I've been through the family court process over many years AMA

[radiosummer]

I am the resident parent and have a child and have been brought to court over the past ten years for access, for access being stopped on my behalf because of violence and for access being stopped on my behalf because of drugs. I have used a solicitor and I have also self-represented. I'm not legally qualified but I have experienced the family court process and would like to assist in any way I can - be that by signposting or giving firsthand experience.

Apologies - I edited the post to clarify I was the resident parent in case that wasn't obvious, then neglected to delete the "and I have a child".

do the judges generally side with the father or mother?

How did the judge/court react to stopping contact?

It really does depend on the judge and just like anyone they can have their own prejudices. However, I will say that stopping contact and really, anything, is very different from what you expect as in I was told by Cafcass that they were making sure a man that tried to kill the mother of his child had contact with their child. Some judges were very traditional and against drugs and a couple of them were indifferent and dint think it made a difference to contact. There were several different judges and only once dod a judge request that they remain the same judge and it was that judge that seemed very much on the side of right and could see past the lise.

oh and for the first few years Cafcass and the judges sided with the father despite evidence of drug use and violence towards me and my child.

What happens where the father has not seen the child for several years then requests visits? In general?

In my experience it was a year since he'd seen the child and it began with and initial court case, criminal background check (ask that they check for alternative names if you suspect that they have a record and may have changed their name as they neglected to do this in the first court case until I told them that their criminal background check was wrong and so they had to go away and do another check). If you suspect drugs, ask for a drug test and the thy cant cut their hair anywhere on their body until it is done.

Bear in mind it was just a year or so that there was no contact, our child hadnt seen their dad and he was a proven drug user and alcoholic and they still began with a contact centre, then play centre just for an hour, and Cafcass were very much on the side of the father. ALso bear in mind that things have changed since the last couple of years when CAfcass were called out for not putting domestic violence victims/survivors first so this may not be the same now. If the reason for no contact is - domestic violent, always have documentation, if it's because the father has been absent then he will need to prove that he is going to be consistent. If its because the resident parent has been difficult then it will still begin with contact centres, depending on age, but it will also make the resident parent out to be an obstacle. Always communicate via email, letters or texts that you can produce in court.

I'm going through the family court and I have a fact finding with my violent and abusive ex that my daughter and I fled from. My daughter and I live in a safe house.
My question is, how seriously do courts multi agency information? I have domestic abuse spanning 3 years detailed via the police, my midwife made a referral to social services when I disclosed I was abused. We've been referred to MARAC several times by the police, idva services and my daughters health visitor. Child protection were involved and removed us from the county.
Ive got letters of support from my idva, the police all detailing how violent he is and how unsafe contact is.
As well as this cafcass have written back to the courts on receipt of our first court order where interim contact was ordered against the recommendation of cafcass. Cafcass wrote an extremely serious letter asking the judge to reconsider his order and not order interim contact. There was an emergency hearing held as a result of that letter and the judge we were in front of was utterly horrified that contact had been ordered in such unsafe circumstances.
I suppose my question is, will all this bear weight to my case that contact is completely unsafe.. He's also denying he perpetrated abuse and is saying I abused him. There's also documented evidence of his abuse of DD as 3 child protection referrals were made. He has also now purposely stopped seeing DD at the contact centre and has been several weeks since he last saw her.
Do you think after all of this the courts would knowingly put us at risk and encourage contact to take place?

I would say - keep all documentation, dont be afraid of stopping contact just because it is court ordered as they wont imprison you, espeically because of your circumstances, and always, always call childrens services and get their written view on you stopping cirumctances. too many mothers, abused mothers are afraid to stop contact because they are embroiled in court - dont be scared and always face courts with the facts. It's a horrible process but it sounds like you know, that its what you have to do th protect your children. Please dont let the fear of family court change what you do for your kids.

Thanks. But do you consider the courts to take agency information very seriously?

I can only suggest that legally, they have to take it all into consideration so do make sure they have access to all the relevant agency paperwork. Sometimes Cafcass don;t care how violent a man is but if you put it forward and make sure it is all presented in court the Judge is very unlikely to dismiss it.

Hi I’m just looking for a bit of advice if possible! Sorry this is a long one and it’s okay if you don’t respond !

