Long story short, Dd's dad left when she was under 1yo. He never signed the birth certificate and soon shacked up with another woman and marrying shortly after. I went via CMS. He took me to Court to try to stop me getting maintenance, to which the Judge laughed and told him he had to pay. As a result he went self-employed, paying appx £5pw as he suddenly went from over 55kpa to 9kpa.
So far, fairly typical.
So, I don't want to drip-feed but it is lengthy, so here goes:
When dd was about 3 her nursery asked if I could get in touch with him for contact as apparently she was talking about him and painting him pictures. My heart broke at this point and I decided to send an email seeing if he had changed his mind about contact. We had a seemingly productive few emails where he was interested in her and seemed to want to meet. As the date grew closer he suddenly sprung it on me that if I dropped CMS he would meet her. I said the whole "it's not a pay per view" etc and refused. However a few months later, after it had been playing on my mind, I decided that I could get by without £5pw and actually I'd never forgive myself if he turned around to her later and said that was what stopped him from seeing her. Ridiculous I know but at the time it seemed like a sensible way to show willing re contact. Of course, as soon as CMS was cancelled he disappeared. Zero contact and zero maintenance. I felt he had made his choice but emailed to say the ball was always in his court re contact as I felt in the future when he was more willing to be a parent he might regret his choice.
There's a huge amount more but I've just typed half of it out and it's like a dissertation and hopefully not all needed. So, skipping to the end:
He has decided he wants contact
Dd and I met him last year and for 4 months I tried to do things at weekends with him (I paid for these and drove etc, really bending over backwards)
His behaviour was erratic and unstable - he frequently had no money and at the last meeting went "missing" for hours returning drunk
He left un-prescribed drugs in my car the same weekend
At this point I decided that was enough and I wasn't going to continue to meet up with him with dd as I could see his behaviour was unsafe (4 weekends)
He began messaging essays me about how he was going to take her now because I wasn't being a good parent. I told him I was blocking him as he was being nasty and needed mental health support. At this point he was really only messaging me - it always felt it was about getting to me rather than helping her.
He then began messaging her saying I had kept her away from him for all of the years in her childhood.
He told her he was going to take over and help her with her future as he knew more influential people than me.
She became scared he was going to actually do the above. We had long chats about his state of mind and how he has no parental rights so that is not going to happen. I asked her if she wanted to block him and she said yes. We blocked him on her devices and I unblocked him to explain this was her choice and I was going with her wishes. In the future she would contact him when she was ready to continue their relationship. I've had him blocked since.
Just before Christmas he turned up at my dad's house uninvited in the dark. I have never given him my dad's address, so he must have found it on the electoral roll. My dad told him to go away and shut the door. He has a ring doorbell thankfully so everything is documented.
After this I emailed his ex wife, who confirmed that he has multiple severe mental health problems he refuses to get medication and mental health help for
She also told me he regularly takes drugs and is an alcoholic (all of this I have seen evidence of on the weekends and can attest - she is not trying to "stir")
She also confirmed his recent work has been far more erratic than he led me to believe due to the above issues and he has not held a job for more than 3 months in 9 years.
I have today had an email from mediators, saying that he has turned up requesting they contact me for mediation. I have responded summarising that he has drug and alcohol issues, no parental rights and DD does not wish to see him so, no, do not want to have mediation.
Now I am sitting here worrying that he is somehow going to drag me back to Court and turn my life upside down, like he tried to when she was a baby, demanding to see her. Can this happen? I heard a scary interview on R4 last week about the father who abused his daughters and was allowed to repeatedly have contact, although he had PR so I hope this is different. After hearing that show though, I am really worried that somehow this man will be able to wreak havoc on us. Please can someone tell me that is not the case?