ex abusing legal aid system for contact thats never refused by me

[njhc]

hi sorry this may end up very long and quite disjointed i am so desperate and dont know what to do.

i have posted this on the legal thread also, i need as much help as possible please.

my ex fiddles the whole benefits system, he works yet claims incapacity benefit, ownes his own house but claims he lives somewhere else, disapears for months and months on end and then i recieve either solicitor or court letters demanding contact for our 6 year old son. in this time we have been to court 5 times, in the past i have paid contributions and he has full legal aid. i have never refused contact but i gave up begging for him to turn up a long time ago. it is he who simply doesnt turn up. we go back to court, contact starts again for a while. i feel like im on a merry-go-round.

i feel like im constantly on eggshells pussyfooting around him as the slightest argument will make him disapear. he is constantly verbally abusive to me, pays no real interet in our sons upbringing, refuses to talk in an adult way about any problems with our son, just says everything is my fault and im a shit mum, he constantly threatens to call social services. undermines any rules i have and has no dicipline whatsoever. during the last phase of contact (the longest its ever been consistant) our sons behaviour took a rapid decline at school and since contact stopped several teachers have said his behaviour has dramatically improved. his main teacher has expressed that i have her backing 100% and she would be willing to write a letter for court. he holds me hostage over contact knowing full well if he doesnt turn up it causes me huge problems at work. he doesnt give me any maintenance (apart from £5 out of his giro)i work full time and struggle month to month but my son has everything he wants and needs from me. he uses my son as a trophy and loves to play the poor dad who 'isnt allowed' to see his kid but this is simply not the case.

he now hasnt seen his son since oct. he refused to see our son because i was unable to meet him at our local tescos as per the order which is downstairs from where i live. i explained that i was really sick (i had e coli and a kidney infection) and couldnt get out of bed, i suggested he came to my front door-he refused, i suggested my partner dropped him off- he refused that too. last week i received a solicitor letter asking for contact to be resumed as stated by the order or we will go to court again and they will ask for me to be liable for costs.

i saw my solicitor today and she did the calculations,i have a better job now and i am on the borderline and cannot recieve any legal aid and she wants £1000 before she even does anything, at the same time she said theres nothing much she can do, basically i have to just put up with it and allow contact. she didnt even look at my notes or have anything to say about the situation.

i dont want contact to stop, my son does love seeing his dad but surely something must be done to stop his abusive behavior towards me and his constant not turning up for contact and bringing me back to court?

i really cannot afford to pay for legal help, how do i represent myself? make a clear case? i have a diary explaining all his abusive/blackmailing behaviour.

my partner suggests i go to see another solicitor? i just want it all to end once and for all and for my ex to stop using my son as a weapon to hurt me all the time.

i hope this had made sense??? please has anyone got any advise for me? thanks

I'm not sure what seeing another solicitor will achieve as the problem seems to be that you don't meet the threshold for legal aid. Unless I missed something?

My advice is to self represent. You've been to court so you know what to expect.

There's a lot of advice available online. You can try to find a Mckenzie friend who is basically a lay person who can be there with you in court. He/she cannot speak on your behalf like a solicitor but they can talk to you about points of law and at the very least offer moral support.

There's little point in chucking money at a solicitor at this stage. he's just trying to wear you down and control you.

Your best bet is to self represent. If/when he threatens you with court, say "bring it on" and each time explain to the judge.

I very much doubt a judge will grant costs against you even if he thinks you are completely wrong. You are self representing due to shortage of cash whilst ex is on legal aid. It simply wouldnt be in the best interests of your kids for you to be skint.

However, what it would mean is over time the judge can see he's just being a selfish controlling arse and hopefully he will make an order forbidding him to go back to court for x period of time.

You can self represent, if your ex is represented and he has started the case, his solicitor goes first, you will get the idea when you hear them talking what sort of things to do regarding etiquite and what is important, then when they have finished it is your turn, and the judge will help you also. Good luck.

njhc,

Hopefully SoldGold will be on here soon as she seems to know quite a lot about this sort of thing. She'll probably correct me as I'm not at all sure I understand this correctly, but I think you can lodge something called a cease and desist order against him for malicious legal use (not the right term) where someone repeatedly takes you to court for something they know isn't right and that they can't hope to win once all the facts are known. She'll explain this a lot better than I can.

Other than that, I agree with NiceGuy2. Let him take you to court. If you document everything and can demonstrate your XP's harassment and unreliability, he will look pretty stupid and highly unreasonable in court.

Hope things improve.

Don't let it go to court, explain to him that he has a lot to lose. Does he really want to drag this out so that there is no chance of anything amicable and he ends up having to his child in a contact center? doesn't sound like he has a leg to stand on. good luck. He threatens SS surly you threaten to report him to the Inland revenue? I think its also important to remember you are the main carer for you child if you Ex is stressing you out you can guarantee it will be having an affect on your mood and there for your son. You need to look after your self before you can look after anyone else. best of luck

Its hard enough being a single parent and trying your best to give your child everything you can without having to deal with your ex who is an outright bully.

