HELP! Child Arrangenent Order

[AlmostOver45]

Moved out with DD 3 weeks ago to a new rental property WITHOUT partner’s prior knowledge.
Background: together 10 years, not married. Adopted DD 4.5 years ago.
I have been primary carer, along with working part time.
He has his own business.
Relationship irretrievably broken down due to his financial and physical abuse towards me.
Financial abuse: gave him £70k to invest in his business. No contract of this between us - gave to him in good faith. He has run up debts of £?k across credit cards that are solely in my name. He repeatedly refused to listen to my concerns regarding the level of debt - for years I heard “in 6 months we will be rolling in it”.
Physical abuse - he has shouted in my face, called me a fucking bitch, refused to let me leave a room and pushed / shoved me over leaving scratches on my breast (I have photographic evidence but did not file a complaint with authorities). DD witnessed the latter and has told people “daddy pushed mummy”. These are the reasons why I left without telling him.
He now wants 50/50 contact minimum. I do not agree with this as I have been her primary carer. I understand that he has parental rights but these are different to being primary carer aren’t they?
Please advise me:
Would a court give him 50/50 contact when he hasn’t been doing 50/50 by any stretch of the imagination so far?
He is messaging me saying that it is in DD’s best interests to see her dad as much as she always has and that I have been bang out of order disrupting her routine by taking her away from him. He is suggesting access from Friday after school til Monday morning on alternate weekends, along with two nights a week. He is saying that he will reduce his working hours and involve his parents in the childcare to facilitate this. How can this be fair when I have done the bulk of the childcare up to this point. The cheek of him.
He is talking about applying for a Childcare Arrangement Order via mediation and court if I do not agree.
He is incredibly articulate and he has always made me feel stupid when I have raised issues with him as he makes me emotional and a quivering wreck (he doesn’t necessarily shout but he always seems to turn it around to being my fault).
I have no money for court.
Thank you for reading and any help is gratefully received.

Yes he could well get 50/50 if he goes to mediation/ court and to be honest the times he’s suggesting is fair and “normal” for separated parents. As is her having regular contact with her parental grandparents when they babysit her.
Sorry.

I’d be hazarding a guess that he’s had legal advice already, as his proposal for contact is the “normal” 50/50 starting point.

Did you report the DV to anyone at the time? Mention it to a doctor; call Woman’s Aid, or anything like that? I believe that could make a difference to whether you’re eligible for help with fees, but I’m no expert in that area, it might just be something to look into.

I dont understand how he can all of a sudden claim he can provide 50% of childcare. Since we adopted her 4 years ago I have been tbe primary carer for her and I am the constant, reliable one when he is working all hours and weekends to try to make a success of his business!
He claims, miraculously, he can now reduce his hours and employ a manager to help when the business is still struggling as he has got me into debt and used my 70k of equity to put in business.
DD is settled and happy and cant see how 50:50benefits get and not cause confusion/disruption to routine.
Bearing in mind how much time he has been involved previously in her life I would have thought my suggestion, of alternate weekends and 1 night in week and 50% in holidays is perfectly reasonable. He would still maintain 50:50 parental responsibility.

He’s only asking for an extra day from what you’re “offering”.
He’s VERY likely to get that if it goes to mediation & court.

My suggestion for weekend would be Fri evening to Sunday evening. He thinks Ftiday after school through to Monday morning.
Will he not have to prove he can be there and not just palm her off on his parents as his idea regarding reducing working hours is all talk and frankly very convenient

He's very likely to get what he is proposing. Courts will say that any childcare arrangements eg being collected by grandparents, is up to the parent the child is with at the time.

I think you need professional advice from a solicitor. You don't have to go to mediation if you're a victim of domestic abuse, but agencies like women's aid will be able to help you. By the sound of it you will need to go to court to get a contact arrangements in order if he is high conflict and manipulative. It's very difficult to work things out between you when the man is abusive

Also, whilst I totally sense how you feel, if you talk like that about ex in court, court will take a dislike to you and he'll be more likely to get his own way. You have to rephrase everything to be looking at what's best for DD, nothing about how you feel about his proposals.

As someone who has been through this the courts gave EOW (fri - Sun) and midweek teatime (ex was also emotionally/financially abusive but the view was that this is not a barrier to contact) ex. Appealled this decision and was given midweek overnight extra.
I just wanted to give you hope that what you are asking for is not impossible. However the court process is a massive mental toll and had I not had a good solicitor/barrister this would have been very difficult. Having them took a lot of the pressure off.
Legal view is that ultimately it comes down to who the judge/magistrates are that deal with your case.

I agree with others about getting legal advice quickly. Maybe call women’s aid and ask if there is funding you can access due to DA?

Do you have an evidence (emails/texts) of him being abuse? I would try to communicate with him in writing as much as you can and keep anything he doesn’t hat is abusive or unreasonable as evidence.

How old is your DD?

Who did she tell “daddy pushed mummy”?
Surely if there was a section 7 report as part of the court process she might make comments similar that could impact on what contact he gets.

All contact with him is via textvor email and in emails he has admitted to stuff.
DD is 6.
She told some of her class mates that Daddy pushed mummy.
I have just received an email from a mediator that ex has requested.
I cant sit in a room with him!

Sadly op he is very likely to get this. Do try for Friday to Sunday though rather than Monday morning. We got interference at school and aggression towards me so I was worrying about drop offs etc. It got so bad the court had to change drop offs to another safer venue. I had another child to drop at school.

In our case as a gp carer, he never got midweek contact although it is the norm. You have not mentioned holiday contact so you need to think about this too.

Gs's dad was a convicted violent offender but it seemed to make little difference to the outcome. He started off with supervised, moved to unsupervised then unusually had to move back to supervised for nearly a year.

I reached the end of our road with contact 18 months ago. Sadly unhappy enforced contact, which my gs grew to loathe, meant he cut all contact with his paternal family and no amount of cajoling makes any difference. Children make their own minds up and sometimes contact enables them to see the good or sadly the bad in the other parent.

Mediation is unsuitable when there has been violence in the relationship and you need to speak to the mediator. However, whatever the rights and wrongs here, I urge you to make an arrangement because family court is incredibly stressful and it will take its toll on you.

Report the abuse to the police. You need an evidence trail.

Just been through this and yes he will likely get quite a bit of contact x

You would be reasonable to request "right of first refusal" for childcare so you have to be offered the chance to have her instead of his parents.