Access/court

[Delbelleber]

Hi, I'm posting this here and the lone parent section as I haven't had a response there yet.
I have an 8w old baby and I have only put my name on the birth certificate due to the father's angry outbursts and general unreasonableness. I have offered him supervised contact twice a week and told him I'm not trying to stop them having a relationship but I need to have the right to remove my child from an abusive situation if it arises.
The father went nuts and is threatening to take me to court. However my question is this if I am offering contact does he really have anything to take me to court over?
Thanks

Yes. If he isn't happy with the contact you are offering he is entitled to ask the court to order more contact and/or order unsupervised contact. That doesn't mean he will succeed but he can certainly try.

Even though he is not on the birth certificate?

Let him take you to court. He can prove to a judge he should have access. He won't get much for a baby so very young.

Even though he is not on the birth certificate

Yes. He is your baby's father. He is therefore entitled to go to court to ask for contact regardless of whether or not he is named on the birth certificate.

Just to add I am in Scotland

Yes he can take you to court for contact in Scotland.

The court action is likely to be for a declarator of parentage, parental rights and contact.

The procedure is that the court will ask if you are disputing paternity, if you are not it is a factual matter and parts one and two can be granted. If you are disputing paternity then they can ask, not force, but ask that you agree to a Dna test to establish paternity. If you refuse the court can draw a conclusion from that, ie refusing as likely to show he is the father thus will proceed on that basis.

The fact you are offering contact suggests you are not disputing paternity so that's all unlikely to be an issue, I'm just pointing out he can get his name added on and get those parental rights that way.

Contact wise, court likely to initially order what you have offered and then there are regular child welfare hearings set where contact can be reviewed and or increased.

@Delbelleber

Even though he is not on the birth certificate?

The bc is irrelevant when it comes to court.

He's quite right to request for a court order of he believes that you are obstructing contact and being unreasonable in expecting him to have supervised contact with his own child. A court will likely agree if he has no history of issues with children etc. Having an abusive, which I presume to be verbally, does not preclude him from being able to be a good parent. Given that you need to differentiate between the poor relationship dynamics you two have and what's a genuine potential safeguarding issue.

Re the bc, once in court, its fairly easy for him to get his name added to the bc.

If it goes to court, I'd suggest getting viewed as resident parent and having the order state that you can take the child out of the country for 28 days without requesting his permission.