can i stop him having access?

[ladyjadey]

I have a DD who is 9 months old. Her father (sperm donor or SD as he shall herein be known) has seen her twice, once when she was born and oncw when she was 4 days old. she was in hospital at 11 days old with a severe eye infection, during which time he said via text, and I quote, "I can't deal with this, you look after her."

Since then he has not seen her, contacted me at all or paid any maintenance. As far as he is concerned, she does not exist. We have had no contact with him or any of his family, in fact I'm not even sure her grandparents know she exists.

The current situation sees me about to go to the CSA for maintenance. I think he will probably deny he is her father and have the DNA test. Which is fine by me, there is no doubt. I worry that when he starts paying he will try and get access. I don't think he will want to pay out for the privilege so he may not try to take me to court at all, but I fully intend to fight him every step of the way if he does. He has shown no interest in her at all, did not so much as send her a christmas card, and I see no benefit to her from having any involvement with him. What will happen if he does bother going to court? Can I stop him having access? He is not named on BC.

SD has another child who he does see. He sees her erratically, never looks after her properly not having enough food in his flat for her or a clean bed to sleep in. DD deserves better than that.

This is not about me or my relationship with him, I just want to protect my child.

Tiffiany who assumed anything about what you did or didn't do to not grant your ex rights?! Your business is your business. I do sometimes get the opinion that you believe people are harming their kids by removing the exs out of their lives. I actually believe depending on the situation that you're causing more harm exposing them to the ex. This policeman is a perfect example of why he shouldn't be given access. Where was he when the op needed him for the child? Where was he when she was carrying the baby? If he honestly gave a fuck my opinion would be different. Seeing as he couldn't deal with anything he couldn't possibly deal with access to a child either.

Anyway, if he's not gone in fir access I wouldn't bother going in for maintenance.

"Anyway, if he's not gone in fir access I wouldn't bother going in for maintenance."

me either. I'd find a way to cope without the money.

Booyhoo I agree with what you're saying but it's difficult finding that line between being bitter and being reasonable. I honestly think the op should just carry on as she is and what will be, will be.

violet.....you need to remember there are 2 sides to every story....what would the absent parents take on it be?

courts still seem to believe its better for a child to know a parent,warts and all,than not at all. i am actually dreading my 3 boys growing up and becoming dads if they cant have their say in event of a relationship breakdown. it worries me.

anyway op,good luck with this. hope it gets sorted

Tiffany I agree with two sides. I'd never poison my child against their father. He's done enough of that himself so I wouldn't have too. I think it's all down to the situation if the Childs life was in danger ( and mine has been several times due to ex) then I think it's fair they have no contact. If it's just a split then it's unfair to use a child as a weapon.

thank you all for your input.

I think the way forward is to plod on with my girls, sod the money, and SD knows where his daughter is should the day come when he cares. I wish things weren't this way.

i think you are making the right decision ladyjadey. when your DD is a bit older she may ask to see him so there is always oportunity to get in touch with him then if she wants. in the meantime, like you say. he knows where she is.

tyr - 52 nights is the cut off where you don't need to pay maintenance, yes £5 is a measly amount, but he'd rather make my l;ife awkward than pay me that £5. Since putting in the CSA claim 3 years ago I've become a lot stronger and realised that I don't need any amount of money from him, so couln't give a crap whether he was supposed to be paying me £5 a week or £500 a week. And as he does nothing with them it will cost him considerably less than £10 each weekend he has them. They eat a bowl of cereals Sat & Sun morning, they have no lunch and then have turkey dinosaurs (£1 a pack) and waffles (£1 a pack) for dinner. The small portions that he feeds them (ds1 is 9 so perfectly capable of telling me how much he eats while they are there) means that a pack will last for 2 weekends. SO one month's worth of visits will cost him approx £5 including a bottle of squash (saving him £15 on csa payments). As he lives in a room there are no extra spaces to heat or light when they are there compared to when it is jut him. He does not bath them/wash their hands/brush their teeth so there are no extra costs of heating the water compared to when it is just him. He has not taken them out in the 3.5 years since we split up so he does not have extra costs of travel or tickets for attractions etc. I also drop them to him & collect them as well as providing all the clothes so there is no outlay for him there. He doesn't even save the money he should be spending on them for Christmas/birthdya presents as they get about 3 presents from poundland from him.

