What happens if children refuse to attend contact visits?

[OhWesternWind]

Can anyone help me with what is at the moment a theoretical question? I am separated from children's father who was physically and emotionally abusive towards them. They hate him and have no interest whatsoever in seeing him because of his past treatment of them. He has not seen them for nine months and they are more than happy with this. However, he has now applied to the court for access and I am advised that he may be given a supervised contact order. The children are late primary school age.

I know that the children will not go to see him. Even a mention of seeing him triggers panic attacks, screaming, crying, self-harm. They physically will not get into the car (or out of the car if I trick them into getting in it) to see him. I will not/cannot (they are large and active children, I can't lift them or manoeuvre them into a vehicle) use physical force to make them see him nor do I feel happy about deceiving them about where they are going and then springing him on them, so to speak, as I feel that would destroy all trust they have in me to protect them and keep them safe. Knowing what has gone on, and how severely his treatment of them has affected them (we are talking self-harm and suicide threats here from young children), I cannot do this to them. But they will not go unless they are tricked into it, and that would only work once anyway.

I want to make it clear that I am not preventing contact for revenge or any personal reason. There is no contact in order to keep the children safe and also because it is the clearly stated wish of both children that they do not see him.

On the other hand, I am scared stiff I will end up in prison for not making them see him. Can anyone please advise what I can do about this?

Do not worry. I have had a similar situation with DD who is now 19.

If this gets to court, a Family Welfare Officer will be appointed to assess your DCs welfare in the case. When mine came round (to my house) I was allowed to be present in the room but not to join in the conversation. DD (aged three at the time) expressed her anxiety at the prospect of a visit with her father. They talked for a long time and the FWO reported to the court that she did not feel it was in DDs best interest to give XDP visiting rights. He was allowed only to send her 'appropriate' items and letters through the post. It helped that I had evidence of his violence (from hospital) and recordings of some of his threats (on answerphone messages).

You will not go to prison. Gather your evidence if you can, give your children all the love and comfort you can, and look forward to getting this sorted in court. Most likely the court will at most initially allow contact in a contact centre where both parties are supervised. If this goes well then the idea is that, with both parties willing, contact can develop with the courts consent. But looking at your story I doubt that will happen.
Your statement that you do not wish to prevent contact for any personal reason shows your balanced attitude and is exactly what the court needs to hear. Have faith in yourself. You FWO will enable your children to put their points of view to the court.

It is a major complaint from organisations such as Fathers For Justice that contact guidelines established in court do not have to be adhered to by the mother; and that when they are not, there is no comeback for the mother. Take heart from this.

In my case, DD never saw her father again and after a few years of distant threats, he died when she was 14 having not attempted contact for years.

Thank you Truly for your reply and encouragement. I will try to stop worrying as much about this but it is difficult. I just want all this to be over. Sorry you and your dd went through all this too. It is so hard for the children isn't it.

Is there a contact order?

You are kind of expected to deal with it, and do it! Like you would if a child won't go to the dentist or school

Has it been to court/cafcass yet?

My suggestion is seek legal advice.

I don't wish to be alarmist but in my experience it is possible to go to prison or be ordered to do community service for not complying with a court order. There were recently two similar cases, one where the mother didn't believe the judge would carry out the threats of imprisonment, disappeared from a forum and reappeared after two weeks having being sent down. The other had police and social worker evidence of the children's refusal to go to contact but served community service and was threatened with a change of residence.

In both cases the mothers were self representing and the cases were turned around when lawyers with experience in presentation and cross examination became involved. Both mothers were vindicated.

Evidence of the effects of DV courts is weighed against the long term benefits of contact to determine whether contact is in the best interests of children. The evidence of professionals (doctors/CAMHS re: children's self-harm and suicide threats??) is weighed against the long term harm children suffer if they loose contact with a parent. Even though the behaviour of the father may be difficult unless there are high levels of abuse you are likely to be expected to prepare the children for safe contact in a contact centre so that the situation can be assessed. If you do your best to comply it demonstrates you aren't hostile to contact and strengthens your position.

Really quite saddened by IloveTifanny's suggestion here for you to 'deal with it'. Contact after DV is a totally different thing from the dentist or school, both of which have your child's best interests and development in mind.
I'm sure if a teacher or dentist was violent towards a child no one would expect them to have access to that child again.

I really don't think you need to worry about prison; go through the court processes and you will be able to use them to strengthen your case.