My friend was in a similar situation to yourself, she was often verbally abused when her ex came to pick up the kids and it wore her right down. She eventually decided enough was enough and off she went to the local police station and made a statement about the verbal abuse.

Believe me, the police treat this kind of abuse very seriously and you even have a diary full of details of what your ex has said/done to you.

In my friends case, the outcome was that two burly police officer's paid her ex a visit and presented him with a first instance harassment warning. Her ex was basically told that his verbally abusive behaviour was classed as harassment and warned that if he said one more abusive comment to her either directly or indirectly then he would be arrested.
The police explained to him that he could arrange to pick his children up through a third party and trust me, as you probably can imagine, her ex has kept his mouth shut for the past year and a half, he still picks his kids up but as he isn't allowed any contact with my friend there is no arguing in front of their kids.

She has her life back and the kids are much happier!.
No courts involved at all.
I know every case is different but you never know seeking help in this way may benefit you too.

Good luck!

thanks everyone, sorry for the late reply been at work today and busy with my son earlier.
i am seriously considering self representing, thank you niceguy and interestedinmoving i just hope i can do it. i just keep thinking its either a really nice holiday or thousands of pounds (that i dont have upfront) down the drain for that fool.
the only reason i wanted to see another solicitor is to find out if there's anything i can ask to happen in court to penalise my ex or to stop him making so many court applications as my current solicitor seems to think not. i think they view this as a never ending cycle and a regular earner.
sunshineandbooks thanks ill try to look into a 'c&d order' somebody has mentioned on the legal thread that the judge gave her ex a section 91(14) that prevented her ex from taking her back to court for 6 years. i am going to do some research on this.
bestma i have reported him to the benefits fraud dept several times, it doesnt make any difference, its not tit for tat but if he had to pay legal fee's i wouldnt be in this position. yes of course its affecting my son, when im stressed, tired i dont have much patience, i really try but sometimes its difficult.
i have an app at the law centre for free advise tomorrow and an app with another solicitor for an hour consultation(£100).
i get the impression that if i dont push and ask for things the judge wont penalise or warn my ex, maybe im wrong but i just want to find out as much as i can.
im worried about ignoring my ex'x solicitors letter asking for contact to be resumed. as ive said i really want contact to continue just not like this.
thanks again everyone but please dont stop the advise and support coming.x

Ah yes, thats the thing I was referring to. Section 91(14) orders which basically means he cannot apply to court for family matters without the courts permission to apply if that makes sense. In effect, he's banned for x years.

Usually used only as a last resort when the judge can see he's clearly taking the piss. Doubt you'd get that for a while but I wish you well.

what do you think i should do regarding his solicitors letter? do i just ignore it and wait for a court summons? isnt this then looking like i have stopped contact?
obviously if contact resumes though nothing will ever change and ill be here again in no time

Have you talked to Women's Aid? They might be able to help you or at least recommend a solicitor who specialises in dealin with abusive men. Your current solicitor doesn't sound much use.
I'm afraid I'm not an expert on the law, but I do know that there is some sort of measure that can be taken against people who repeatedly launch legal actions they have no hope of winning (as someone else has described).
WRT the letter you have just recieved, what does his solicitor actually mean by 'contact to be resumed as per the order'? Are you supposed to take your DC to a prearranged place at a set time? Do you think that if you do this the XP will not show up?
Remember that a court order expects you to make DC available for contact (ie if the arrangement is that the man comes to the door to collect the child, you should be at home with the child ready to be collected) and if he doesn't turn up it's his problem.

So sorry to hear that you are having to go thro' all this without any guaranteed benefit to your DC.

This is all too familiar to me - and in retrospect I didn't handle a very similiar situation that well. Now, I can see that all the threatening distorted solicitors letters unecessarily delivered at work etc and the 4 nearly 5 court cases [immensely stressful & frightening] were just a continuation of harrassing/abusing me and punishing me for leaving. And with absolutely no genuine concern for DC's wellbeing.

I had an excellent solicitor - recomended by a friend [the very best way to chose a solicitor, I still firmly believe] who was supportive and very sensible when I was being quite flaky. I wish I'd acted more assertively on his advice partic about not being so 'reasonable' read enabling and not stopping the random contact wh was ultimately so disappointing and undermining for DC.

My ex was getting legal aid, too - but IMO resulted in pretty mediocre representation in Court. Initially, I had legal aid as well but it stopped once I was back at work. I couldn't afford the full cost - so negotiated a smaller sum by sharing the preparation work, borrowed some money and consequently got to chose a good barrister.

I'm glad that it didn;t come to me representing myself even tho' I have professional experience in this area. I was still so lacking in confidence and under my ex's control.