Request from violent ex to have contact with baby

[4SucksFake]

Hi - am posting this on behalf of a friend.

Back ground to the situation is:

• her ex beat her violently last year, whilst she was breastfeeding their 4 month old daughter
• he was charged with and found guilty of assault and sentenced to 15 weeks imprisonment
• following the attack, the social workers got involved and produced a report stating he cannot have unsupervised access.
• friend offered him access at a contact centre (this was prior to the court case) which he did not take up. He has therefore, through his own choice, not seen his daughter since the incident
• he has contributed no money, sent no cards etc or shown any interest in the baby since his arrest - even going as far to tell the police that he has disowned her

He was released from prison two weeks ago and friend has now received a solicitor's letter requesting that he has 3 hours unsupervised contact per week. The solicitors have given her 1 week to respond.

What she needs advice on is :

• does she even need to deign this request with a response? (And can his solicitors just impose a unilateral response time on her?)
• if she must respond, can she simply state that she is not willing to make any arrangements outside of a court order?

She does fear for her daughter's life if he has unsupervised contact. And would never agree to contact outside of a court enforced order.

she needs to speak to a solicitor herself

She has no money to thisisyesterday as has been left bringing up baby alone and does not qualify for Legal Aid

Solicitors will try and push people into replying, the nature of their job is to act on behalf of their client, sometimes it seems with little regard for others, however this is their job. Your friend needs a solicitor asap, they will respond for her, but if the response is later than the week specified there's bugger all they can do, except harass her with more letters, so its best she get her own solicitor then they can argue between themselves (themselves being the solicitors not her and the ex).

Why no legal aid ???

When they calculated it she earned something like £5 per month over the threshold. But all her money goes on childminder costs etc. She has been left skint by this.

He is a spiteful person who has a lot of money so she really wants to avoid getting into constant letters back and forth between solicitors as could leave her penniless and wouldn't even be a drop in the ocean for him.

i missed out on the legal aid thing too by something liek £7 because i paid so much in childcare and it isn't taken into account.

in teh end i had to write my own letters but the solicitor i spoke to told me i didn't have to respond at all and all they could do was summons me to court which i owuld have to attend and explain why i was refusing contact.

in your friends case i imagine she is refusing contact so she will likely end up in court anyway, i dont see why she should waste money paying a solicitor to arrange this for her. when it comes to court, i think it would be best if she is prepared and has the police records and SS report to show his violent behaviour.

It's ridiculous that childcare isn't taken into account isn't it. She has gone from having someone share the mortgage, heating, car costs and planned childminder costs (baby not yet at childminders when attack happened) to having to cover it all herself.

It is good to hear she doesn't have to respond at all. I don't think any court will give him unsupervised access. So why should he bankrupt her in the process? She is quite happy to get a court to rule on this.

SGM - do Women's Aid give advice on contact matters? I didn't realise that.

if it was me, i would just ignore all letters untill the summons arrives. and in the meantime gather all reports and evidence she needs to prove he is unsafe to be alone with the baby, which he clearly is if he attacked the motehr whilst she was holding the baby. i wonder if SS would send someone to the court date to speak for your friend?

btw, those letters from solicitors always say respond within X amount of days yet whenever you ask for a reponse within the same amount of days they never oblige. i also noticed on mine, some that said respind within 7 days of the date of this letter yet the letter only arrives the day before teh 7 days is up.

Thanks for all your advice - I'll let her know she can ignore the letter.

tell her to try womens aid aswell.

I would definitely advice her to talk to women's aid. They are great offering support, not just for women currently going through domestic abuse but for women who have already experienced it or who might be at risk in the future.

They will be able to advise on how she might get some support/representation through legal means.

yes I will - thank you

oh and and yes social services would most certainly want to know about this, because any potential arranged contact with the baby, or pressure for unsupervised contact poses a risk to that baby and their interest is in the welfare of the baby, they would likely get involved to stop any unsupervised contact.

thanks Pavlov - I will tell her to contact the social work team

(remember the solicitor is only doing what s/he is paid to do, not necessarily what the law requires them to do, and it is based on facts given or not given by the father of the child - ie he might not have given all the information they require to give him informed advice)

What pavlov said. A solicitor acts for a client and not necessarily in the best interests of the the child in this instance.

Does she have the social worker's report? She will need it, however she should realize that her ex'es solicitor is not an independent authority and cannot demand that she does anything. Contact is not yet part of a court order.

If it was me, then I would write to the solicitor and say that contact can only take place supervised and would welcome a CAFCASS report.

But it is fairly clear that the ex isn't really interested in the baby, but rather using the baby to control the mother.

Thanks ilove.

Yes, she does have the social worker's report. And the police are also willing to write a report to support her.

And yes pavlov, it is clear from the content of the letter that the solicitor has been spun a bullshit story.

Yes ilove you are right - this is just a continuation of the abuse.

she could self represent. tell her to
google 'mckenzies friend'too.

also,contact centres are sometimes not free,always a means to an end,not a permanent soution for contact and i dont think you could use it for 3 hours at a time!! also long wait lists

CAFCASS would most likely be involved and make recomendations.... could go either way,but its most likely he WILL be offered contact of some sort,so have a think about what you could be comfortable with. family,good friend etc who could supervise??