Legally where do I stand

[blossom15]

Hi guys I am pretty desperate for some advice as I feel completely pushed into a corner and have no support around me.

I am a single mother of two beautiful children. I have divorced from my ex husband 6 years ago after being in a very abusive relationship. only a couple of weeks ago he tried to run me over. problems havent still been resolved. I am origonally from leeds and moved to Nottingham when i met my ex husband, when he left he threatend me if i ever thought about moving back there. I want to move back to leeds with my children as i have no help and support around me and i feel so trapped. My exhusband has now threatened to take legal action on me. All my family are in leeds. The children see their father alternate weekends as that is how he wanted things to be and does not see them inbetween these times. He does have anything to do with the childrens education, but attended at meeting at school recently and had to call me as he didnt know where the reception was at school, thus showing how much interest he takes in his childrens education.

I have given up my job, and will be starting teacher training in sept as I want to be there for my youngest and i attend speech therapy session with her. Her father was asked to attend and said he would at first then never turned up to one session. I do everything for my children and want to know if my ex can stop me from moving an hour away to where the children and myself will have full support living near my loving family.

In addition to this my ex does not provide maintenance for my children he pays for their monthly mobile phones. I have to ask him for help toward school uniforms, hair cuts ect. there is nothing in place for regular payments. I would be only entitled to £5 a wk as he hides his money in dividans, yet he has a flash car and several holidays a year. I buy the childrens clothes, and i pack a bag of clothes for them to take to their fathers. He slags off the clothes that i buy saying that the kids look like tramps. Clothes have come back from his damaged some havent come back at all. Because of this i told him wks ago to buy some clothes for his. Thinking that he had plenty of warning the other day i didnt send the children with any clothing and he said he was going to report me for not providing clothes. Where do i stand on this. I am tearing my hair out as I feel i am so trapped and that this man is still ruling me :,(

Well let him reort the clothes incident..... That will go nowhere and be quite amusing I should think!

He could file for a prohibitive steps order to prevent you moving the children from school. You need to prove/show how this move will benefit the children

Where have you registered your uni course? Leeds?

How foes contact work at present? Does he collect/drop off at your house?

How do you propose to manage contact if you move?

You might be better off reposting this in legal, but basically you're being bullied and there's quite a lot you can do about it.

The first thing I would do in your situation is alert the police and social services to your situation. You might want to talk to Womens Aid about it all first.

If you want to move back to Leeds because you have teacher training and family support, your X may be able to stop you with a PSO but TBH it's unlikely given the short distance and the fact that you've got extremely valid reasons - family support (good for your DC as well as you) and future employment potential. If you can organise schools for the DC and somewhere to live and then your X tries to get a PSO, he's unlikely to be awarded it in all honesty, though nothing is a given and I'd advise you get legal advice. Do not tell your X about all these plans until you have them in place. Let him think he's won. Although it seems underhand, it's the only way to win with an abuser. He's responsible for you taking this approach because of his bullying.

Maintenance, go through the CSA.

All his blustering about reporting you for not sending clothes is complete twaddle. He's their father and 50% responsible for meeting their material needs. You are no more responsible for sending the DC with clothes than he is for buying them when he has them.

I'd like you to give serious thought to how safe your children are with a man who has just tried to run you over. That's seriously unusual and unstable even in the most acrimonious of separations, especially 6 years down the line. Are your children really safe with someone who behaves in that way?

In your situation, I'd be stopping unsupervised contact completely, making sure I've got a watertight residency agreement, and taking out an injunction. I would do all this with SS involvement so that it's all documented should your X take you to court and CAFCASS become involved. And I wouldn't let the X know about any of this until I had it all in place and could present him with a fait accompli.

Go through the CSA and ask for it to be assessed under departures, this is where they look at lifestyle and how it differs from their declared income!!!!

Nottingham to Leeds is not that far and I do not think that the courts would support any application to stop you moving there.

TBH I would be tempted to speak to WA see what advice they have due to his abuse.

Did you report to the police his attempt to run you over? If not do it now.

thanks for all you comments, much much appreciated. No i didnt report him trying to run me over at the time, the children were in his car at the time and they were upset by his actions. It was when he had come to pick the children up from mine which he always does.

I know that when the children go to their fathers they come home completely different and with difficult behaviour. I have got a lot of friends that within the six years of me being divorced have split in their relationships and remarried. I havnt been able to be allowed to move on, not because i dont want to, because of all the problems that my ex brings with him.

Do you rent or own?

If the children were in the car when he tried to run you over, then that's child abuse, plain and simple. And you have witnesses.

I am worried that you have not reacted with more horror at this and done more about it. It implies that you have taken such a lot of grief from him over the years that your threshold of what's acceptable has been altered. Please speak to Womens Aid about this. They won't force you to do anything but you will get a lot of support and help to see this much more clearly.

If you rent I'd ask WA Leeds to take you in, I would also involve social services again due to his unstable behaviour when he has the children, I would investigate the possibility of supervised visits. You do need to report that incidence!!!!

Sounds like you also need a court order to stop him coming near you.

he threatened me and so i didnt report it. my marriaged was very abusive and now i am out of it i know that he is an abuser. But his threats have still carried on. :,(

Report the attempted running over incidence to the police so there is at least a record.

Finances are dealt with separately under different bits of legislation.

The legalities are that because you were married you both have Parental Responsibility so you have equal responsibility and rights to carry out those responsibilities. With day-day matters anyone with PR can act unilaterally but for important issues such as deciding which school children attend consultation and agreement is required. When there is no agreement either parent can apply to court for an order to regulate PR.

YOur ex could apply for a Prohibited Steps Order to prevent the move, at least until there are proper arrangements in place. The courts have made it quite clear that normally it would be inappropriate to stop a parent with the majority of care moving in the UK unless the move is to somewhere inaccessible or it is found the motivation is to purely to frustrate contact.

You would need to show that there are well thought out plans for living arrangements, education, finances, contact and travel. 100 miles is near enough for contact every other weekend but if you move away the court may expect you to share or do the bulk of the travelling. The courts will consider your motivation for moving (contact history, whether or not there has been non compliance with court orders etc) and your ex's motivation for objecting to the move i.e. if he is focused on the issues between parents rather than the interests of the children.

IT doesn't appear to apply here, but in some cases when there is a substantial amount of shared care the courts might consider it in the interest of children not to disrupt their education, relationships with friends or family or their sense of security and order they stay with the parent who isn't moving away.

IF negotiation doesn't work the alternative is to pre-empt your ex by applying to court by making your own application for a Specific Issue Order. A SIO does what it says, settles a specific issue such as leave to move or change of school. You are then applying for permission rather than your ex preventing you from unilaterally making a decision. That also does away control from your ex and the uncertainty about your ex applying and when/if there will be a hearing.