My ex partner applied to court for a Child Arrangements Order for our two year old son. We had the hearing this week.
We had two hours of barrister to barrister negotiations before the hearing without either of us present. His barrister dug her heels in which is exactly exes attitude over the past few months.
We got to the court hearing and when asked about agreements, my solicitor said she thought we could come to arrangements without a full contested hearing. His counsel said no and wanted to proceed with that. My solicitor then asked the judge that she thought this could be done with written submissions.
His counsel then said only if I agree not to raise anything other than arrangements for DS, otherwise I'll be subject to cross examination.
For the first 18 months of DS life, Ed was all but absentee. He would scream at me if I asked him to look after DS and slam doors in my face. After we separated, he saw DS once a week for 3 hours despite me encouraging contact.
My ex has had over the past year been incredibly controlling, taking my bank card, taking photos of my bank and tax credit statements I know were filed in my drawer in my bedroom, he's also made reference to social events I've had that he could have only known through accessing my Facebook messages. He refuses to tell me where DS will be when he's with him and sends frequent messages to me which are clearly designed for paper trail evidence but which have no baring on what's actually real. He's also stopped contributing to his childcare and stopped looking after DS on a day he knows I have meetings after work, leaving me to cobble piece meal childcare together.
Two minutes before we entered the court room after hours of negotiations, ex's barrister disclosed that he's living two seconds from my house. He's always said he's been living with his GF 17 miles away. He bought the house in June and has failed to mention this until court this week.
I'm aware this isn't necessarily pertinent to DS arrangements but I do think is relevant to control, coercion and the reason we've ended up in court and I feel it needs to be factored into arrangements because I'm incredibly threatened by him.
I'm now in a position where I'm unable to raise all this unless I can be cross examined. I feel it's relevant because it displays Ex's lack of concern for DS and alway doing what ex wants rather than what is in DS interests. I feel court is no difference.
Does anyone have experience of giving evidence in court? Whether it's worth it? What to do?