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Can I stop my baby's father taking her overnight?

2 replies

Dandybella · 25/04/2015 11:59

Just that really. DD is 8mo and her father is threatening to take me to court to get an order that he can take her overnight. He lives an hour away from me and I wouldn't be comfortable with her being so far away from me while she's so young anyway, but I am even less ok with this idea as he has a criminal record for drug convictions, is currently on tag with a curfew and doing community service. He also inflicted psychological domestic abuse on me throughout our entire relationship and has a very short fuse. He once put a cigerette out on me, threatened to kick my head in I don't know how many times, and kick and punch me 'in his sleep' and then ask me about it in the morning, so he definitely was not asleep.

Currently he's seeing DD every Sunday from 10.30 to 4.00, with me taking her halfway to his house because he won't come over here to see her because he says he has nowhere to go. I must admit I agreed to this in a moment of weakness when he was being manipulative and although I don't agree wholly with him having her so far away, her being in a car for 2hrs each Sunday and the financial strain this puts on me to pay for petrol, I don't feel I can back out now because of his reaction.

We have been to mediation but I don't feel it resolved the situation at all, he is still demanding to have her overnight. If this did go to court, could I prevent him taking her overnight?

I've also posted this in chat.

OP posts:
HeadDoctor · 25/04/2015 18:42

Not in the longer term, no. A sympathetic judge may make him wait til your child is a year old but after that it would probably be worked up to overnight stays. You could request a welfare investigation if necessary.

supernova9 · 25/04/2015 19:38

I agree with the above poster.

The Court will see it like this... If you were that concerned about her safety that you thought she would be at risk of significant harm in his care then you wouldn't have agreed to him having unsupervised contac at all and have forced him to take you to Court for contact. He has her for 6 hours once a week at the moment, if she's safe for 6 hours then she's safe overnight surely?

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