Can the respondent in family court just cancel a case?

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

DP has just messaged me with an email received from family court today about his hearing on Monday. The wording is "upon the respondent mother contacting the court to inform the application concluded on 11th July 2022 it is ordered that the hearing on 17th October 2022 is vacated.

History is DP made a SIO back in June when mum wouldn't supply passport for agreed holiday and wouldn't agree to handover and drop off dates and times at a reasonable time (I've a long running thread about it on here). The SIO was dealt with, but a further hearing ordered so holiday contact/passport could be discussed further as there remains issues, eg she won't agree to dates until the last minute (summer hols dates only confirmed the day before court 10th july). She doesn't want to as "she doesn't know what her plans are yet". Holidays are 5050 split. She constantly has the greater share of the hols and it is pretty much her way or the highway. DP wants a more prescriptive order.

So she asked him on Tuesday did they really need to go to court again as far as she was concerned there were no issues. He said there were issues so yes, need to go back.

She's only gone and bloody contacted them and had it cancelled. Can she? It was his application, how can she do that? DP is at work (teacher) and has tried this morning and lunch to get through to court with no joy. What can he do?

Ah, in the time it took me to write that, he managed to speak to the clerk who said "no, it must be a mistake, they wouldn't do that". She checked and said "I stand corrected, they have done it, I can't believe that has happened, email the court urgently now".
So um, what next?! We had hoped to get Christmas contact sorted ffs, as of course she won't discuss it yet because "she doesn't know what she is doing yet".

no a respondent alone can’t do this

You've been told what to do - email the court and mark it urgent. You believe the hearing has been vacated in error as the application has not been resolved, etc. follow up the email with a call to make sure they got it.

He's done what she said, but has no idea what will happen next. Is there a chance that they can still go to court on Monday? When he marks it urgent, does urgent mean it will be looked at today? Arghhh!

Court haven't responded. He has rang again, email has been sent to judge but won't be looked at til Monday at the earliest. Apparently urgent just means 1-2 days for a response time.
So now he has unpaid leave on Monday for nothing... along with all other associated costs.
What a bloody joke.

How did you get on?

Just a new date sent for mid December. No acknowledgement that what they did was incorrect, no apology. And no urgent date. So we still can't plan our year ahead and book our family holiday 😬.