So basically I miss out on seing the boys and spending time with them all because he wants to prove a point to the csa. I cocked up putting in a csa claim because until that point he was letting them down more often than he wa having them, suddenly (the day he got the letter from the csa) he got himself the sack and suddenly started having the boys every other weekend. He is a bad influence in their lives, one that would probably have filtered out if I han't put a claim into csa, so this is why I suggest to ladyjadey that if she would rather the dad not have contact then don't bother wiht the csa claim.

I think ILoveTiffany is getting a bit of an unfair flack here. She's not trying to make the OP feel bad as far as I can see, but she does know quite a lot about the court system, and the truth is that in the vast majority of cases the court will grant access to an non-resident parent even when said NRP is an uninterested, feckless twat. Even abusive parents can be granted contact - albeit under supervision.

ILoveTiffany is actually helping the OP because it will not help the OP to be under the mistaken impression that a court will deny the father access because of OP's (valid IMO) objections.

FWIW OP, I have a lot of sympathy with your situation. And although it goes against the grain, I would actually like to see a link established between an NRP's willingness to pay maintenance and the granting of contact. This is because any decent parent would pay if they can afford to. Any parent who chooses not to, without being able to demonstrate real poverty, is not someone who can be considered able to put a child's needs before their own IMO and therefore there is a welfare issue at hand. However, the courts WILL NOT see it that way and it would be foolish to go to court expecting that they will. I think that's all ILoveTiffany is trying to point out.

op ahs said the father is apliceman - a fine upstanding member of society. she will be hard pushed to tell court he is a feckless father wihtout substantiual evidence....

ILT etc ahv epointe dout that maintenance and contact ar enot linked legally -and theya r enot.
otehrs ahve pointed out that if you go to CSA and demand payments then of course it is likely to result in fatehr demanding contact - stands to reason. then lack of payment of maintenance wont be considered as reason to withold contact.

if father uninterested and op doesnt want involvement then applying to CSA is only going to stir up trouble - wait til father demands contact, or chil;d starts asking about daddy, arrange safe contact for the child's sake, then later demand CSA payments. if he junior police officer amounts not going to be huge and is it worth it?

Its ok love there seem to be a few strange mums on here that seem to think the men can do as they please with there children, all i can think of these must be ones chained to the kitchen sink, there morals and beliefs are very strange from where i come from, and i thought i was normal.

i think you'll find we know the 'system',not necessarily AGREE with it,just know how its likely to pan out.......we've all been there you see.

have YOU been to court then slinky,do they have them where you come from then??

I have as it goes my ex was a barrister from lincons inn fields chancery lane, im sorry but im not fazed by things like that, i was bought up with what is right and what is wrong, and i think if every mother was just to stand there and get trod on,

We need to stand firm and fight the system, not roll over because we feel they would win anyway, no i wont i will do what ever it bloody takes to keep our children safe, the media will hear what i have to say, because i have spoken to a hell of a lot of people who is totally outraged by my partners situ, and disgusted that people find it ok for a strange man to sleep in the bed with kids that have nothing to do with him and is not even a relative, and as for the showering thing , that was far to much for them to even think about if it happen to there own kids.

i did stand up to the system.....got a section 91(14).......first the judge had ever done!!

zero access for my own abusive ex.....but it was hard to get.

slinkynunu I think the overall point from this discussion is "know your enemy".

Like I said earlier, i have huge sympathy with the OP and agree with her. But a judge won't. She is far more likely to win her case if she is aware of this and prepares herself with the huge arsenal of evidence necessary to get the judge to see things in a different way to the norm.

I never made it as far as the courts myself and got exactly what I wanted because I did my homework. My XP knew that if he took me to court he would get no more that what I was offering him - supervised contact - because I had carefully documented everything he'd done, produced witnesses and contacted social services to make them fully aware of the situation and get them on my (DC's) side. If he'd taken my formal written offer to a solicitor (which he may have done, i don't know) any decent family law solicitor would have told him this. If I hadn't done all this and he'd taken me to court, a judge would have undoubtedly awarded him unsupervised contact.

I partly went to all this trouble because of what I'd learned on here. Like the OP I got some advice that was hard to hear and upset me, but bloody hell and I glad now that I listened to it.

Like the OP I'd assumed that the courts would be fair and do the right thing, but it doesn't always work out like that because they will only deal with hard evidence. The courts favour those who do their homework and have the best solicitors, not necessarily the one with the purest intentions.

OP, I still hope it works out for you.

Well i have done my homework and even got our MP involved, he admitted all to his solicitor, which we have a copie of, but denied all to social services not really sure whats going through his head. like i said to my MP its about time we listen to our children, because they were the ones who made the accusations not me and my partner.