Prohibitive Steps Order. Do you have one? What is it exactly?

[Challen]

Before Mediation, before Court, is Prohibitve Steps the first course of action other parents in my similar position would take?

The children's absent father has decided out of the blue after 3 years he wants more regular contact with his DC of 3 and 5.
He rang me asking for a 'verbal agreement' which I couldn't agree to, as he requested I travel 180 miles every weekend to drop off children, then travel back again Sunday evening to collect them.
I left due to DV with the youngest only 4 weeks old at the time, so he has no bond with him. He has seen both irregularly in the last 3 years, about three times a year on average. He drives, I don't.

Because I couldn't agree to his verbal request, he is now taking it to the next stage of Mediation, then full access or custody.

Are there steps meanwhile I can take, to ensure he cannot just turn up and take his children away, as he has Parental Responsibility, until the Mediation appointment or court hearing? Such as Prohobitive Steps which I keep reading about. Would this be useful?
I do not want him to have unsupervised contact, he is not responsible enough, does not have suitable accommodation to house them, I'd never be able to afford public transport up there every weekend (or any time actually), and although he was never prosecuted for DV, I'm not convinced that police call-out records, or my A&E admissions (which I probably didn't tell the staff were because of him, 'I walked into a door' kind of thing) if they still exist, will hold any weight in court.

Mediation can't be undertaken in cases of DV as both parties are meant to make a reasonable agreement/compromise. DV proves your ex to be unreasonable. Don't think you need "hard" proof. I'd have thought police records would still exist though.
File a prohibitive steps order ASAP.
With little bond between him and DCs I doubt he'd be granted too much access (definitely not custody) straight away anyway.
I could be wrong but this is what I've gleaned. Have you been on Women's Aid forum? Women with first hand experience of the situation may know more.

I had a PSO put in place a few months ago. Exp had threatened to remove my Dc from my care and I was scared he would go through with it. I contacted a solicitor and explained the situation to her. My ex was emotionally abusive and I told her this and face a couple of examples - I didn't have to prove it, the allegations were enough.

I went to court a few days later, ex wasn't notified of the hearing. It was very simple and involved a 5 minute hearing with just my solicitor, a judge and me. I wasn't questioned, my solicitor just outlined the situation and the order was granted.

Ex was then served the paper work notifying him of the order and inviting him attend court in a months time to either contest or apply for residency, or ask for access.

He came to court and had the opportunity to deny the claims I had made against him. He also asked for access (although didn't contest residency) but due to the allegations he was told it wasn't appropriate to grant any access at this point but was referred to cafcass so they could make evaluations and recommendations to the court. I was granted residency and a court date was set for 6 weeks time. During this hearing it was just me, my solicitor, him and his and the judge.

Luckily we were able to come to our own arrangement and didn't go via cafcass and withdrew from the court process.

You don't need a PSO. He's not made a real or credible threat to remove the children. You wouldn't get one if you applied.

Ex only said to me verbally he was going to take my dc and that was enough for a pso.

I would be wary about applying though as it does start a chain of events that is quite difficult to get out of. He will get some access and it will be out of your hands what he gets so if he is just making empty threats and has no intention of wanting access or taking you to court then I would be careful about going down the legal route.