Have name changed for this thread, but have been here a long time.
There is a long history with my ex which is too long to go into detail here (I would be here all day) but don't want to drip feed, so I'll give you all the bits I think are relevant. We have been divorced for 6 years, he doesn't work and was a controlling abusive man when we were together and still continues to try to be now. I have always had to work full time to support us.
We have had issues in the past over the way he treats the dc (ds1 is 9 and ds2 is 7) and I have stopped contact in the past, only for him to take me to court, where the court have seemed to dismiss my concerns for their wellbeing.
OK, so having re-established contact last year, which was built up slowly with supervised contact, leading to him having them eventually overnight, the relationship seemed to be getting better.
He owes me quite a lot of csa money, which he has nagged me to write off so he can get a job. He refuses to get a job until I do this because they will put an attachment of earnings on his salary, I took the view that I was never going to get it anyway so if he was willing to do a deal and take on the responsibility of some of the school runs (I have just started a new job) that would make up for it. We fell out over the method of payment for the money he was going to give me instead, I wanted it by DD he wanted to pay cash. He shouted and screamed at me when picking the boys up one morning because I was changing the goal posts and refused to do anymore school runs. I cancelled the deal and told him I had sorted the school runs. It dawned on me how easily he had managed to get some control over my life again and so I disengaged from him and arranged childcare.
He is obviously enraged about this. He wanted the money to be written off.
Part of the contact order is that he picks the boys up on a Monday after school, gives them tea and drops them back - about 3 hours in total.
Last Monday ds1 told me, at bed time, that his dad had been a bit naughty. I probed a bit more and it transpires that they had fallen out, over some money that ds1 had that his dad had spent, and he wanted it back. They had a massive row, ex picked him up and threw him on the floor. He then pinned him down by his arms and legs and hit him on the chest. He had a red mark on his chest, but I didn't really notice any other bruising as his legs are already covered in bike scratches etc.
DS1 didn't want me to make a fuss, he didn't want to be interviewed by CAFCASS again and go through the court process. I did ask if his dad had told him to say that, but he says not. I told him that I couldn't let it go as it was too serious. So as a compromise I asked him to tell his teacher.
My thinking, rightly or wrongly (Im thinking I handled this badly now) was that if I wasn't the one who reported it I couldn't be accused by ex of reporting him to SS out of spite, the whole episode would carry more credibility as it would come from DS1 directly, and I guess somewhere I wanted someone else to make the decision.
I texted ex to ask what happened. He was dismissive. He said they'd had a row and he had restrained him, but it was all sorted. He then sent a load of texts reminding me of things I had apparently done in the past. I didn't respond to these (false) allegations just kept to the incident Monday and tried to get the facts. He didn't say he was sorry, or admit any kind of wrong doing at all.
It's taken D1 until today to tell his teacher. So I was called to the school, where Social Services had interviewed ds1 and were in the process of interviewing ds2 who was there at the time. I have to take him to the doctor tomorrow to examine bruises on his legs which are from his dad throwing him on the floor.
I guess I need a bit of hand holding through this one, I feel like I've let ds1 down by not reporting it myself, I really didn't know what to do. I've been accused of over reacting by ex over incidents in the past.