So bio “father” is completely absent and has been for 8ish years , unfortunately child has his surname and he’s in the birth certificate, have been with finance nearly ten years and really want him and need to have parental responsibility he’s his dad and has brought him up , so how do I go about this ? Ex is awol and is not a very nice person whatsoever (police advised me to stay away as much as I can anyways ) , I have no way to even find out where he is even if I wanted to and even if I did he wouldn’t give consent cos of how horrible he is , I can prove in court it’s in the child’s best interests etc but how do I go about it and do we need to be married for this to happen ?