Advice re separation and custody

[wangle99]

Wonder if anyone can offer any advice, I am posting on behalf of a friend not myself.

She has been married for a year and a bit and has a 9 month old daughter. Things are not going well (DH rather controlling) and she is contemplating her future and what to do about leaving.

Her DH has said if she leaves he will take the baby. Where does my friend stand? Does she just have to let him take her and go through the court system? We really don't know where the law lies.

Also, she thinks that legal aid is ending shortly for family cases?

Any advice gratefully received. Thank you.

No, she keeps baby with her assuming she is the main carer now. Has she somewhere to go?

Thank you for replying

She is the main carer (DH works), she doesn't have anywhere to go yet but is currently looking for a property (but if things really deteriorate further she will go and stay with family).

He has said he will physically take the baby from her and leave. She would not be able to stop him due to him being stronger than her.

He really is an arse and I hope she makes the decision soon. The last few days I have seen her and she is the old 'her' rather than the scared submissive person she had become.

This is a common abusive tactic.

I was in a similar situation. I left my ex without notice, taking DD. I didn't let him see her unsupervised until I had been to court and sorted out a residence order. In the meantime, I did arrange (and pay) for him to see her in a contact centre, although it took a few weeks to get this sorted. I was afraid he would literally grab her and disappear.

She should make a note of his threats to take the child, writing down what he said and when he said it. She could email it to you. This would help establish a record down the line if she needs to explain to a court why she has acted in this way.

Yes, public funding for all private children cases is ending in April (?I think) but NOT for cases where there is abuse, so she may still be able to get help with funding.

It sounds as if he is just threatening her to frighten her into staying. Would he really give up his job to care for a baby? If he is making those kind of threats, I would think the relationship is dead in the water and she should leave. She should try to get a residence order so that if he does try to run off with the baby she has something clear to show the police. They tend not to be very helpful in parental disuptes unless one parent is acting contrary to a court order.

I think she needs to see a solicitor asap, to see if she can still qualify for public funding and make an urgent application for a residence order on the basis that he is threatening to abduct the baby, then she can organise some contact at a contact centre to begin with, until it is clear that his threats are just hot air in which case he should get unsupervised contact.

If she can't get public funding, she can make the application herself but I think it is at least £100 to issue the app - you can check on the local court website. It isn't hard to fill in and is pretty straightforward, you don't need a huge amount of info to make the application and she can keep her new address secret from him - but will have to disclose to the court.

Agree with nicknametaken - she needs to keep a clear record of what was said, why she has made decision to leave etc as she may well have to provide a written statement to the court in future.

No definitve definition of DV has been published for LA cases, but you can bet they'll define it tightly. It is expected to involve either criminal charges/conviction, injunction, GP letter, MARAC or similar. The government haven't really cottoned on to the idea of emotional abuse.

But I thought the definition of abuse was now being enlarged to include abusive teenage relationships (boggle) and financial control (double boggle) ! I really should be making more of an effort to keep up but I find it very difficult to keep track of what is going on.

I agree that probably nothing short of an injunction is going to statisfy the LSC - it will be interesting if they do accept emotional abuse, because what will be required to prove it has actually happened?

Sorry op, this probably isn't very helpful. Best advice is probably for your friend to see a sol/CAB asap to be clear exactly what help she can get. But it may well be not much I am afraid.

Thank you for all your replies they have been useful. I'm going to get my friend to have a read when she is next able to rather than try to relay all this info to her.

Its a bit of a nightmare situation as is all situations like this so your help is gratefully received.