Can my son's father seek increased contact after assault conviction?

[RoeDeer86]

I’d like some advice, please. My son sees his father for two hours supervised contact a month, plus a 30 minute video call (so one face to face and one virtual contact a month).

Father served a 22 month prison sentence for assaulting our son when he was 8 weeks old. He had 11 months in custody and 11 months on licence, all of which concluded in 2024. Thankfully our son seems to have made a full physical recovery but I can’t ever shake the fact that he could’ve killed him.

This contact has been ongoing as above since our son was around 18 months old (with the exception of when he was in prison). We went through the court process several years ago and I have sole custody our son under a child arrangements order; so he lives with me but has supervised contact (by paternal grandmother) with his father. My mum also attends at my request as an extra pair of eyes.

Around a year ago he asked for the contact with our son to be increased and I refused, though he did challenge this and ask what my reasons were. I heard nothing about it again until now. The first time he asked for increased contact he asked for my mum not to go on contact. I send my mum to contact as an extra pair of eyes because of what he did to our son. The Court granted paternal grandmother supervision responsibilities but it’s my job to keep our son safe and I don’t attend the contact! I’ll never fully trust Paternal grandmother because she doesn’t think what her son did to my son was his fault , they push the contact to the absolute maximum (max 2 hours and they always go slightly over) and the first time they went on contact she put them in the back of the car together (when the Order states the contact is in a public place), but I can’t go against what is ordered by the Court and that is that she supervises. So I send my mum and that reassures me.

The final court order makes provision for the arrangements to change subject to my agreement and the local authority either saying they don’t need to be involved, or agreeing to the changes. The local authority said they don’t envisage contact increases being in my son’s best interests in the short or medium term (from the order in 2021). I contacted the LA about this the first time and they basically said I can refuse and he’d have to seek an assessment from them/own legal advice. They wouldn’t give me any indication as to whether they’d support an increase in contact or not.

I feel sick to my stomach that this man thinks he’s served his sentence and that absolves him of his crimes. He’s never said sorry for what he did to our son, or showed any remorse. Does anyone have any advice or been through similar? Things have been as amicable as possible and he’s chosen the dates for contact that suit him, I’ve been as flexible as possible with it all. I don’t think he’ll ever be safe to be unsupervised around our son, but I feel like this is the start of asking for more and more time and increasing the risk. Do fathers who injure their children actually get away Scot-free in the long term? I don’t want to agree to more time and increase the risk, in my eyes.

If I say no again, I know he can take it to Court but I’m terrified they will grant it or potentially give him more time.

Thank you for reading.

@RoeDeer86 there isn’t a specific age but the older they are the more weight it will carry. So let him go through any motions he wants to - it will all add time and therefore age.

My children have additional needs, one with complex needs, and the professionals took this into consideration and still stood up for their views.

You’ve come so far already, you can keep going with this 💪

I would try to slow everything down as much as possible. Take your time with everything. Answering letters, mediation etc. The older your child is, the more likey he gets to express his opinion about it.

Thank you for your kind comment and sharing your experience. I do think my son potentially has additional needs and he needs a lot of sensitive handling, but he doesn’t have any diagnosis.

That really means a lot, thank you ♥️.

Thank you for your comment. That sounds sensible. I just live in utter terror that he could harm him and although the trust is long-gone, I trusted him once to protect him and he did the absolute worst thing someone could do. Now to make out like he wants to further their relationship with zero acknowledgment that he could’ve killed him, it breaks me.

Im too gobsmacked and disgusted

My kids were 8&9 when their dad had to see them in a center. It wasn’t brilliant and they were bloody terrified of him. Then they requested that contact stop. And it did.
A few years later we took him to court and he lost parental responsibility. That was 11 years ago now.
I always documented everything possible.

8 week old babies are so vulnerable. The thought that he deliberately injured his own baby of that age is sickening. Thank god your son was one of the lucky ones who made a full recovery. It sounds like you are very correct not to trust the paternal grandmother. Keep protecting your son.

Doesn’t matter what he was accused of, if there’s DV on record then it counts. This is why I think somewhere like Women’s Aid can help though - they know the system much better than you or I do. They can also help you - not get over it, you’ll never get over it - but help you manage the trauma of what happened, which you need to do in order to keep fighting. You are so scared of him and his mum, it comes across in all your posts - that is NOT A CRITICISM - they can help you feel more in control and help you feel stronger.

Note I said ‘feel’ stronger - you are already strong and I want you to know you are doing a really good job protecting your son.

You are in an awful situation and I really feel for you. Ultimately, the only person who can stop contact is your son. You need to be there for him. Take things as slow as absolutely possible without being obstructive.

I’m sorry you had to go through that, I appreciate how tough it is. I think you’re right about documenting everything. I wish they’d chosen a contact centre but the LA trust his mother implicitly. Lord only knows why.

Thank you, this means a lot. I don’t know precisely what was documented but a lot transpired about things he’d hidden from me and a few incidents but I don’t know how or where it was noted down in terms of the court documentation. He obviously had a psychology assessment and report and that mentioned a lot of concerns around his behaviour in general.

I think with trauma it’s just been easier to bury it and focus on normal life, I hadn’t realised those charities could help with anything like that. Thank you for mentioning it.

That means a lot, thank you. It’s helped a lot to know that I’m not going mad in refusing and fighting this, that others would do the same and that my gut instinct is right.

Thank you. In all honesty, it’s nothing compared to the previous hell before, but it’s stressful and worrying nonetheless. My son thinks he’s wonderful, in all honesty. Probably because they do fun things together and he has no idea what he did to him as a baby. Even though he rarely mentions him to me, I can’t see him saying no to seeing him more if he was given the choice. But I suppose at least he will grow taller and stronger when he’s older and be able to protect himself.

This.

I’m not UK but we have a family court system based in the UK system and having an extended family member experience it they are literally a law onto themselves. A good judge wouldn’t hear of more contact but some judges are awful and have pretty low emotional intelligence and low awareness of domestic violence being a pattern behaviour with much larger patterns at play.

Look up a lawyer called Charlotte proudman who is an expert at fighting for mothers in this kind of situation. You may not need her right now but it is useful to know how to find her.

Thank you for this. I’m hopeful that the change in the law will have some impact as well (prioritising the right to know a parent - arguably over safety!) I think our original Judge was changed relatively last minute as well so I can’t imagine that helped.

Thank you so much, I’ll look her up.

Oh my god totally this, I don’t even understand how it would be up for debate!

The amount of Courts who grant access to parents who have harmed their children or have harmed their children’s mother is staggering. Let’s hope things change within the system with these changes to the law. Sadly, when you’ve fought for years and you’re in the thick of it, it’s very hard to go against anything the authorities say. Especially when all you want to do is keep your child and keep them safe. You do anything. But the whole system makes you feel like it’s your fault, you’re the failure as the mother, you should’ve know they’d do that. Yet the father still keeps contact. How they think contact with a perpetrator is best for children in these situations is beyond me. Moreover, they get clauses added in to allow them to request more time, as long as mum and the LA agree.

I'm appalled that he's been given any face to face contact, I'd have expected he'd have letterbox contact, video calls maybe, supervised contact in a contact centre at the very most but supervised contact with his family who thinks he's done no wrong supervising is disgusting. I am glad your little boy made a full recovery. I would stick to the order you have, do not agree to him having more time, yes he might take you to court and sadly yes anything is a possibility I guess but you have to try and I would perhaps get some legal advice.