Psychological reports on my children, what would they do?

[Dollytwat]

My exh is taking me to court for enforcement of the contact order made 2 years ago. It's a long story, but I stopped contact last year following an incident where he physically and verbally abused me at handover.

It's been a long saga over 5 years of him cancelling and changing contact, and my eldest has made it clear he is frightened of his dad, therefore I have insisted on assisted contact at a contact centre. This took my ex 9 months to arrange, but they are seeing him fortnightly there for a couple of hours.

There have been a number of occasions where they have been returned from contact weekends visibly disturbed, and I need to detail this in my statement to the court when we go back in a month.

However, my ex is stating that I cannot prove he has bullied the children psychologically and that he wants reports on them. I don't know if I mind or not, I want to know if anyone has gone through this? What do they ask the children? What are they likely to be put through?

There is lots more to this but don't want to give out too many personal details.

I don't think you could or should jump straight to a psychologist without CAFCASS reporting first. Presumably, given the time frame, your children aren't really little so they could talk to CAFCASS about what they think about seeing their dad; if CAFCASS are worried that more serious intervention is needed, they can make that recommendation to the court.

Presumably you are just at the statement swopping stage at court? What is the position re CAFCASS, is anyone coming to see you? A brief 'wishes and feelings' report is supposed to be done in six weeks.

As a general rule, it is always better to limit the amount of people children have to see and talk to and anyway, in these cases it is rarely the children who need the psychiatric/psychological intervention, but rather the parents.

Spero yes we are at the statement swapping stage, and I'm trying to get as much in as I can, but doubtful that anyone is going to read it all. I'm hoping that they will get CAFCASS involved and, as you say, request the 'wishes and feelings' report, however, as I don't trust him even if the boys DID want to see him unsupervised this is why he is asking for the reports.

I'd like to ask for reports on him, but I simply can't afford it. I'm the one who's working so I don't get legal aid, so he can ask for reports on me (I have no doubt he'll try to make out I'm a loon) but I have to pay for the ones I want.

I think you need to be careful of the road you may be going down. If the children want to see him and you don't have clear evidence that he is dangerous (drug addiction, convictions for violence etc, etc) the courts will support his application for contact.

Also, the courts are generally getting tougher on enforcing contact if they think the other parent is being unreasonable.

You are right, but he is an ex alcoholic and drug user, I called the police on many occasions when we were together. My eldest is adamant that he only wants to see his dad in the contact centre, the youngest is just 5 so he doesn't feel so strongly and is easily bought each time he sees his dad.

I'd like nothing more than the boys to have a great relationship with their dad, but now I'm left feeling I have been trying to make contact happen when they were suffering.

I don't know what the courts view is when they order contact and the children refuse to go - I think I'm the one who will be punished for it.

You have my every sympathy - family court is an awful place to be.

That said, do you have legal advice? I'm just not sure your actions ahve put you in the best place. Sort of being devil's advocate and thinking about the possible reaction of the courts;

Firstly, I'm assuming that you pointed out to the court the first time around that your ex was all the things you have said here - an alcoholic, drug-user, violent etc. They still judged that it was in the children's best interests to have contact with their father.

After the incident of violence (do you have police reports to back this up?) you could have taken different action other than simply stopping the contact - eg apply for a variation, use an alternative method for handover. I say this because I have heard a number of times that on a return to court in a situation like this the focus has been on enforcing the order, not listening to why you decided to ignore it.

I'm a bit confused as to how, if they only see him for a few hours and that supervised, they could return from 'contact weekends' having been disturbed - although the whole situation in contact centres is fairly disturbing. Also why would they refuse to go for contact if ordered if your youngest enjoys it?

And finally, and I'm really feeling like the bringer of bed news, if your ex is asking for psych reports because you are accusing him of causing the children psychological damage, he is unlikely to be asked to bear the full cost of those reports - they would be split between you (as far as I know).

Children often say they don't want to see the absent parent; the difficulty for the court is being sure whether this is a true reflection of the child's genuine wishes and feelings or whether it is instead the child saying what he or she knows the resident parent wants to hear.

Generally, psychologists say that any child under six is very unlikely to be able to express a view different from the resident parent, because of course a child of that age is very vulnerable and very closely allied to the person who takes care of him or her.

I don't think the court can possibly order you to pay for a psychologist's report; if you haven't got the money, you haven't got the money.

All you can do is what you are doing; make sure you have clearly set out your concerns in a written statement, back up these concerns with corroborating evidence whereever you can - crime reference numbers for eg if you have called the police.

But even if he has behaved very badly in the past, the court will want to look at how safe contact can be now. They will take the view that he is the only father the children will ever have and they have the right to a relationship with him, warts and all. As long as they are safe.

It is a horrible and stressful situation and I think you need some help and support. If you can't afford a lawyer, do you have a friend who could come to court with you and take notes? The courts are usually happy to allow this and it makes things less stressful

I do have legal advice and very expensive it is too, and I think if he insists on the reports then legal aid will pay for it (as he gave up his job so as to avoid the CSA payments). However, if I want reports on him, then I'll have to pay for them and they are several thousand pounds.

Tanga the children would come back from contact BEFORE I stoppped it, disturbed. Now they see him in a contact centre.

It's a long and drawn out story which is impossible to tell all the detail here, of course. I hear what you say about taking a different course of action and I wish now that I had. I actually believed the contact order to be HIS order, so it was up to him to change. I offered him the contact centre as soon as I stopped contact, but he didn't take that up for 9 months. I see now that I should have applied for a variation to the order then.

I dealt with this on my own last time we went to court, and wiped the floor with him so to speak, however, I'm not prepared to invest in this emotionally again. It takes over my life and having to catalogue all the emails etc for this court case has reminded me how much he affected me before. We've had nearly a year free of this and I'm not about to let him affect our lives again.

I really wish he'd just go away, this is just a box ticking exercise for him. He'll get his CSA money reduced for any overnight contact, then he'll just cancel it all like last time. I'll be made out to be the bad guy when I get fed up with it and the only ones who really suffer is the children.