Contact Order- Any experience?

[BopToTheTop]

Hi everyone, a long time lurker here but I have never even commented on a post before, let alone made my own so please be nice! I'm posting to try to get some advice to give a friend as I have no experience myself. Basically she has recently split with her partner of 6 years, of which she has a 3 year old child with. The reason for the split was because he has problems with controlling his drinking and can become very angry when drunk, never violent, just angry. Since they split he has been very demanding with when he wants to see his DD, very last minute and often for what she classes as lengthy periods e.g 72 hours with no contact between mother and child, which feels so long as they have never really been apart before. She was hoping to be able to sort contact out between themselves without involving an official court order but this is now seeming unlikely due to his demanding behaviour. But here is the main question, ex DP has a previous conviction for assault from quite a few years back (before he & my friend met), can something like this hinder his chances on getting overnight contact, or even unsupervised contact with the child? My friend has no fear whatsoever that the child is in danger when she is with her father but, although it sounds awful, she was wondering whether she could use this against him, e.g tell him that contact needs to be arranged in advance and on her terms otherwise she will get a court order, maybe meaning he has no unsupervised contact at all. This may sound really naive but I have no idea myself and I was hoping that maybe at least 1 mumsnetter has been in this scenario before.

I was advised by a solicitor to stop all contact then the father would need to obtain a contact order to gain access and cough up the necessary money to do so.
Its not something I wanted to do but have heard of others who have.
has she had a consultation with a solicitor yet? (Your first one is usually free.)

Thank you for replying, she has spoken to a solicitor and money is not a problem for her if she needs more advice but if I'm honest I think she found it rather scary and daunting (she's quite a young mum). She has just found it very emotionally draining, she was going to say no contact until he got an order but was then scared that he may use it against her, or even worse, if he would sink low enough to tell his DD that "he couldn't see her as mummy wouldn't let him", I think he would actually sink that low!

It is so scary, people sit there and merrily say what you should do and all the time its your child's life you're talking about. I had the same concerns re how it would impact them in the future.
Personally I wouldn't go for the 'no contact unless you go to court' option except in extreme circumstances as I think its a good way of starting a war and placing DC right in the middle.
If he had a drink problem and would get angry when drunk, I would try to contact her local domestic violence unit for some advice, she could do this by calling 101. They could offer some support/advice and it would be on record. The fact he was not violent does not negate domestic abuse.
Also contact women's aid, they will help with support and advice in these circumstances.
If he is on the birth cert and there is no contact order and no immediate cause for concern and no historical record to suggest a cause for concern the police would not be able to remove DC from his care, he could just keep them until she sought action through the courts.
A previous assault charge would not be sufficient for them to remove DC from his care and place them back into hers without any evidence of other concerns.
I think she needs to cover her back, women's aid would be my first port of call.