Son assaulted - police instruct me to break contact order - who has more power?

[ilovemilton]

DS was assaulted by ex at weekend contact.

Long long case of no contact, supervised etc and many issues.

At the last hearing, an enforcement order was put in place that residency is transferred if I break the order "again". Even though I have never actually broken the order - this came from daughter running away whilst with him and kids not being happy etc.

Assault was reported to the police, who took it to MASH, who said suspend contact immediately. Today should have been contact after school.

If I do as they say, will I be breaking the order? Can action then be taken to remove the children? Are the police allowed to override an order?

Can the police not arrest your ex if there is evidence of assault? That might buy you enough time to get the court order amended?

They love the bitter ex wife theory, the projection will go against him now. The court will come down on him like a tonne of bricks. His legal team may be professionally embarrassed. I think he will do as my ex did walk away now.

It is awful. On the grand scheme of things it's not a massive assault but he's very young, it shouldn't be happening and it has finally given some weight to all my allegations.

If you have evidence and the police on side your dd will be safer now. Fingers crossed your ex will walk away. He will tell everyone your evil they will hate yo and believe the nasty woman carp. You will be safe though.

No advice, OP, but

I would collect the kids half an hour early from school now that someone from the court has told you you can refuse if they are at risk. That removes the need for confrontation. You may wish to tell the school the background so that they are prepared for a very angry ex.

Please contact the school and let them know they are not to let him pick up early, in case he tries that to avoid you stopping him. It would be useful for them to be aware that it is police advice you are following, not just being difficult over contact as they wont want to get involved with taking sides when both of you have pr.

Good luck x

Good. And add it to your papertrail.

Write to the person you spoke to at court saying, "Thank you for our conversation earlier, in which I told you BLAH, and you advised me BLAH and that you would be sending a note to the judge. I will be following your advice to BLAH."

Make sure you keep a copy, however you send it.

It's cumbersome, but having your own contemporaneous documentation to show the court is still better than no documentation. And you you can't rely on other people to be proactive in producing documentation.

School are aware. They have raised umpteen safeguarding referrals themselves after things the kids have said so I think they were probably pleased ( not that he was hurt but you know what I mean).

Yes there is a guardian. Her view is low level abuse is less harmful than no contact.

There wasn't a fact finding as my evidence was too biased - mum, best mate and manager.

Her view is low level abuse is less harmful than no contact.

Wow. Just wow. dd2 has a friend, parents divorced, kids live with dad, and mum remarried to abusive man. As soon as dcs reported that he was hitting them, (told teachers at school) court said contact without man only. Mum insisted that they should both be there. Court stopped all contact until she would agree that he wouldn't be present. dcs haven't seen Mum for months.

Cannot believe they would prefer dcs to be abused.

So sorry you are going through this.

how was school evidence considered biased????

wow.

Caffcass are a disgrace in your case and were in our case too, sad to see nothing has changed, same misogynistic, start by not believing Mum, views.

Basically, he has a bullying solicitor and I don't.
And of course she, the guardian or the kids solicitor haven't bothered to respond to me about this.

School evidence is biased because...wait for it....

I take them to school!!!

And when dd wrote to the guardian herself to describe various psychological and physical harm, the letter was taken to court.

Ex solicitor dismissed the whole hearing by saying "we are assuming this letter isn't true aren't we?"

Guardian and judge nodded and nothing more was said.

Yes they will say you told dd to write it op. My children have good vocab and apparently I told them what to say, the evidence was the language my children used. Since then my children used simple vocabulary around professionals as they feared nobody would believe anything they said otherwise. They only used their full skills once they hit sixteen.

Please follow babybarristers advice. There is no such thing as letting the judge know. Other posters are well meaning but you cannot take advice from people who don't know the whole story when you are at risk of losing your children. You must apply for an emergency hearing - the police and social services do not outrank a court order. They are not lawyers and I have heard many times that they have said a parent should stop contact. They should not do this!

If you are in any way perceived to break this order, whether you believe it to be justified or not, you are massively increasing the risk of losing your children.

I have spoken to the children's solicitor who said that whilst the police can't instruct regarding a court order, they can instruct an alleged victim to not have contact with an alleged perpetrator so that is right, as long as I have informed all parties.

I know it's just random people on here giving advice but it's really all I can do. Already in masses of debt for the little help I have had.

I don't have any documents from the police and can't speak to anyone who knows anything at social services.