ex witholding address he has our DS at?

[SarahJayneWho]

Can anyone give me some advice on this?

My ex and I both look after our son, we work out a rota and have him around each others shifts as neither of us can afford childcare. We split up about 6 months ago and have agreed to do things ourselves and not get solicitors involved or anything, we have out son roughly the same amount of time each, although it's very casual and nothing is set days or anything.

He has moved in with his girlfriend last month, the woman who he cheated on me with and they are refusing to let me have their new address.

I have been told today by the Citizens Advice office that I can apply to court to get the address but that I shouldn't stop my son going to his dads in the meantime, even though I have no idea where he will be staying.

Do I have a legal right to have the address? The CAB adviser couldn't answer that for sure, she asked if my ex is on DS's birth certificate, which he is.

I do not want to be sat at home with absolutely no idea where my son is sleeping 3/4 nights a week. It just doesn't seem right, I'm his mum - surely I have a right to know where he is???

The problem I have is that since we split we have had lots of problems. My ex and his girlfriend have said this is why I am not being "allowed" their address. My brother went to his old house once, just to have a chat with him - they used to be mates, and when he refused to answer the door to him he threatened to kick the door in. He knows he shouldn't have and he wouldn't have really, but they called the police. He wasn't arrested but it was still logged on police records. My ex and I have had a few arguments (once in public) about the address thing and I was obviously angry and upset and I admit I lost my temper and shouted at him and his girlfriend (nothing rude just shouted for their address to be given me), the police came round last week and gave me a harassment warning for harassing them for their address. I wasn't arrested or any charges or anything though.

Do you think that I will be able to get a specific order (is what the CAB lady told me I needed to apply to court for) to get the address despite what has happened. I know I shouldn't have shouted at them but I'm sick with worry not knowing where my boy is! What do you think my chances are?

are there issues with ds not coming back on time?
any welfare issues over his care?
would he call by mobile if needed? can you call by mobile if necessary ?

if so then while desirable, you can manage wihtout the adress - plus if you and your bother have been cautioned for harassing them then you can understand why they dont want the address to be known...

Well, I don't know the legalities, so my two penn'orth won't count for much. However, would I chuff hand my son over when I had no idea where he was going not to mention to the woman who my ex had had an affair with

Cestlavielife - I'll be honest.

Not coming back on time - I think we have only had two occasions when my boy hasn't come back on time, once was a "mix up" with the time and they dropped him home later and once was when my mum went to pick him up from ex and my mum shouted at him for being rude to her, and he walked off with son, I went there and collected him later. So no actual "proveable" with holding our son or threatening to move away with him or anything.

No concern over his care at all, he is well looked after by ex. We have each other's mobile number so could call each other if necessary. Would all the above plus my harassment warning against hi mean i will have n chance at court, or do you think I should still give it a go?

Clam - I know :(

i think you have to be pragmatic - save court for when DS welfare is at risk.

ok so you dont like what ex has done and you dont like his new woman.
but you happy with his care of ex and you both have mobiles.

so your family needs to back off a bit, let things settle down and try to get on for DS sake.

when all the shouting and threats have stopped, then approach ex again for the address.

your ex could quite rightly argue that you and our family are causing stresss for our DS by your behaviour and it would be better they dont run the risk of you or mum or brother turning up at his house and shouting/threatening them .

I don't know my ex's address. if your son is being cared for & they have your contact details don't sweat it.

The court can order your ex to tell them his address but I'm not sure if they have to tell you. There's a history of domestic abuse with my ex and so I couldn't give him my new address but the court knew it, any official documents had my address omitted so he couldn't see it. He didn't have any legal rights to know my address though.

What are the reasons for you needing the address?

I understand your feeling but in all honesty, if despite all the difficulty you have managed to keep it out of court, this seems a very minor thing - in the grand scheme of things - to start a court case for. No-one can guarantee what a judge might say, but you'd have to argue that it was important for the welfare of the child for you to know the address. Hard one to pull if there is already a police record for harassment (ie they could easily argue that it is the child's interests to remove the possibility of you or your brother turning up on their doorstep and shouting the odds).

You have a contact number, you know roughly where it is, right? They aren't secretly living at the other end of the country?

I'd focus on the positives, and building up the relationship as joint parents. You are managing to be the bigger person in what must be a very hurtful situation and keeping the whole thing out of court and functioning, you have to give yourself credit for that. You are bound to find out the address in the end.

Get someone to follow him after pick up and then send them a Christmas card and say no more about it?

bridezilla my ex done something very similar, but then posted the card through the door himself. It was utterly terrifying getting the card and we had to move house.

