Contact outside of court order??

[ilovemilton]

Need to be deliberately vague. Court ordered supervised contact finished a week ago. Currently on a strict regime of increasing unsupervised contact time. Just received a text from exh saying he is coming to the children's church tomorrow to give them Easter presents and there is nothing I can do about it. Kids don't want him there, but also don't want to miss out on their church.

Would this be breaking the court order and is there anything I can do?

It depends on what the order actually says.

I would suggest that unless there is some sort of wording in the order along the lines of ''only'' - eg ''the father will only have direct contact with DC at the following times'' - then any contact outside of those times wouldn't be covered by the order unless there are other restrictions about him not contacting you etc.

If he's likely to make a habit of this, or it would cause the children great upset, you may want to seek advice about applying for a prohibited steps order, which can mean no contact other than court ordered.

Thanks Collaborate. It does cause the children great distress. He last did it about 18 months ago and then agreed via solicitors to stop attending. He's been about four times and each time he gets his mates to hang around the kids areas and intimidate us, sits in view and stares at us etc. The kids have been so upset they asked to leave.

As it was, dd text exh telling him that him coming would ruin her Easter, so he didn't attend.

I will look into the prohibited steps order, I naively thought the court order was there to protect us.

I naively thought the court order was there to protect us.

Court orders are for the benefit of the children - no one else and very definitely not you.

However, if you can show that a particular order would benefit your children then it is possible that it will be granted.