Dad won't give permission

[emsantana99]

I need abit of advice here, my daughter is 18 months old and sees her dad once in a blue moon. A bit of context with that, he cancels 24/7, when he does have her he calls me hours before I'm due to pick her up demanding I go and get her & I won't allow him to have her overnight as he has PTSD & kicks, screams, cries & chokes in his sleep which I don't deem as a safe environment for her to sleep in. I've never stopped him from having her during the day time, and I will also add he doesn't contribute a single penny towards our child. I have family that live in the US ( I'm from the uk ) and want to take her on a 90 day trip starting in Florida and ending in Canada. Upon sorting out our visas, I noticed that I can only take my daughter out of the country for 28 days without the other parents consent to which I contacted her father and he won't grant me the permission.

Does anyone know what I can do from here? I don't want to pass up on this opportunity before she starts nursery and I go back to work.

Just to add he is obviously on the birth certificate but her last name is double barrelled.

Thank you!!

@emsantana99 the 28 day rule only applies if you already have a court order (Child Arrangements Order). And in any case, it cannot interfere with court agreed contact times, unless agreed by other party. So that does not apply here.

If you don't have a Court order, and it appears that you don’t, you need his express permission regardless how long you are going for. (This is where you’ll get people saying that they took their children abroad lots of times without permission letters and never had an issue or been questioned).

Please ignore posters suggesting you go for 26/27 days and seek solicitor advice - mediation and court is the most pragmatic way here. International child abduction (or even a suggestion of it) is no joke and can have dire consequences for the abducting parent.

Unfortunately rights are not affected by whether he pays or not.
You also can't stop a non paying parent from seeing a child.

You need to see a good family solicitor asap.

This is going to be an ongoing problem for you. Decisions regarding health, education, ANY trips out of the country etc are at risk.

I occasionally would be asked about my children being allowed to travel by security at airports (I kept my name through marriage/divorce but stupidly didn’t add my name to my children’s in any way) and would need to show a copy of their birth certificates which included my name. I also had a copy of my court order that states I have full custody (he wasn’t interested in having them).

You need professional advice.

I'm not sure what country you're from but in the uk we're allowed to take the child away for 28 days without the other parents physical consent

I could be stopped and refused entry to the country without his consent as it could be counted as child abduction it's absolutely ridiculous

No we aren't! Only if you have a child arrangements order in place. Do you?

@TheSilkWorm
Sorry my bad I've just read that I can't you're completely right

You really need to get some legal advice as you are wrong about the 28days.

This is stated in most court orders that the RP can do this.

You simply cannot just take your child abroad without consent or an Order.

Especially in USA where they will question you.

It's just difficult for me to fathom when it seems like a brilliant opportunity for the both of us to be able to experience. I'm not sure if you read the rest of the replies but her dad literally goes months without seeing her at a time, doesn't care about anything else she does, doesn't even contact for sometimes 6 weeks at a time before calling me at 8pm asking what she's doing & requesting to FaceTime.. and he knew about the trip without having a problem with it until he knew he could have some form of say in it..

I can't afford to do it like that unfortunately, plus I now realise I have to have his permission to go on EVERY holiday

I'm not sure really, what I can't really understand on his behalf is that he told me a few months back that in the new year he's going abroad for work for 6 months.. personally I think he's full of crap but that's neither here nor there, the thing that bugs me is how come he can go for that length of time but if I want to go for half of that it's not okay

Unhelpful post, but it you're mad to do a 3 month road trip with an 18 month old.

It's clear he likes control.
I would get a court order to confirm a Lives with order and that will get you the 28 days. You can also apply for the 3 months holiday when there. Whether you'll get it is a different matter and you really do need legal advice on this one.

Do it soon as the court process can be very long.

That's so short sighted though. His wage will eventually increase and then the CM payments will increase. Also I feel like he will be more invested in her when he is forced to pay towards her. I know that seems wrong but for the sake of the chance that it will slightly strengthen their relationship I think it's worth it.

That's what she told me, she defiantly said PR had been revoked.

This! Getting a specific issue order - which is what you need - is going to cost you the best part of £2-3k.

No court will take away PR

Courts will look very dimly on you removing your daughter for 90 days, though if you can prove you don’t hear from him for that much potentially you’ll get it

For this trip I feel you’re better off doing a double holiday and not navigating the courts - a judge could be very unsympathetic to 90 days away.
you could even use his lack of payment as leverage - saying along the lines of ‘you’re not paying any maintenance, it’s that or sign off on this permission’ (maybe for a reduced period eg 60 days)

In parallel I think you need to do the following with some urgency:

• create and agree on a formalised child contact order - strike while the iron is hot as useless men like this hate dealing with toddlers but suddenly become interested and decide to exercise their rights when the child starts saying Dada
• keep offering contact and keep records of him refusing it or ignoring it
• get record of him agreeing he’s not suitable to have her overnight

You need to gird yourself as UK courts are very in favour of children having parental contact even if the parent is shockingly absent and useless. It’s very hard to prove they are dangerous. I know this from bitter experience. And if you in any way look like you’re being unreasonable or controlling, or have exercised sole authority, you’ll come out of it badly.

Far more likely that she was given overriding power to make decisions. The courts don't revoke PR unless they absolutely have to, and the whole point of CAOs is to make it possible for one parent to make certain decisions without seeking consent of the other parent. Removing PR is a violation of the father's article 8 rights so is never done without very good cause. She may have interpreted it as his PR being removed but that doesn't mean it was.

Well she's wrong, even murderers don't get PR revoked unless they're particularly heinous.

Of course you can go away just the same as he can. However, neither of you can legally take the child out of the jurisdiction without the permission of the other parent or the court.

Did he know that you were proposing a 3 month trip when he initially had no objection?

'Once in a Blue Moon' is not supposed to be literal. It is code for 'Something That Hardly Ever Happens'.

Turns out that a lot of people don't know that.

I don't think it is.. my friend got a child arrangements order to say her child lived with her and hardly ever saw his dad.. which meant she didn't need to keep getting his permission for everything even though he was on the birth certificate. You can do this if the child doesn't live with the dad at all. Of course he can then apply to counter it and have a say in decisions.. which might get accepted. But it certainly does make it easier for you to make decisions... otherwise all these dad's who are on the birth certificates but have just totally fucked off could be making parenting decisions for the whole of the child's life! So of course there's a way to get more control by showing the child permanently lives with you and the dad hardly sees them.
OP should just get some proper legal advice. It's worth doing in case he repeatedly trues to do this despite paying nothing toward the child and never having it overnight etc

I have been taking my son away for six years and not once been asked to show consent from his dad (he has his dad’s surname). So in future for shorter holidays I wouldn’t personally worry about this - if he’s not in contact much then the chance of him realising you’ve gone away for a week or two is slim. I realise you could theoretically be asked, but anecdotally I never have!

@LeopardPants this is not helpful advice - I have been asked three times coming back in to the country, we were pulled aside in to a waiting area the first time. Luckily I was able to find a copy of the court order on my phone but if memory serves they actually phoned my ex husband as well.. My kids are late teens now so it’s not an issue but it definitely happens.

God I love this response he'd keel over!!

I can be stopped at border control and be sent straight back to the Uk!!! Our visas for both the US & Canada got approved this morning but going to get the letter of consent before I consider booking anything!