Child arrangement order

[PumpkinP]

Are child arrangement orders worth it? I wanted
To get one as my ex is absent and I wanted to be able to travel freely without needing his “permission” there is no way in hell I will be asking permission from a man who has been absent for 3 years. But I’ve looked into CAO and it seems he can contest them and thought that it may even prompt him to want contact. They don’t seem as straight forward as they are made out
To be on here. Has anyone got one and it made an absent ex want contact again? Should I just leave it and hope we don’t get stopped when travelling abroad?

I have the exact same problem. My ex husband was abusive, the last time I saw him was just before he was arrested - I had called the police after he tried to suffocate me in bed with a pillow, while verbally threatening be. I had our 8 month old son in my arms at the time.

The 8 month old is now a beautiful 2 year old, and the divorce came through last week, with the help of a solicitor and legal aid. I haven't heard a word from him (in fact we had to get a private investigator to serve him his divorce papers on him at work because he didn't even bother to respond to the divorce petition). I asked the solicitor what I should do about an arrangement order, because like you I need to be free to travel with my son. She said I can apply get one, but in doing so you are running the risk that the court orders that he can have access to the child. The courts will always look at the case holistically, and would be unlikely to just order a full-time CAO without considering whether the other parent should have access. So for me, I think I'm just going to leave it for a few years. It's such a difficult situation.

Are you expected to have written permission from him to travel? As in, do you need to produce something at immigration to say you're allowed to travel with your child?
I have a CAO for contact. It says neither of us can reasonably object to a foreign holiday but we've not tested that yet. Would a specific issue cover this? I'm not well up on this but I'm just worried seeing if you can address it with needing a CAO. Can u you it get legal advice?

Yes, you are supposed to have permission to take your child out of the country without the other parent. They can theoretically stop you from travelling if you aren't able to produce proof that permission has been given, although I'm led to believe that in practice this rarely happens. The risk is paying for a holiday and then not being able to go at all because you were stopped at the airport, and so losing all your money.

If you have a court order to say that the child lives with you full-time, you are able to take the child out of the country for up to 14 days without any written permission.

The risk is that in applying for such a court order - by bringing the case to the attention of the courts - the absent parent has the opportunity to request access.

According to the direct gov website everyone one with PR which he does have, needs to given written consent for the other parent to travel abroad with the child’s otherwise it’s “child abduction” this is the case regardless of whether to father is absent or not. Obviously if the father is absent you can’t get consent. It’s not always exercised but it does happen, and I know my luck! I’ve also known people to be stopped.

How awful ScurfyTwiglet my ex was the same. He strangled me, I thought he was going to kill me. He has been sectioned a couple of times and the police came to my house in the middle of the night unannounced a couple of years back to tell me if he contacts me I should call them immediately. Yet I need to seek his permission to travel abroad 🤔 I don’t understand why people advise these then like they are so easy “just get a cao then and you can do what you like!” It isn’t worth risking contact, he has contacted me, numerous times. I haven’t informed the police but have ignored him as I don’t want him in mine or their lives, so this is likely to prompt contact.

Exactly, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

So sorry you went through such a tough time of it too, there really should be a mechanism in the law to allow parents in our situation to travel.

It's bad enough we have suffered at the hands of abusive parents, but now we have escaped and rebuilt our lives and cracked on with the huge task of raising our children alone, we can't even take them on holiday. Talk about a kick in the teeth FFS.

abusive partners* that should say

Exactly, my daughter is 8 and has never been on holiday. She has autism and is obsessed with aeroplanes. I’ve finally managed to save up the money myself to take them away (he doesn’t pay maintenance either because we can’t get any from him) so I would hate her first holiday to be stopped because we have to ask for some man who is practically a stranger for permission.

This is exactly why I have never taken my son abroad, but then my ex decided to ask for contact. I don't know how it is going to turn out. I need to think of the positives...he paid for the order, it will say DS resides with me and I will be able to take him out of the country. The price to pay is ex may get contact but as he instigated this it's out of my hands.