are recordings admissable in a family court?

[sobloominscared]

ive posted this on aibu as well. I know it sounds really paranoid but I am paranoid that my ex has planted recording devices in my dd's clothing. We are in court soon over access issues and he keeps saying he will ruin me and smirking at me every time he leaves dd back. I have read a case online in america where a parent did this by planting a recording device in the childs teddy bear. I have not done anything wrong, but i am not a perfect parent and have made mistakes, shouting, swearing etc.

if ex has done something like this, would the recordings be allowed to be heard? sorry if this all sounds mad, i am feeling very scared.

thanks Line - i do appreciate she needs time with her other family, i just wish i could be in touch with her more and will put that to the judge for the court order.
JR i have to try and think that the judge wont fall into the lies otherwise i will make myselt suck with worry

OP in my case the judge saw through all my ex's lies and manipulations. He wanted 50:50 custody. I was prepared to agree to supervised contact at a contact centre. He ended up with no contact and a court undertaking to never darken our doorstep again.

OP try not to worry. My Ex pitched up at court with telephone conversations with the kids that he'd recorded in order to prove what a good dad he was, along with video clips of the completely OTT way he greeted them for contact, albums of photos of how great a time they had on contact, and pages and pages of photocopies of DDs text messages to him. The judge wiped the floor with him. He's a manipulative wanker as well. (ex , not the judge, whose my second favourite person after my solicitor )

My ExH's expensive barrister became one of my favourite people fairly quickly, when he got ExH to shut the fuck up and listen!

Agreed, 100%. The courts want to see reasonable efforts, not loony stalky stuff.

BabyB- really? They would be admissible? Oh god....that's just made me go cold.

Sassy- did the judge listen to the recordings?

Honestly, OP, the family court would look at a transcript and ask, 'How do you two [the parents] plan to move on constructively from this?'

If there are concerns they will ask CAFCASS to have a look. Then you tell CAFCASS how you are doing your level best and your Ex's stalky stuff isn't helping and you could do with support and not the constant undermining.

I look back on those days and things I used to say when I was so low and think a judge would definitely be interested in the recordings. I will try not to get worked up about it though

That was then, this is now. Courts want to look forward, to see progress, to see change and what's best for the children.

thanks Line x

He sounds a nightmare!

yup, he is

Nope. She looked at the photo copies of the texts. and then asked ex to explain how that all tied in with his allegations that I didn't 'allow' the kids to text him. then she told him to put all his props away and focus on what she was going to say. Which was far from what he wanted to hear!
There is a history of DV and the judge was 100% on my side.

Stay calm, present reasonable 'solutions' to the issues he raises and don't beat yourself up - my experiences of the courts so far has been positive - they do recognise that we are all human and aren't perfect all the time.

thanks sassy, thats positive x

I wouldn't worry about anything he's recorded. I can't imagine the court is concerned with whether or not you are 'perfect' or not or care if you occasionally shout at your children. IME they are only worried about welfare issues (like serious abuse or neglect) not things that boil down to parenting style.

The first question I'd want answered if he got hold of something that might imply bad parenting of the level the court would be interested in is: why didn't he immediately go to social services with this evidence if he were so concerned? If he preferred to keep hold of it to make your life difficult in court then by definition he's more interested in making your life difficult than the welfare of his children.

If the evidence he has is not something that would trigger welfare concerns then he's simply going to look bad for being overly critical of your parenting when there is no reason to be.

Either way, it doesn't sound likely he'll come out well from using that kind of evidence- if it even exists.

I suppose the only thing I can think of that might marginally work in his favour is if he'd got recorded evidence of you trying to coach the kids to turn against him. Even then I would think it would have to be pretty blatant and obvious coaching for a court to take much notice. (I am not at all implying that this is what you might have done by the way - it certainly doesn't sound so from your op).
I should add I'm not a lawyer but have unfortunately have had experience of the family courts from my own situation and that of several friends. They tend to take a pretty common sense view of things as far as I can see and don't really like to see parents more interested in fighting and undermining each other than thinking about what is best for their children.

iburnt - thanks a lot for that helpful post x

Rather than a recording do you think he could have got access to your emails? Does he have your password or be able to guess it? Anything you've written to a friend for eg that he thinks he might be able to use?

I doubt he would have access to emails ss i change my passwords alot and I don't use it to speak to people about him anyway. I do know he might be scouring these boards though