father threatening to take children

[gembeano82]

my childrens father and i are having difficulties on agreeing to his vistation, he has become so unreliable that i have put a stop to him seeing the children altogether.
i have told him to take me to court, as i would like something legally put in place.
he is now threatening to bring the police to my house tomorrow in order to see his children, can anyone tell me am i legally obligated to hand the children over?
he is a named parent on both of their birth certificates.
please help me
gemma

This is a civil matter, the police won't be interested, so don't panic. But you do need to get contact sorted, however frustrating that is in the end.

Please don,t worry or take in his idle threats, that is all it is. He is just trying to intimadate you and control you. It will be him that will need to take you to court as he is the absent parent wanting contact so let him go ahead. get it all down on a court order then you will both know where you stand and the children will have something stable in place.

thankyou for your replies this has helped to put my mind at ease.
i plan on making a trip to my local citizens advice bureau tomorrow hopefully they will also be able to help me
gemma

Phone CAB first, they're very busy most of the time and you may have to wait for an appointment. You can also get advice online.

Or try a free half an hour consultation with a solicitor

You have had good advice.

In addition, and in case he takes you to court, make sure you have a record, evidence and witnesses of his unreliability.

Make sure all contact between you two is written, or even through a solicitor.

I would like to have a concrete answer on this question too actually.

We were never married, but I was told once by the police that a father has a perfect right to just turn up, take the children out of rhte day and without any say so to me, he can drive them off home again 200 miles away and bring them back at his leisure. Although my eldest is now at school so her having a legal comply to attend must sway things. I am always worried he may just turn up and do this, as he likes to 'spite' me for things.

see a solicitor for a 30 min consult, I did and advice was great.

the police cant remove your children unless they are in imediate danger, if they did they would be hauled over the coals, imagine the type of coverage that would attract. The police would not really be interested.

If you are worried about that be out for the whole day.

Unreliable or not, you really shouldn't have stopped him from seeing them. Maybe have it that he phones when he can have them - if you're busy tough, if not they get to see their dad.

Challen yes, without a CO, either parent can take the DCs into their care and withhold contact from the other and the only legal recourse would be to seek a court order for contact.

My ex has, more than once, used this method to implement changes to the care arrangements for my DD - he knows I won't cause a scene in front of her so he will pick her up from school etc unexpectedly, because he can and then tells me that that regular arrangements we have aren't working for him and gives me a new schedule that suits him better!

The police will not assist a parent to collect their child from the other parent's house unless that parent has a residency order in their name. Sometimes they won't even assist the parent even if they have a residency order. They do not like getting involved. The most they will do is perform a welfare check to ensure the child is safe and well. You really don't have to worry that he'll bring the police. They will tell him to go to a solicitor.

Unless he is a risk to the children though you shouldn't really be withholding contact altogether. It will not look favourably on you unless you are offering some sort of contact which is in the children's best interests, ie. supervised or at specific times but he isn't complying.

It sounds as if you need to apply for a defined contact order. It's fairly straight forward if you can both agree to what is reasonable contact, but has the advantage of meaning that you and the kids know what is happening with contact and are not subject to his unreliability and whims. A solicitor will be able to outline the process for you.

sassybeast out of interst for my own situation, is a defined contact order different than going to court for access, is it more straightforward and cheaper financially than other court orders?

dangerous Contact is the up to date term for access; the court can order that the resident parent must (by order of the court) make a child available for contact at specific times/days - it can even specify how and where the exchange of care will take place.

A residency order sets out where a child will live (and who has day to day care of the DC).

A defined contact order is an order drawn up by a judge in court. A solicitor can not make any legally binding order which requires both parties to stick to it unfortunately. An agreement set out by a solicitor is just that, an agreement. There would be no repercussions for not sticking to it and it couldn't be enforced by either party if the other refuses to comply.

If you want or need something which requires both parties to stick to it by law, you need to get a contact order drawn up in court.

You can however attend mediation, come to an agreement on arrangements and have it signed by a Judge in the way of a consent order.

Dangerous - in our situation, I asked the court to formalise contact, as ex had started moving the goalposts with regards his access and the kids and I didn't know what was happening from one week to the next. Initially it 'should' have been a straightforward process - I wasn't restricting any contact etc and there should have been no real issues, but once the court had adjudicated and issued the contact order, it would have meant that Ex couldn't just arrive and demand to take the kids and it also would have meant I could, if needed have a formal record of the times when he simply didn't bother showing for contact.

As it happens, events overtook the application and his contact was reduced by other agencies, so the whole process has stalled.

Decide what access would be acceptable to you and draft a letter. Either go to a solicitor and ask them to write on your behalf with your suggestions or ideally send it to him direct with the instruction that he should reply in writing. If you can come to some agreement between the two of you it will be better for the children than both their parents spending thousands fighting each other to basically end up with something you could have done yourselves months previously.

As unreliable or irregular as he may be he clearly still wants to see his children and quite frankly, based on what you've posted here you are not acting in the children's best interests by refusing contact.

I say this as a Mum of a child whose biological Dad couldn't be less interested in him (hasn't been in contact at all for over 8 months this time) and also as the wife of a man who had his son withheld for over a year on his ex's whim. The whole family bear the emotional and financial fall-out of a battle/court case and DSS is still trying to come to terms (2 years later) with what his mother told him during the period that DH was refused contact.