Mum stating she will break court order

[Sayitaintsoiwillnotgo]

Hello

Just need some advice. Will try and keep to facts and remove any emotion.

DSS mum is getting increasingly difficult to deal with re: arrangements of shared care. Court order has been in place over 2 years. Is DSS half term with DP, then return to usual arrangments so with DP until Tue morn. I do school drop offs Tue to breakfast club. Mum is stating due to not seeing her son for a week they will miss each other so she is collecting him from school Monday despite court order to contrary and DP not agreeing. She states he has educational anxiety and displays very poor behaviour towards attending school at her home and she needs to settle him on Monday. DSS does not display same behaviour here and has said he doesnt but doesnt know why that is.

What should DP do? He has replied saying he wants to stick to order as thinks it is DSS best interest to maintain his known routine. She does not agree.

Week of worry ahead!

It's only 7 days. Child is away from their father for that length of time when staying with the mum

Mothers do that too you know.

Fathers go through court to get orders aswell.

@PaddingtonBearStareAgain Absolutely! Like my DH who had no choice to go to court cos his ex stopped him seeing his son for no reason whatsoever. Didn't see him for 6 months when his son had been used to seeing his dad 3/4 times a week.

Well the good news is that in a year or two dss can make up his own mind and decide where he wants to be, that will solve all future problems.

Maybe because there's a court order that sets out otherwise - and allowing a deviation now just opens up a whole load more deviations in the future

Maybe because the DSS is actually a lot more settled at the DF than at the DM

Maybe because the DF would like to have him for all his allotted time which would include that Monday evening and Tuesday morning

Why do the mums have all the 'how can they possibly be without their child for 10 days' rights and the dads none (although just for clarity in this case its not 10 days anyway)?

This. So father has him all the half term - mum
doesn’t get any holiday time?

if you go back to court over this the judge will be mightily pissed off.

talk to her - he returns him one day earlier gets an extra day the following week?

compromise and you need to keep out of it!

@Dominuse Holidays are split 50/50 so I assume the mum will get another half term to herself and then the summer will be split.

The court absolutely will not be pissed off about anyone trying to uphold a court order. Also, learn to read. They half half of holidays.

If the contact is court ordered, and the father is due to collect on Monday then school should not release the child to the mother. The school should have a copy of the court order. Would suggest your DP notify the school of Mother's intent and ask they ensure he is not released etc.

Separately, regardless of the merits or otherwise of any contact arrangement, it sounds like this is not working for DSS & there's no room for compromise by either party. May be best to have the arrangements revisited for something that works better and everyone can get behind. Sometimes the order needs to be in place for a while for everyone to realise a different way might work.

Children don't count or remember how many days they spent in each parents house, they remember the conflict. It's the conflict that messes kids up.

Lots of people will believe you I had all the police and complaints to social services and anyone with two serviceable ears.

This is not normal behaviour and there is no co-parenting/give and take, Cat Steven’s, Sunday meals out with mum and dad with these types of people. They don’t co-parent they anti-parent.

Boundaries and court orders must be upheld with these types of people.

It is clear that you don't want to give on to the mum because there is a history of conflict on both sides. However at dome point you need to consider your own role in this. In the middle of the two families is a child. Refusing to be flexible essentially makes the child again something that his carers are fighting about. Using a court order constantly perpetuates this idea. In a few years the child will vote with their feet about where they want to be. It might be better to be less concerned with being right and proving that the mum is at fault. I read your other thread and it is full of trying to prove that the mum is the cause of the child's problems etc etc.

Court orders most commonly give rise to disputes when they are not precise enough about the interaction between term time routine and holidays. It's a bug bear of mine.

Whatever the situation, I would normally take a half term to start on the Frifay after school and end on the Monday morning at the school gates.

OP - your situatiuon sees dad having the child every Monday. The parents seem to have agreed between them that the father has the last weekend of half term as his (presumably as half the holiday - especially if mum had the child from Friday to Wednesday and dad collects the child on Wednesday).

If he were my client I'd send a copy of the order to the school and make it clear mother is not permitted by court order to collect the child on Monday. But you must be sure that dad has had no more than half the holiday.

Flexible is good if it works for both parties and the child is old enough to articulate their needs. It’s not the case here.

There are many reasons why a Co parent does not want to be flexible that are not sinister. Some of us live very ordered and planned lives. Whilst others are more casual and play things by ear. Some people are slaves to their jobs or hobbies making them both inflexible and unreliable. These are usually the reasons why couples split.

In this case the father wants to adhere to the CO. Whilst it is reasonable for the mother to ask for a change, it’s reasonable for him to say no. She should respect that and apply for a change if she thinks it’s needed.

By persisting with the request the mother is the one causing acrimony. She should respect the no. She doesn’t have to agree with it but her recourse is the courts not trying to force the issue when there is a child in the middle.

The order cannot be disclosed to anyone (even school) without permission from the court.

This is correct.

It's also a long time to be away for a dad.

Hence why shared care is the preferred go to.

We did 50/50 until the wheels came off my daughter. She is still talking in therapy now about how she always felt like a thing being passed around according to a rota and not the needs she had at the time. Worse decision of my life.

It's not always best

@Collaborate Do you know whether the courts actually do anything about documents being shared without permission? I'm curious.

Given the purpose of sending the order to the school is to prevent the order being breached I would not expect the court to be too bothered.

In 2019 a paralegal was given a six-month suspended prison sentence after he included documents from a family case in the bundle for the father's immigration case. The sentence was overturned on procedural grounds, not least that the judge forced the paralegal to give evidence and failed to consider the likelihood that the paralegal's boss was the real culprit. But this emphasises the importance the courts place on confidentiality.

However, I agree with Collaborate that the court is unlikely to be bothered if the order is shared in order to prevent a breach.

Always a good idea to apply to the court urgently. A judge is likely to be happy to deal with it on paper.

Thank you so much for your advice @Collaborate and @prh47bridge as well as the support of others who seem to have experienced similar. This isn't just about one night which it may appear on the face of it, its about trying to do what DP feels is best for his son long term. Court was scary enough for him first time around with the malicious (recorded officially as so) alligations made and now DSS is older wants to make sure he is kept as unaware as possible, which is hard when its important he gets to make his voice and opinions heard. Even if its not what DP may want to here, as I agree children will often tell each parent what they think they want to here, hopefully if DSS gets to have a say long term then we know we've done the best by him.

As the situation seems to be one of conflict, I would suggest following the court order as closely as possible as then there can be no claims of being unreasonable etc as it's what the court determined to be appropriate for the child. If it's like my DH, it's also on the basis of principle. If you give an inch with people like that then they will take a mile.