Help ... XP is taking me to court for contact order

[chattymitchy]

Just got a letter from CAFCASS and feel sick. xp is a lying manipulative arse. have posted on here before when he threatened me with an 'assessor' to get his own way about access. DS is only 8 months, xp was visiting only once a month, i got soliitors involved as he was demanding unsupervised access and overnights. (he's never lived with us, he split up with me when i was 3 months pregnant) we said he needed to visit more often. he is now visiting for a couple of hours each week - but i would guess that he doesn;t want such regular contact, he's just been told he has to put the hours in to get to know DS (under sufference as far as i can tell)he can't soothe DS, DS cries with him alot, he can't get DS to eat his lunch and on one visit my mum has to step in because DS was choking,

what will the courts order? \i'm so worries about my little boy being upset and distressed away from anyone he kmows, and it breaks my heart to think that he might have to spend nights away from me

can i take anyone to the first hearing (other than my solicitor)?

just present any written and docuemtned evidence of any harassment of you.

where is he visiting? in your house?

unfortunately,you will have to do as the courts say. you need to get your head round that now.

by the time it gets to first hearing ,you will need to think what access is realistic,and propose it

court is hell,had 2 years of it.

cestlavie is it worth showing the emails where he has lied and tried to manipulate me?

yes present emails etc in factual way. bt if it comes down to his word agaisnt yours then diifuclt depends what he lied about and what proof you have he haslied...

you can take someone to hearing to wait outside but only solicitor allowed in

Not true about only taking a sol to court. You can take a solicitor or you can ask for a McKenzie's friend to attend with you if you are represeting yourself.
Best to ask in advance about this though as some old fashion judges still refuse a McKenzie's friend. Look it up online for more details of what it means.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend

He's not going to get overnights straight away. Court will want to see you attempt mediation, see him being consistant and able to provide care for your child and contact will increase gradually. I'm suprised CAFCASS have been in touch already given you haven't been to a court hearing yet...?

Seems to me you have been reasonable with offering more frequent contact and he has to show he is capable of taking care of a child before overnights and more lengthy contact happens.

Perhaps suggest the contact moves to a contact centre so independant staff can assess it without your impartial point of view being his word against yours. I'm sure what you say about him is correct, but it can be hard with someone breathing down your neck picking on your every move. So let the ocntact centre staff do the monitoring and they will either back up your opinions and give him the space to sink or swim here.

The staff at the contact centre will ensure your baby is safe while there. And give feedback on how he is with the child and advise if/when unsupervised contact is appropriate.
And if he is genuine he will do this.

You can then say that subject to positive feedback from teh centre you will consider unsupervised contact for longer periods. Eg 4 hours to go the park etc, moving up to 6, then 8 hours when your baby is ready for this and you ex shows he is willinga and able to care for him.
Parenting is a learnt skill. Your ex does need the chance to learn without having hovering grandma etc there, but you also need to be reassured he is safe while in his care. SO contact centre to start with I would suggest with promise of more contact when this proves successful.

Don't go to court on your own. Take a sol or find yourself a McKenzie's friend if you can't afford one.

Chatty - please be reassured that you do NOT have to do anything that you sincerely believe is NOT in your child's best interests.
You will not be railroaded into giving your ex unsupervised access if you have a genuine concern regarding the safety of your child. The key point here is "what is in the best interests of the child".
Even if a court order gave access that seriously concerned you and you felt you had no option but to refuse, please note that the worst case scenario/scare tactic of imprisoning a mother who disobeys an [unreasonable] order is a very unlikely event as that in itself is not in the best interests of a child.
You DO have options. Gillybean has given excellent advice about supervised access via a contact centre. This is a fair and reasonable request and as such is your starting point.

yes you can take a solicitor or you can ask for a McKenzie's friend to attend with you if you are represeting yourself .
(she already said she had a solicitor)

as far as i know you cannot take both a solicitor and a mcK friend into the actual eharing bit (but prob ok to have someone else outside with you while waiting -and there will be a lot of waiting. be prepared.

.

Just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment...I don't know the back story but is there anything that suggests there is a genuine concern regarding the safety of your child? I mean, I can see from what you post that he hasn't had much experience of children/babies and he and your DS don't have a bond yet - but we all have to learn how to be parents. Sometimes my DC's cried a lot with me, or wouldn't (still won't) eat their meals, but nobody suggested I should be supervised as I learned how to be a Mum.

