contact over distance (and court)

[Tinynewlife]

Hello, I am new here and hoping to get some advice.
Does anyone have experience of what contact a court would award for a young child over a significant distance (150 miles)?
LO sees ex every other weekend daytime only locally - ex does the travelling. Ex threatening court as wants overnight contact and to take LO back to his for the weekend, progressing to more I would imagine.
Situation complicated by DV and my concern over contact, however ex has been threatening court and I think it is only a matter of time....................
LO also about to start school later in the year too.
Despite best efforts at cordial relationship with ex, it just descends into aggression and ultimatums if he doesn't get what he feels entitled to regardless of LO.
So as well as likely contact pattern and who does the travelling, I guess I also want to ask about limiting contact with ex for myself too. At point where I am sick of trying to cope with his abuse and to limit contact between him and myself to a minimum for my own mental health and wellbeing. Keep hearing this is detrimental to kids, so have tried to keep the lines open so far, but really struggling with it all now.

"Family, friends, GP, womensaid, some legal professionals are all go to court - get the abuse looked at, it prob won't make a diff but you have done best for your child and there will be something in writing to stop ex bullying and threatening. Other legals are saying stay out of court, and most recent views here suggest doing same."

The legal professionals who have advised you to go to court - are they experienced in dealing with cases where there has been domestic abuse and violence? And the legal professionals who advise against court - what about their experience of this area?

I wouldn't be surprised if the more experienced ones are advising you to go to court, because they realise that you're unlikely to get a fair arrangement without it. As you said yourself, mediation is unlikely to work with an abusive man, who by definition is going to be unreasonable and make ultimatums and threats.

You might feel you've heard enough advice and opinions already, and anything else would just complicate matters further, but if you do want any more advice you could call the free Rights of Women family law helpline.

FWIW, my two cents is that if your friends, family, GP, Women's Aid and some legal professionals are all advising you to go to court, they can't all be wrong. If your previous/current solicitor is advising against it, perhaps you could change solicitor? Or at least consider other options?

It won't stop your ex bullying and if you don't have evidence then the court won't be able to take it into account. Because you've already allowed unsupervised contact you've basically said your child is safe in the care of your ex. How can it be safe for your ex to have him all day but suddenly different went your child is tucked up in bed?

Yes partly it's the lack of control. It's also the increased animosity and conflict (which is damaging for the child), the cost, the time, the stress of trying to prove yourself and not knowing if people will listen, worse if there's some incompetence impacting your case. In your case, with no evidence, you're at a higher risk of looking inflexible/unreasonable and it's not unknown for the court to decide the child should spend more time with the NRP to counteract an RP's resistance.

And essentially, what your ex is asking for isn't unreasonable. You'd basically be throwing money at something you were likely to lose. Even the people telling you to go are saying it won't make a difference. I'd say you'd risk making it worse - if the court dismissed your fears or gave you a stern talking to about being reasonable, might that fuel your ex's sense of being right?

If your ex is bullying and threatening you then you need to involve the police, not the family court. At the end of the day, a Child Arrangements Order is a piece of paper - it doesn't stop anyone from doing anything; it just means you can apply for enforcement, which is another difficult road.