We always shared childcare throughout our marriage, but in 2024 when we separated, my wife restricted my access and would not let me have the children (2 boys, aged 5 & 3) alone.
She took my car keys and stopped me seeing my friends, and when I said her behaviour was coercive, she said that, due to the severity of that allegation, she would now need a friend present as well whenever she monitored me with the children. Both her and her friend would follow me and my children from room to room as we played.
I applied to court with a coercion complaint, and she gave the standard counterclaim that I’d been abusing alcohol and drugs. So I had to spend 8 months seeing my children in a contact centre, missing my youngest’s first words and first steps until hair tests disproved her claims.
But the moment they did, she replaced the claims with my heart condition as the reason I could not see my children unsupervised. The court ordered visits be 'supported', which is one step up, but I still cannot see my children without another person being present, which causes a lot of difficulty and lack of freedom.
It is a serious heart condition, but I've demonstrated in a Cafcass observation that I’m physically capable of running after the children and keeping them safe in a public park, but the officer said ahead of the observation that her mind was already made up.
There must be some kind of discrimination at work, if instead of the court helping the parent with health challenges with whatever they need to maintain a safe and healthy relationship with their children, they simply compromise the parent’s access until they deem it safe.
The biggest problem with these 'supported' visits is the court’s requirement for my ex-wife to approve of the supporter, essentially handing her a veto. Cafcass has said there are no concerns regarding my ability to care for the children, making the supporter’s role purely an emergency backup if my health fails – I have never in my life had a cardiac event or passed out. My ex-wife is not medically trained, so how can she be well-placed to disqualify a supporter?
Sure enough, she has refused every supporter I’ve put forward, including my parents, suggesting her own parents would be a good solution to watch every moment I have with my kids, despite her father having assaulted me previously.
The court eventually said it would have to be my parents, who were alternating each fortnight, but my father died in May, leaving no one else approved to support, meaning I now see my children just once/month as my mother is 73 and cannot do more than that, as we have to drive 4 hours to my ex-wife for every visit (splitting the journey is not putting the kids first).
On top of that she has reduced my one day/month with my kids from the court-ordered 8 hours to 6½ hours, because she says they have to be back with her by 4.30pm to get them to bed on time.
I just don't know what to do because the court has ignored all my reports of her breaching orders, and even the assault in a public car park by her father, yet the court continues to impose sweeping conditions and restrictions on my access based on her latest concerns and preferences.
We have the final hearing on Tues & Weds next week, and despite being thoroughly organised with an extremely strong case, I just know they will have made up their minds to support her, even when it goes against the court and Cafcass' written guidelines 😔