Prison was (and is) a very difficult punishment for a court to enforce on a mother, though when the children can go and live with their father it was and is possible, however not a great way of dealing with things and very much a last resort. With the introduction of the Children and Adoption Act 2006 came new ways of handling matters where contact orders are not being complied with. I believe contact orders made since 2008 come with a warning notice attached to them spelling out the penalties of non-compliance. This taken from the Law Gazette " The underlying aim of the new legislation is to encourage compliance with contact orders and to enforce those orders where there is no voluntary compliance. To achieve these ends the act has added two important new concepts to the powers of the court ? a contact activities direction or condition, and an enforcement order. The primary aim of these provisions is to encourage and educate parents in order to facilitate contact rather than to penalise parents for non-compliance. Nonetheless the enforcement order provisions provide an extra incentive for parties to comply with contact orders rather than to face sanctions which go beyond merely altering the terms of a contact order."

Having said that courts do weigh up benefits of children having a relationship with their parents and any harm they may come to. I'd say you are worrying prematurely, especially if you don't have a contact order in place .

Well truly, after being through it myself, I know that is what is expected.

There is no place in court for excuses. They have expectations. More and more parents are being punished for not complying

I think posters saying 'it will be ok' or ' don't force them if they don't want to' are giving very dangerous advice.

So he's filing a C1 and legal advice ( knowing full facts) thinks supervised will happen.
Op. You can start by asking for your ex to build up to supervised. Ask for letterbox (indirect) contact first. Then after a section 7 report, cafcass can advise the court.

I totally understand how you feel and I am going through a similar experience myself and we are 2 years in now!
It's been really tough and we are now on our second round of contact. The first was supported which was handled unbelievably badly by the cc. We have now started supervised which I was worried sick about as my son too had suicidal thoughts and all the rest. I am self representing and have had varying receptions in court but the last time was appalling and I was threatened with allsorts despite the fact that I had ALWAYS complied.
The contact has now restarted and I can now see that this isn't a bad thing. I took my kids and handed them over but even after I did the right thing and encouraged my children they made their feelings quote clear of how they feel. This is monitored and reported on by the supervisor and I actually feel relieved that there can be no come back on me and my children have dealt with it exceptionally well. Try not to see it as a bad thing but a way of bringing a conclusion one way or another. The supervisor was very professional and her concerns were not for myself or my ex but for the children.

Let's hope that one day the court system take each case individually and stop this blanket policy. My cafcass officer has never once met my children but feels he can she can speak for them!

Good luck and try to stay positive. Remember children grow up and will remember who was there for them and gave them strength x

I would ush for them to meet cafcass for a 'wishes and feelings' interview!

*push!!

Well Tiffany, having been through it myself, I know what is expected. I would not comment on this without experience.
The courts took my XDPs violent behaviour into consideration and didn't grant him any personal contact at all. He continued to threaten us for a few years and didn't fulfil his part of the postal contact agreement which he was granted. I moved house and district several times to get away from him so that DD didn't have to ever see him again.

OhWesternWind I apologise for hijacking your thread but would like you to feel that you can listen to advice from all corners if you choose.

A Ministry of Justice review found that most parents with the majority of care arriving in courts were hostile to contact and underestimated the importance courts attach to it.

A natural parent is the same as a teacher or dentist. Evidence given to courts by psychiatrists and psychologists is that based on research children who are insecure about their natural parentage and identity tend to grow up with low self esteem leading to emotional and behavioural problems later on.

When there is evidence of DV any harm or risks of harm are balanced against the harm of the child not having a parent in their lives. If DV is low level then the importance of contact will usually be deemed to outweigh any harm.

There have been changes over the last few years and the courts are now much more likely to order shared residence to equalise the power between parents or prevent children from relocating in the UK when the motivation for the move is deemed to frustrate contact or to somewhere remote.

I'm not say that will happen here but OP needs proper legal advice.

I don't see what they mean about a natural parent being the same as a doctor or dentist! I just wish they would look at cases individually. The court do assume that the parent with care is hostile and sadly they do not read reports they have available to them which prove contrary to this in my case. I am not hostile and I wish my ex would just be a good dad. I've done alot of work with Idas and it is recognised that many men do use the court system as a means of controlling their ex wives. I think that if you look you will find many reports which all contradict each other so there is no right or wrong answer, only matters of opinion.

