Advice desperately needed about visitation rates for baby

[lentildiva]

Hello

I'm starting this thread for my friend who is having a very difficult time at the moment and is need of some advice.

She has a 15 month old baby boy. She was married to the father, but when the baby was a couple of weeks old, he had an affair and ended the relationship. My friend has since brought up the baby on her own. Although her ex has visited him at her new home quite regulary, but for only for a few hours/

My friend moved on and now has a new partner who lives with her and has helped bring her DS up. He loves him to bits and they are very happy together and are expecting another baby. When she told her ex that her partner had moved in, he suddenly began to ask for more and more visits, which my friend allowed. But on his 1st birthday, she received a letter from his solicitor stating that unless she agrees to grant overnight/entire weekend access every other weekend and for her ex to take him to Scotland every other Christmas to see his relatives, he will take her to court. The ex hasn't cared for the baby for more than 4 hours at a time and she finds him very aggressive and difficult to talk to. She has allowed him to have vists away from her home and agreed to ncrease them to 8 hours a day. She finds this very distressing because he refuses to give her any feedback about what he has done with baby i.e how much has he slept, eaten, where has he been taken and so on. She has agreed to these increased visits in the hope that it will pacify him enough not to take her to court. But his Mum, who lives in Scotland, is paying for all this legal stuff and campaigning for him to get the overnight access we assume because he wants him to take the baby to visit her.
My fiend is very, very distressed at the thought of her ex having him overnight. Her ex refuses to be told his routene etc and generally bundles him out of the day saying "I'm his daddy I know how to look after him". She is concerned that her ex will leave him to cry if he wakes up at night(a policy which they are very aginst in her household) and this will be very traumatic for him. She can't see how this would be in his interest. Also, if this court grants it and it coincides with the arrival of the new baby, she is worried this will have a vwery bad effect on her DS.

Is there anyone out there who has been through a similar expereince who can give her any advice? Do courts usually allow inexpereinced fathers who have only recently had more contact to have overnight/weekend contact so suddenly? Do they take seperation from siblings into consideration? Is there anywhere she can go for advice or support?

SOrry for the long post. Any advice would be very welcome.

she needs her own legal advice, and solicitor

i imagine if it did go to court, it would not be in his best interests, if he has barely spent any time with the child , not more than 4 hours a t time, i hardly see a court is going to allow him over night and weekend visits and then trips away so quickly

she must see a solicitor though, he is clearly getting legal advice and she needs it too

Sorry Lulumama

Forgot to say, she has got a solicitor too now. Her family is helping her pay for it. But he isn't doing allot to reassure her about it.

As of today, the visits have been increased to 8 hours. She has no legal obligation to agree to this and really doesn't want to aloow it to happen, but is hoping this will help her case. Her solicitor isn't very reassuring about the whole thing. She is so upset at the moment.

perhaps she needs a new solicitor? if she is not getting teh reassurance she needs then she might need to look elsehwere

can't really add much, not much experience here, but i am sure other posters will be along soon with more help

Thanks lulumama.

why has she no legal obligation to agree?
it might be hard for your friend, but it is a fact that her son has 2 parents - and has a right for both parents to be part of his life.
I can't imagine how hard it must be when the other parent won't communicate about the child, but in all likelihood the child is going to continue to see his father, and will at some point be staying overnight and for holidays etc.

Is her solicitor one experienced in dealing with family cases/divorces, or not? Whatever, if the solicitor doesn't seem to be helping her or reassuring her, she can change solicitors.
It might also be worth her having a word with Women's Aid at least WRT finding the right kind of solicitors.
Because her XP is behaving abusively, bullying and threatening her and demanding unreasonable access in order to distress her. It's no coincidence that the XP has started behaving like this now your friend has a nice new partner.
The first thing she must do is tell him to go the fuck ahead and take her to court, because he has a POOR case. She has been very reasonable about access/contact in the case of aggressive and unhelpful behaviour from the XP - tell her to put together as much evidence as possible of poor care of the child, any nasty emails/texts/letters etc.

Take your point ChasingSquirrels and she is aware of this. She just thinks her son is too young at the moment. He will find it too distressing until his old enough to have a bit more of an idea of whats going on.

SolidGoldBrass - she has kept a log of everything. Do you think giving him 8 hours today is going to give her a worse case because when it goes to court - it will now - he will of had more experience?

bump

Firstly, your friend needs to know is the solicitor is duty bound to represent the Father's view and she shouldn't feel threatened by letters from the solicitor.

The second thing is there is no one arrangement which suits all families and, like parents, judges and court welfare officers have different attitudes to overnights for very young children. Perhaps your friend would find the publication "Time For Children" (particularly page 8) available to download from the CAFCASS website useful.

Thirdly, without evidence supported by social work, police, independent medical experts etc that the child is effected by abuse it is usually better to remain child centred and not drag out proceedings with allegations of abuse unless it is too bad to ignore. Courts often have difficulty choosing between two positions - allegations of bullying etc and emotional abuse in relation to restricting contact.

Tell your friend she shouldn't see court as hostile. The first appointment is normally concillatory and both parties meet with the court welfare officer (CAFCASS) before seeing the judge to see if any agreement can be reached. If not the judge will decide what information he/she requires in the form of reports to help make a decision and set a timetable. I think your friend is likely to need to concede to the gradual introduction to overnights building up into weekends and short holidays over the next 6 -18 months. However, conditions can be attached to the order and the Father may well be required to give more feedback with a child of this age.

Hope that helps.

A lot has been said on the board already and what I would like to add to it is that the child's welfare is paramount in this situation and if the proposing arrangements from the ex would not be in the best interest of the child and you are concerned, then you have to be able to say so.

If it becomes apparent that the ex will be applying to the Courts for more contacts in his favour, the Court determing this aspect of application shall have regards to the paramountcy of the welfare of the child.

Section 1 (3) of the Children Act 1989 provides that the Court must have regard to a
checklists of factors whenever it is considering, amongst other things, the making of an Order. If you are very concerned for your friend, you can speak to her to change solicitor.

Best of luck

Thank you all so much for your imput. The advice has been really balanced and useful. As for an update - my friend did give him the 8 hour contact. On the good side, the little lad was happy to be back but wasn't distressed when he was handed back. On the bad side the ex claimed he had been tired and he had had two rather large naps, which is totally out of character as he only has one small one at his age. This meant that he stayed up until almost 10pm! Ex also said he had eaten well and the day had been "perfect". The little lad then guzzled 15ounces of milk that night, again totally uncharacteristic for him, so mum is worried that her ex didnt manage to get enough food into him and was more concerned about looking good than passing on any important information about how the day had gone. Maybe he just doesn't understand that knowing this stuff is important.
She is going to citizens advice and will look at the Cafcas site which should be helpful.
Thanks again. x

Citizens Advice should be able to help your friend.