Long time absent father requesting more complicated contact arrangements, what are our options?

[CAOband]

Long story short, a father who removed himself from the child's life has re-appeared 10 years later and requested contact via solicitors (father lives abroad so initial contact is via video calls). No physical abuse or SA, only ongoing financial abuse but it's irrelevant to contact arrangements so I offered direct video calls straight away. The solicitors went silent for two weeks so I had to chase them. They responded by requesting supported contact via virtual contact centres. The child is 13 and refused to be "supported" in chats with their father. Does it look like the father is being unreasonable or the solicitors are trying to maximise their profit? What are our options? What would be the court position on this if we can't agree? No particular objections to contact on my part, but the teenager feels the situation with supported contact is weird.

TIA

What is supported virtual contact? If anything, it feels like you are offering MORE than what he is asking for? Is he nervous abojt speaking to your ds without help? Perhaps the contact should start off via writing? Email?

That isn't something I've come across either. I wouldn't chase anything. Does your chils want contact?

Doesn't mind either way, feels it's just a stranger. I think it may be beneficial for DC so no objections but they make it complicated for some reason.

The key question is why does the father want supervised contact in a contact centre if you’ve already offered unsupervised?
The court would ask this question before making any order - it’s quite unusual as most parents ask for unsupervised contact !
The court would be very interested in your daughters wishes and feelings so
I would go back and ask the question before proceeding to court . You might be able to sort this out between you and save yourselves a lot of time

He's probably doing it to impress some woman, and assumed you'd say no. But you said yes so now he can't paint you as the difficult ex. Just sit tight and see what happens. He sounds daft.

There are also weird allegations that I prevented contact, despite me offering contact straight away. Can they be up to something else, not contact at all?

Any chance he’s trying to get YOU to be online with your son?

Sounds like he's playing games

Does he have other children and what country is he in?

Has he paid child support?

He’s still trying to abuse you financially? So that may be why he wants to say things online with your kid there ?

This seems likely. It sounds similar to what my daughter's dad periodically does.

I'm puzzled tbh. It's not in a physical contact centre (that was their initial request, now they dropped it as impossible to justify for the child to go to a centre just for a call). They want the contact centre to organise the calls and for some specialist to be on screen or something like that, a sort of zoom video conference with a moderator, I assume.

I asked about their reasons for that if a direct contact is offered, but I'm just wondering if it might be the solicitors wanting more money?..

It might be that Theyre hoping to get reports that support face to face contact later.

I think he probably wants a contact supervisor to write notes confirming their observations that he’s a nice dad.
I wouldn’t worry too much at this age the childa view counts he can’t take you to court for any more contact than the child wants.

I would write back saying

‘child is happy to have video chats, I’m happy to support this. Child isn’t willing to do this with a supervisor as he finds it strange and I didn’t know what to answer when he asked why.

please can you explain why you want it?
please can you also tell me - yes or no - are you willing to do video calls with out a supervisor?

if so these are some dates -

please respond by x date

Unlikely. He's gone to OW 10 years ago, cut off DC because of that so no, not trying to impress anyone, and is not interested in me, it's all dead on both sides. I wouldn't want to be on screen either, teenagers can manage their calls without parental help :)

That was my response. They refused direct calls but keep pushing for supported.

Other children are grown up. He's paying but less than was agreed and it's not enforceable as he's abroad.

Probably. The problem is DC is refusing "supported" calls. Won't be kicking and screaming being dragged to the screen, but says wouldn't talk.

Where is he abroad? Any chance they’ve become a country where REMO can come into play?

REMO country but not enforceable anyway. He's not working and hides his assets (digital nomad). It's not CM I'm concerned about anyway, at least not at the moment.

I am guessing a new lady is on the scene and his tale of woe has lead to her pushing him to make contact. It’s unbelievably common. I know women who have taken out a loan to help their deadbeat boyfriend get access to kids he never wanted to see. It’s weird.

You scuppered it with your response.

I would just ignore it. A solicitor writes whatever the client wants them to write. You have already said yes to online contact so that won’t go against you if it ever went to court. Given the fact you have already had to chase it I would suspect he will give up soon and not take it any further.
Have you spoken to your son about it, what does he want to do? If he wants to get to know him I would write a final email saying DS is open to video calls but they don’t need to be supervised. If he isn’t fussed I would just let it fizzle out.

New, younger GF - and pregnant?

I would appreciate any thoughts from family court solicitors or other legal professionals. @stargirl27?

A judge in the UK would probably take the wishes of a child aged 13 into account. So please allow your child to make this decision, and support them whatever they choose to do.

Maybe just play the waiting game and see what this solicitor says next?