Hi everyone I am new to this so will try not to bore you all, but really need some advice. My daughter has just split from her verbally abusive partner and they are struggling to arrange suitable contact arrangements for their 9 month old daughter. Not to go into too fine a detail, but their relationship has never been a good one. When she was pregnant he said he wanted a DNA test to prove his fatherhood, he has been consistently jealous and paranoid when she comes to visit us with the baby, accusing her of sleeping around etc, in short he is a vile bully. Of course I understand that his relationship with my daughter has no bearing on his relationship with his daughter, but as he had never looked after the baby for longer than two hours alone since she was born, my daughter was reluctant to allow him to have her to stay with him overnight. He bullied her into allowing him to collect the baby and as soon as he got her home (which is a 4 hour car journey) he texted my daughter to say he would not be handing her back over unless she gave him a date for another visit (during time he told my daughter he felt like 'ending her' 'mowing her down' etc. We advised her to go to the police, but she didn't want to make matters worse so she didn't). Because of all this she is reluctant to let the baby go away with him again. She has told him that she is going to put together an agreement whereby he can have the baby for a week out of every month - he has said he will accept nothing less than 50% access - we are extremely worried about him taking the baby and then refusing to give her back. She can't afford to go to court - and really that would be the last option - but I wonder if anyone has any advice as to what she should do.
Thank you in advance