Hi, Hoping someone will be able to give me some sensible advice, this is long so I'm going to give an outline then bullet point the facts but am happy to elaborate on anything relevant.
Ex and I split when dc7 was a baby, he disappeared when dc was about 1 came back about 2 yrs later demanding access and took me through court. Contact order was agreed and he has been seeing dc every other saturday through to sunday evening since then. Original contact agreement states that I will do picks ups/drop offs (at my request as I was worried about him not bringing dc back) however, after a few weeks of this he quickly became aggressive towards me at pick up times on Sundays so I decided I would no longer put myself in that position and agreement informally changed so that his family would pick up/drop off and I would have no contact with him whatsoever.
There have been many many problems but contact has remained in place for over 3 years. The situation now is
- Having previously lived close by father and his gf have moved an hour away by car (2 hrs public transport)
- Father claims he cannot drive although he previously held a license, I can only assume it was removed from him in recent years so gf has been doing the driving on return journeys
- gf now says she has to work but won't say what hours and will not be bringing dc back from contact anymore
- father refuses to find alternative transport
- We (husband who does drive, and I) went to pick up dc on last visitation as they said at the last minute they couldn't bring him back as gf wasn't there, when I arrived she was there.
- I don't drive, my husband is not prepared to do the journey because of the time, cost and threatening behaviour
- Father and gf are extremely unreasonable, shout, swear and name call down the phone at me and so I am unable to negotiate anything with them
- I have offered to vary times of the contact to suit them and their work/travel arrangements but have been told that this is inconvenient and yet more name calling
- only way to get an official variation on the contact order is to initiate court proceedings, which I cannot afford to do.
What I want to know is, am I unreasonable in saying that if father is unable to arrange transport for retuning dc home then he cannot go for contact. Would also like to know if I do this, how likely the judge will be to issue penalties against me for it?
Many thanks if you got through that!