Me and my sons dad split when our baby was 6 months old. We previously split up for a week when our baby was 4 months old. Quick background ex didn’t do anything for our baby, just would occasionally take him a walk and post a lot of pictures of him online. He can talk the talk though and makes out he is most loving and involved dad ever and tries to say I’m lying .
In reality at nights he stayed up drinking most nights and slept all day, he tried to isolate me from friends and family, he punched things when he was angry at me, tried to break my phone multiple times when I tried to call for help , would gaslight me and turn everything around on me and try to make out to be mentally ill, he would do things to upset me and make me cry and then record me crying and threaten to call police on me and say how concerned he was by my behaviour, he would steal money from me and demand my bank card and to know what I had spent my money on, lost of weird behaviour he would disappear as many times in a night to go to the shop apparently and then would come back empty handed and be away for hours when he was supposedly just at the shop that was 5 minutes up the road from our house (I just found out his most recent employer thinks he has been taking drugs at work so o don’t know if that’s to explain for weird behaviour),
he would make up lies to make it out I neglected our son and was a bad mum (an example of this is he took clothes out of sons washing basket and drawer scattered them across sons bedroom floor then started recording the mess, I know it might sound like I’m making taht up but I’m genuinely not he actually did that ) and basically just messed with my head, He punched things, threw things when angry at me, he was sexually coercive, he tried to kick me out when I was heavily pregnant when I wanted to split up and said I wasn’t allowed to take any of baby’s things with me and baby would live with him when he was born or we would do 50/50 contact (even tho at this time he was working and so he said his mum would look after our baby while he was at work even though I was on maternity leave) and he was going mad at me shouting and screaming at me down the phone and messaging me, also when i was pregnant and said that I would maybe like baby to have my surname he did the same thing he was going mad at me and was constantly angry at me about it for weeks on end until I gave in and said baby would have his surname, (there’s actually lots of examples of ex getting very angry at me and pestering me for weeks to get what he wanted and not taking I’m to account my feelings about it anything ever, everything had to be his way
and Both times we split ex refused to let me take baby with me or let me anywhere near baby, would push me away if I tried to come near baby and go into different room from me , slamming doors while shouting at me and then he would stand at the other side of the door holding baby so I couldn’t get in to room, our baby was crying for me and I just wanted to hold him and settle him as it was late and he was tired, ex wouldn’t let me and this both times, went on for hours and hours. I have some proof of this in text messages and an eyewitness the second time it happened.
His reasoning for acting like this is he said I had threatened to take his son away from him (which I honestly never have once)
Actually it wasn’t unusual for ex to take baby form me if I was holding him if ex was angry at me
He also one of the times I left threatened suicide if I left and took our son away from him , I don’t have proof of this but he threatened suicide a second time after we split if I didn’t go back to him with our son (I have proof of this) . He also has habit of blowing up my phone with calls (one time it was about 60 times he called me which I have proof of). When I left both times he was threatening to call police on me and take me to court and saying our son would be living with him because he earns more money than me and has a place of his own (I left the flat we shared together as he had told me he wouldn’t be leaving ever)
I was terrified of what ex would do if I got help and how he would try and twist things and I was in denial of the abuse not only I had faced but our baby was subjected to by his dad . I tried to offer reasonable contact for a baby, a few hours initially but regularly so ex could build a relationship with baby but supervised and then lead to unsupervised and full days then overnights etc
I was terrified ex was going to take baby and not bring him back to me because of how he had acted in the past, I was a nervous wreck when baby was with him because of it
Safe to say me trying to put reasonable plans in place didn’t work as ex would harass me with phone calls and messages and say he was coming to my house to talk and see baby even when it wasn’t arranged and I wasn’t even home and had told him that, he would lie constantly and try and use baby as a way to see me and get back together
He would constantly threaten me with courts and solicitors (him and his family have money) and make up as many lies
Also he rarely would suggest visits taht were in our a babies best interest (like for example regularly he would want to take baby out late at night way past his bedtime and then when I said no because baby would be asleep then he would threaten me with lawyers)
Well I had finally had enough and I went to see a lawyer, who told me to go to police and report ex and stop all contact with him and our son which I did
Police charged ex with domestic abuse (also found out ex has pervious convictions that are domestic- not sure the details but woman from domestic abuse unit says ex
Day after ex was charged (all contact with me and our baby had been stopped for a few weeks at this point) I receive a letter form court that ex has applied for child contact
Ex trying to make out I up and left and disappeared with baby while he was working and he has had no contact, that it’s in our babies (who is 10 months old btw) best interests to have full weekends with his dad and his family and I lack insight into the welfare of our baby
Ex saying I abused him and I am mentally ill
I have a lawyer, I qualify for legal aid
I’m sacred of lies ex will make up about me
I was reading our text messages and I was quite paranoid ex was cheating on me while we were together and I have good reasons for this but sscared he will use this to try and say I was controlling
One time I lost it case of ex while I was heavily pregnant and threw a candle at the wall( no one was home it was just me in the house) I’m not proud of it and it’s not something I have done before or since and ex sent me as many messages after he got home saying I had put holes in the wall which was absolutely not true so scared he will use this to say I’m violent
Also one incident I shouted at his mum and said for her not tot talk to me (not going to go in to all the details of this but I apologised the following day and it wasn’t something I had done before or did again) but messages of ex mad at me for this and worried if he might show these too
Also worried if he still has recording of me crying he will use that to say I am mentally unstable or something.
Most contact when we were split was through email, so I can show he was very difficult and pestering me /using our baby as a way to see me, also that he doesn’t have babies best interest and his languages “my baby” “my son” he just comes across as quite controlling and possessive in messages,
I have some proof of the abuse but not a whole lot

concerned if courts believe him and think I’m abusive and mentally ill and bad parent
I’m sure ex could afford a barrister to make him look better and he would have an unfair advantage
Also concerned if that doesn’t happen if social services will come down on me for allowing contact with ex and baby to happen after we split ( was mainly supervised and I didn’t come to term with what I had been through was abuse as it had been going on for so long how he would treat me and I did follow lawyers advise and report to police and I did stop all contact when the police told me to
I’m so sorry for such a long post and I am sure I am all over the place but I’m just really worried about going through family court and them taking my baby away from me!

@Newmum1998 sorry to hi Jack. I wanted to respond as your post was so long. So nobody is taking to court as it stands? I wouldn't bother with a lawyer OP and waste money. Apply to the Courts make an application and give your side FIRST. Don't tell your ex just do it! Your baby is really young so I am not sure the judge would expect EOW from your ex.