn't come with anything.

Agree this sounds v specific.

There is a charity called Rights of Women that has free legal advice for women - you could try that.

In my experience of the Family Courts, it is quite normal that orders are drafted before the hearing, with wrangling and negotiations between solicitors, guardians etc to find consensus, with an aim that by the time you go into the court room it is presented to the judge for agreement rather than discussion - maybe with a couple of smaller issues needing discussion/decision.

I appreciate you don't feel there was consensus, but I just add that to make you aware that is the practice in many circumstances so not a wildly rogue approach.

I understand that a draft order can be drawn up just before the hearing if there was discussion between solicitors or barristers or parties. But there was no discussion at all between anyone.
So it really is a one sided document.

I am so sorry this happened to you and hope you found some resolution. Family Court systems seem to be very flawed.