Please Help! Safeguarding concern and court order in place.

[CompletelyOutofideas]

Hi all,

This last year my son's father has taken me through the family courts for a contact order and specific issue order to have him reinstated in mainstream school.
We have been through the process and a court order is in place stating that DS(8) will have 2 overnight contacts a week plus loads in the holidays.
At court Cafcass said they did not need to be involved despite me raising numerous concerns with regards to DS emotional wellbeing and mental health. No section 7 was done as for the first hearing I represented myself and did not know exactly what to ask for.
Court order said that DS should be reinstated in mainstream school by year 6 (currently year 4) unless his father agrees otherwise. This is despite him agreeing for me to home educate, DS thriving and working a year above 're national curriculum, glowing reports from LA and personal letters of recommendation along with lessons in groups 8+ times a week with trained teachers etc.

We have continued to have issues and contact refusal from DS through the entire thing but I have made sure he goes every single time and just tried to pick up the pieces and build him up.

2 days ago DS had a complete emotional breakdown. I think he is verging on suffering with depression, which at 8 years old is bloody terrifying.
He said he has planned to run away from his father's in the middle of the night, plotted the route and packed a bag. He feels like his father and girlfriend do not want him there, they call him fat and mock him for being girly because he has long hair and threaten to cut it off while he's asleep.
Says he does not feel safe or loved there and although his father doesn't hit him he thinks he could so tries to stay out of his way as much as possible.
He says that he constantly gets shouted at and told he's an idiot.
He is left with a young very large dog which they have trained to attack on command while they "have time to themselves upstairs" or get ready.
He cries himself to sleep and wets the bed occasionally.
His self esteem is on the floor, he hates himself and it's breaking my heart.
This is not everything, but I'm rambling now .

Basically I have been in touch with the GP who is seeing him tomorrow with a view to referring him for councilling and looking at next steps for mental health.

I wondered whether anyone had any experience with just not adhering to the court order ...

If I don't send DS to his dad's, I will be in breach of the court order, and I know he will have to take me back to court to have this enforced .
But I cannot find out whether I would be liable for his costs if I did go down this route and he took me back to court?

I know that the second I don't send DS to contact then his dad will take me back to court with the most expensive barristers known to man just like last time. There's no physical way I can afford to pay that.
My husband and I are on ok wages for the area, and wont get any legal aid, but DS dad has family money at his disposal.

I know that I cannot send my baby into a place where he has said he will run away. I cannot do that as a parent, so I'm trying to prepare as much as I can while getting him all the help he needs.

Does anyone have any experience at all?

I'm so sorry for the huge essay but I just need to try and get my head around this and nothing is open at the weekend.

If I stop and dwell on this as opposed to try and take action then I'm going to break, and I seriously need to stay on it right now.

Thank you x

It sounds as though you and you ex are very opposed in how your son should be brought up. If the order is for him to return to mainstream school in Y6 maybe his Dad thinks he needs to " toughen up" a bit. Is he overweight?

Do you have other children?

I would advise you to make your own application to the court to vary the order, and explain why, rather than put yourself in breach and then be “on the back foot” having to explain to a judge why you’ve stopped contact in breach of the order. It’s £215 to make the application.

Very opposed on our views yes. Unfortunately this has only been the case since his girlfriend moved in. We had a good co parenting relationship up until that point and managed to navigate our differences in opinion fairly well.

I don't have any other children no.

Yes his dad does think he needs to toughen up. Man up is a phrase he uses often. He has said bullying is good for children and will prepare them for life.
I do not shelter him or wrap him up in cotton wool. He has rules, discipline and what I believe is a pretty well rounded up bringing.
I do however believe that he should be allowed an opinion - and his father does not.

He is not overweight as such. He is a big lad, very tall and broad but by no means fat.
He has an incredibly healthy diet at home and is brilliant with his food. We live near beaches and woods so has loads of good excersise too. His father however feels that fast food, sweets and slush puppies are an acceptable form of nutrition.

I am under no illusions that some of what DS is saying could be being blown out of proportion because he is struggling emotionally, but the fact is, this is how he is feeling, and I can't invalidate those feelings especially ad there is a safeguarding risk here.

FenellaVelour. Thankyou. That does seem like the sensible thing to do, I'm just so scared that I will not be taken seriously.
Cafcass said unless there is physical abuse or drug abuse happening then not much will be done.
It baffles me as mental health is so important!!

Fast food and sweets are perfectly acceptable in moderation. You won't come across well if you try to argue about that particular difference in parenting style in court.

Are you unhappy since your ex got a girlfriend? Could your son have picked up on this and be telling you what he thinks you want to hear?

If you don't think that spending as much time with his dad is in his best interests, go to court to ask that the order be varied. Courts almost always feel that some contact between a parent and child is important, so even if you do successfully argue for a reduction in his time with his dad, you'll probably still have to facilitate some contact.

I agree these things are considered perfectly acceptable in moderation, however I do not believe there is any need whatsoever to have an 8 year old consume them quite so much. Especially when the person feeding them to the child is then mocking said child for being "overweight".
I did argue this in court and the judge completely agreed with me, saying that a healthy diet is paramount for a child's wellbeing.