Obviously I don't know why your ex would go to the trouble and expense of applying to court for contact he doesn't want, but if he has been coming regularly you need to have some kind of plan to move on. He can't learn how to be a parent without having quality parenting time.

It may be that Cafcass have contacted you prior to some kind of mediation? This would be fairly normal at a first hearing. What kind of input do you want your ex to have? How do you see things in say, 5 years time? And it's probably not a good idea to go in talking about you needs and your heart breaking at the thought of your little one being away from you - courts (supposedly) put the needs and wants of the child first and they do think contact with both parents is a good idea.

Tanga: It's extremely common for abusive men to apply for contact and even custody that they don't actually want - the aim is not to get custody but to harass and distress the mother for ending the relationship and refusing to put up with further abuse.

I would suggest that it is also extremely common for men to apply for contact with their children that they do want, and that mediation can be helpful particularly when the issue seems to be that the mother will miss her child (understandably) rather than any child protection issues.

As there aren't any statistics that prove the motivation behind court application I think we're both entitled to our opinions.

My ex's response to being asked to pay a decent amount of child support was that if he had to pay then he would apply for custody.
He's never seen the child, she is 10 years old but that was the first thing that popped into his head
It's not about wanting the child it's about controlling the situation for many men. Would love to see their faces if the mums turned around and said right have the kids then, you live in virtual poverty and i'll pay you a pittance for the honor of being a 24/7 carer.

Tanga: this OP's XP has form for bullying behaviour already - and a man who is demanding unsupervised overnight access to a baby is not demonstrating that he has the child's wellbeing at heart.

Emails will be looked at by your solicttor/ barrister to give them an understanding but they will not be looked at by a judge.

Oh and be aware in the first hearing you won't see the judge at all, until he calls all parties in when the judgement is already heard.
It will be lots of waiting, toing and froing between each parties counsel and you won't be expected or get the opportunity to do or say anything.

SGB: as I said, I don't know the back story. But I would also respectfully suggest that wanting to care for your child, create a bond with them, and to have quality unsupervised contact time with them to do so, does not necessarily mean you are an abusive danger to children.

The fact that he is making unrealistic demands in the face of 8 months of supervised contact should not automatically rule out the possibilities of future overnight contact (at the child's pace, obviously).

Thank you everyone for all your help - I have spoken to my solicitor and she is also a little confused as to why he has taken it to court - as we were already trying to work towards him having unsupervised access (asking him to come more often, reminding him to ask questions about DS's routine etc).

SGB and others - I also think it's about control, as he has already said that he doesn't like other people dictating when and how he can see 'his' child, but he has mentioned nothing about what might be in the best interests for DS.

Tanga - I totally understand your point - but I'm only concerned because DS gets very distressed with XP, and XP WONT ask for help when things go wrong - and I really don't see why DS should be a guinea pig as XP works things out by trial and error on his own. DS also choked very badly when XP was feeding him, luckily my mum was there to whip DS out of chair and get him to cough up the food ....

The reason I talked about my heart breaking if DS had to stay away before he was ready was because I'd hate to think of DS being a pawn in this struggle, and being made to suffer and get distressed simply because XP insisted on overnight access because it's his 'right'.

It's a long story I guess, but I'm also concerned because I know that if anything bad were to happen to DS, XP would never, ever tell me. I just can't trust him at all.

But - I do feel a bit more reassured about the court processes, and hope that we can put in place a plan which will progress from supervised to unsupervised access.

oh and Tanga - he wants less regular unsupervised access - that much was clear from his court application.

So he's putting in a weekly appearance at the moment, in the hope that he'll get a court order which means that he can come less often but won't have to deal with me or my family any more.

The reason why I'm so sceptical about his intentions is that he has never bothered with his son before this (visited once a month at a push, never bought him anything, has never said he is happy to be a dad, never says he loves DS etc etc), and has only started coming more regularly when we insisted he must if he wanted unsupervised contact.

Its quite natural for a father to want access to his child and all credit to him for that. In terms of contact; it is very unlikely that it will go straight to unsupervised, but it will progress that way in stages. Contact order do have to be followed and there are a range of penalities for breaching them. That said, with a bit of goodwill and communication on both sides there is no reason why it should reach that pitch.