This is my tuppence worth - i would, under no circumstances, let my dc go anywhere with out knowing precisely where she was going to be. End of. I wouldn't care if it was her dad, her gran, the Pope or David Cameron himself.

The fact that your family members have been verbally abusing your ex is going to make a court think that it's reasonable of him not to want you to know his address. I think you're going to have to suck it up for the moment unless you have any genuine concerns about your DS' welfare. If you try to get the address by other means (such as following them or hiring a private detective or something) you could be charged with stalking.

To be honest I can totally see why they don't want you having their address. Your brother threatening to kick in the door despite just going for a 'chat' (I don't think you are giving the full details there tbh) and then you losing your temper and shouting.

I know you don't just get a harrassment warning for no reason or one incident, for my neighbour to get one 3 of us had to report him over various things a few times.

If he was abusive to you then you would have every right to keep your address private, he has the same rights since you and your family have been abusive to him and his girlfriend. As long as you have a mobile number for him its fine.

You could do what I have just recently done, go and check the local Electoral Role? I now know exactly where my Ex and his OW live. I don't intend to visit them, have no family that will be going there to harass them but I do feel I have a right to know where he lives if he knows where I live. The kids refuse to go see their Dad anyway but if they did want to go I would certainly expect to know where they were, just as I would expect that their father has a right to know where they are when with me.
Obviously DV issues are a different matter though.
To be honest given your family has been abusive to him I could quite understand that the OW would not want you knowing where they live for fear of more trouble.

If you end up going to court, all that will happen is the previous harassment of them by you and your family will be dragged up again, and used as a reason to not give you their address. Why do you need it? If his Dad has PR, and you are confident that the home isn't a crack den or anything then there really isn't any practical reason for you to need to know. You might want to, but legally if he's with his Dad, there is no reason for you to.

You do have a legal right to know where you child is staying if theres overnight contact going on.
You can make an application to court but this will cost you money.
If all else is okay TBH i would pick my battles carefully, once you go down the court route it will escalate things no end. Domestic violence cases are different.
Why not just write him a letter expressing your concerns (politely!) saying that whilst you have no concerns over your childs safety etc you are worried that in case of an emergancy you do not know where your child is and if an emergancy occurs could you have deatials of someone he trusts that could give you the information if they deem it appropriate.

You do not really have any right as you and your family have been involved in harassment issues - a word of warning, my DH ex gave us issues both herself and her family members and this was not even at our address it was at hers she was eventually cautioned and so were her family members. A few years later her sister fractured her baby sons head and was only allowed supervised access to her own children. Dh's ex was not allowed to be one of the family members to accommodate the access as it was on record that she had been cautioned for abusive behaviour in front of a child.

Many years on we have no real issues and she has been to our house and vice versa but she was advised by her solicitor when we were going to court that she would have to meet at a location that was not close to her to handover the children and she was not to have any family members or friends there at the time of handover.

This sort of behaviour is unacceptable and could end up with you having SS involved and caffcass in your lives and not necessarily going in your favour.

At one stage my ex was refusing to give his address. I wanted it to file for divorce but his then partner was paranoid that I would use it for no good. I looked his partner up on the electoral role and wrote a letter to the address. I didn't write asking if he lived there but asked him about collecting his possessions, reviewing child support and agreeing to contact. The child support bit got a reaction and they were both on the phone to me straight away. Bingo! Address confirmed.

No way I would let my son go somewhere I didn't have the address of.

Legal or not.

I can see why they are reluctant to give you their address but no way would I let any of my DCs spend the night at anyone's house if I didn't have the address. I just couldn't sleep. I need to know precisely where they are - not just who they are with.

Not sure how helpful that is, though, suburbophobe, sowornout? OP has been advised not to stop contact (and in fact they seem to be doing 50/50 and relying on each other so they can both work) and she isn't throwing the child in the back of some randomer's car to an unknown destination - the DS is with his Dad. There's no suggestion at all that he is in any kind of danger, she knows roughly where he is, she has a contact number...what are you suggesting she does in this situation?

I'm finding this thread quite disturbing actually.

If a guy who had a harrassment order from the police and whos family had been round threatening to kick the door of his ex in posted on here would everyone still be telling him how to get a hold of her address or saying that his ex shouldn't have contact for withholding the address?

OP: have you made it clear to the rest of your family that any kind of abuse of your XP and/or his partner is completely unacceptable? If you and they can behave yourselves for a few months then you may well be able to have the address simply by asking, but at present XP and his partner wanting to keep you at a distance is perfectly reasonable.