The first time I met the then 18 year old girlfriend was when she verbally abused me at my own house 4 years ago. So yes, I am extremely unhappy about this particular girlfriend.
Before we met, when my ex told me he would be introducing my son to her (really well dealt with by him actually) I was all for it. Sent a message with my ex, really nice and friendly, not to worry at all, I know it can be hard to take on people with children etc etc. Once they had pretty much moved in, my ex and I said it would be good for her and I to meet for a coffee...That's where the trouble started. She decided she did not want another woman in my ex's life and he went along with it. My ex removed himself from my son's life apart from contact times. Not even happy birthdays or Christmases because they didn't fall on his contact day.
I am very happily married and have been through the entire thing. I left the relationship in the first place and believe it was the best thing to do for both of us and our son.
I have never ever said a bad word about my ex or the girlfriend in front of my son. That would do no good to anyone and is not what a child needs to hear.
As far as my son is concerned I think his dad and the girlfriend love him very much and want whats best for him etc.

I do not want contact to stop at all. I have been fighting for 4 years for my ex to take an interest and be involved in my son's life. I want them to have a strong and positive relationship, but that is just not happening right now despite me being super encouraging and positive about it all constantly.
I do however want the emotional abuse to stop.

I feel completely powerless and failed by the system.

Cafcass wanted no involvement despite me bringing these issues up.
Because we've never had any social involvement or anything like that they just said we could obviously work it out.

It seems that unless things are genuinely terrible then nothing will be done.
Sometimes prevention is needed as opposed to picking up the pieces when it goes wrong.

I don't have any advice but I'm helping a friend through a slightly similar situation.
There is no court order and she has stopped contact because both sons refuse to go there anymore. He is taking her to court. She hopes they won't force contact. But by the sounds of your situation I think they will. How do you make your son go if he doesn't want to? Do you have to physically remove them from the house.
Surely the wishes of the child are the most important thing 8n al, of this. If he doesn't want to go, who honestly thinks it's ok to force him?

I can only speak from my personal experience but unfortunately my son does have to be made to go to contact.
On occasion I have had to physically pick him up (v big 8 year old) and put him into his dad's car.
I raised this with the judge and he said that as there are no safeguarding concerns (I beg to differ) he needs the time with his father regardless of his opinion at this age.

I just try to stay super positive and encouraging and then pick up the pieces when he gets home. It's heart breaking and I don't think it's fair.

I believe it changes a bit as they get older. Once they are Gillick competent and able to make decisions themselves in the eyes of the law. I have had different advice regarding what age this would be...but most say about 12 years of age, but opinion will be taken into account a bit younger.

My court papers say that if I do not send my son to contact I will be in breach of the court order and therefore in contempt of court. The penalties for this (so it says) can be anything from enforcement of the order to fines and ultimately prison.

If his father does not turn up for contact then he is not in breech of the order. Failure to take up the court ordered contact by the "absent" parent does not mean they will be in contempt of court.

Basically he has all the rights and my son and I don't have any at this point.

It's a really sad state of affairs. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree and support the father's rights movement as it has been very biased towards the mother in the past. However I feel things have gone too far the other way, for me at least, and there's just nothing I can do.

I sincerely hope your friend gets a good outcome. If her children are little older than mine then hopefully they will get a say.

Thank you for replying.

I am horrified for you and your son that he is forced to have contact. I just cannot understand why anyone would inflict this on a child. It must be heartbreaking for you to watch. Can you go back to court and get them to reassess the order? Would your son get a say at all?
He's sons are 8 and 13 so could find herself in a similar position to you. It's honestly shocked me they can force contact.

I was advised to stop contact and trigger the ex to take me to court, as then the first was his. I could self represent, it's not that hard and I had a women's aid volunteer helping me through it.

You've got tangible reasons to do this, it's not just because you yourself want to spite the ex or whatever. It's your son saying X Y and Z are happening, and that he is unhappy with it all.

I think it is going to have to go back to court.

Initially (last year) we had a similar situation arise with safe guarding issues at my ex's house. I stopped overnight contact and gave my reasons to the ex but gave him 24/7 access to our son as the concern was at his house.
We got the issue sorted and contact resumed after a couple of weeks. Then my ex took me to court.
We went through the whole thing and here we are again but with a contact order in place.
My son got referred to the mental health team yesterday so this isn't me just worrying.
I know I have the option of stopping contact and therefore my ex would have to take me back to court to get the order enforced. Hopefully when that happens they will take my son's opinion into account, but they didn't 6 months ago so worries me that they won't again.

I could take my ex back to court myself, but again the same worries about him not having a house still stand.

The GP advised me to report this to social services as a safeguarding concern, but I am so bloody terrified. I've heard horror stories.

I have managed to persuade my ex to meet me this evening away from our son to discuss this in the hope that presenting him with the doctors and referral notes might make him realise this isn't just me trying to be difficult.

It didn't work last time but I feel like I have to try again before dragging us all through months of court hearings again.

If you don't mind me asking...how did it turn out for you in court? Did they listen to concerns and act on them?

Good luck for tonight, I'll have my fingers crossed ex sees sense for your son sake. It's so not ok that is MH is at risk because of this.

I think it’s unlikely social services would do much other than tell you that you have PR and they’d expect you to act protectively. They do get a bit panicky when you mention court orders but ultimately that’s the party line.

I still think your best bet is to be proactive in returning it to court. Cafcass will do a telephone interview prior to the first hearing, and I’d advise you to note down all your concerns and spell them out clearly during this interview. Make sure you are focussed on your child and the impact this is having on him.