I got zero contact in the end, section 91(14)

Judge hadn't done one before, but boy, did I have to fight for it

I got the 'evidence' myself for the court ( from his 3 girlfriends after we divorced) and passed the info to cafcass. Then pushed and pushed for a forensic psych evaluation.

But got there in the end.

Sorry typo, that should be a natural parent isn't the same as a doctor or dentist.

Although the courts find parents with the majority of care hostile when they arrive at court it is accepted that DV might be a good reason. No one is saying that some men don't behave badly.

It is a matter of law that low level abusers are still allowed to see their children in recognition of the principles of both UK and international law of the child?s right to have a relationship with both parents. People are entitled to their opinions of course, but there is no point in wishing the law is different when it isn't. We all need to work within the framework of the law as it is at the time because the only binding opinion is that of the judge hearing the case.

I think thats one of the problems in my case, we're in a magistrates court and get a different bench each time so there is no consistency. Last time I got repramanded for adhereing to a court order made by a previous bench. It's so frustrating, I seems that they don't read any information! I think thats why I'm finding supervised contact a relief because it's now about the children which is how it should be.

Thank you everyone for your replies. It is a difficult and confusing issue, and one that really frightens me.

I wonder what happens about the child's right NOT to have a relationship with one parent if that is their clearly stated wish? My children have both said in the video statement that they made to the police that they do not want to see him. Surely their right to feel safe and to not have to associate with an abuser who has already destroyed their self-esteem and driven them to thoughts of suicide and actual self-harm is more important than their/his right to have contact?

An adult victim of DV would never be forced to sit in a room once a fortnight and make polite chit chat with her/his abuser. I can't think of anything much more damaging for my children than them being made to see their father. They are surrounded by loving extended family (including some on their father's side) who care for them deeply and give them a sense of identity and belonging, and would not gain this (in fact quite the opposite) from being forced to see him.

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. I am so terribly worried about them and more and more worried about the possible outcomes of this court case. Is it really possible that he might be granted shared residency or was that a comment relating to non-abusive splits?

Thanks again for replying, all of you. It's really useful to get an idea of all the different viewpoints and experiences.

My 2 eldest told cafcass they didn't want to see their dad so it was left at that. Think they were 10 and 12 at that point

shared residency is way down the line, if you only at stage of him maybe getting supervised contact.

given the issues you are looking at several months of supervised contact centre, building up to supervised outside contact centre then if all going well to unsupervised.

certainly unlikely to be overnights quickly espec if children say no.

at present my exP not going down court route, but after contact centre etc (about six months) went to supervised outside contact centre and a final order giving residence to me and contact to be supervised "unless agreed otherwise" - judge said that was to provide for build up to unsupervised and overnights...in teh end there was one caravan holiday (with other aduolts around) but two months later he slipped into extreme anxierty/depression and attacked DD - so i refused anything other than supervised as per court order- in fact there has been limited contact and dd1 1 1refuses to see him (tho has done so in public on couple occasions - she says that is enough..)

dd2 nine having anxiety over the limited door step and public place contact and i am taking her to gp about it - so if he does suddenly get well enough and bolshy and go to court there is record of this...but seeing as the court order is for supervised anyway i cant see anything other than enforcing that...i have good reasons and support of SS - were i to get a stroppy judge who made me do community service - well so be it...

The extent to which your children's wishes are taken into account depends on their ages. If, for example, they are aged 3 and 4 they would be viewed as too young to understand the consequences of their choices so their views would carry no weight. On the other hand if they are 15 and 16 the court would generally consider their views as decisive.

cestlavielife wrote;

shared residency is way down the line, if you only at stage of him maybe getting supervised contact.

Actually one father was recently awarded shared residence so the child now "lives" with him two hours a fortnight in a contact centre where it is supervised.

Parents often ask children's opinions, for example about moving house or changing schools, but it's adults who make the decisions. It's important to understand the rationale and family circumstances behind children's views.

OP - as your children have such an extreme reaction to the prospect of seeing their father, this will all be taken into account by the court. The judge will investigate the reasons for this reaction. If held to be genuine, the court would consider what therapy would be available. If the fathers poor behaviour is the cause then he will be expected to change.

Have faith in the system.

OP, if your children are expressing suicidal feelings or have self harmed, please make sure that you get a referral to CAMHS. Not only will they offer support re the self harm it will also provide evidence of it and of your children's feelings, which could be very useful. Good luck