Contact after violence during marriage

[oldcrock]

I have been trying to arrange supervised contact for my ex with our 2 dcs. He is holding out for contact on his own with them.

He was violent a lot during the marriage, often in front of the children. He also encouraged dd1 to join in, was emotionally controlling using her as a pawn in discussions. He was an alcoholic too at the time, although seems to have sorted this out now as far as I can tell. He eventually got a conviction for the domestic violence as it reached such a level. He has also been totally unreliable with access since we split up. He even left my younger dd unattended at home for a couple of hours even though she has severe SN (I found out about this by returning unexpectedly). Since then I have not allowed contact, but he is still pushing for unsupervised access.

Just wondering what would be a likely contact order in such a situation? I have lost faith in the justice system a bit for various reasons. Is it possible he could get unsupervised access? What kind of proof do I need to back up my claims of his behaviour? Thanks in advance.

dont really know the legal stuff but thought id bump this for you.

do you have a good solicitor?

I have a solicitor, but don't really know about good. She is very slow... communicates entirely by email, which is fine, but seems to take ages for anything to happen.

The fact that he has a conviction for domestic violence will 'prove' to the court that it happened. However the courts do not automatically assume that because your XP has assaulted you he will assault the children (I don't agree with this - just relaying my experience). When/if you go to the family court about contact they will appoint a CAFCAS officer to do home visits to both of you and gather relevant information from schools, Drs etc.
Is he currently taking you to court about contact?

Not yet, but he says he will do if I don't agree to unsupervised access.

Tell him you'll see him in court, then. Abusive men very very frequently threaten their XPs with all kinds of legal shit and they are almost always wrong: the idea is that Silly Little Woman will just suck it up and let the man have his own way: they think they can intimidate you into not fighting back. I think it is pretty unlikely that he will be awarded unsupervised access until he's shown himself to be well-behaved during supervised access.

I have no expertise in this oldcrock (but have also got out of an abusive relationship with an addict). My gut tells me that you have a strong case for not allowing unsupervised contact , not just because of the violence and conviction but also because of his behaviour since. If your solicitor doesn't seem that good, change her - either to another solicitor in the same firm, or to another firm. If you are on Legal Aid then I believe the new firm will help you put forward your reasons for changing, since they will be keen to take you on and get your funding.

good luck

Agree with madam, he's probably trying to bully you. Forgot to say before that if your kids are old enough their wishes will be taken into account by the courts.

Thanks. I have tried to be quite hard line since we split up but he never seems to give up trying. I will consider changing solicitor...

My main concern is being believed - I hardly reported any of the violence during the marriage and it was way worse than the offence for which he finally received a conviction. None of it was enough to hospitalise me, but it was bad and relentless over years. Looking back I can't understand why I did nothing, and it obviously isn't helping me now. There are a few friends and a counsellor who could testify to the truth of some of what I could bring up, but for quite a bit of it, I told no one. I have a few photos...

There are also previous instances where he was less than responsible with the children, but again there were no third parties.

agree with madamez.when i reap your op i assumed he was already in the process of taking you to court.IME(i have been in 2 abusive relationships and have known many others who have also over the years)most abusive men use the children as a weapon when they realise you arent going to get back together with them.

get a better solicitor if you can(i had a crap one when going through all this with xp,it was much better when i changed solicitor),and make sure they write to him saying you are only prepared to allow supervised access.let him take you to court.i very much doubt he will be so keen to spend time with the dc when he finds out how much it will cost him.

as for being believed,most solicitors will know the stats when it comes to the reporting of DV to the police,which i dont know off hand but i know it generally takes alot of incidents before the police are contacted.

does he have a criminal record for any other sort of violence or anything?

No he doesn't have any other criminal record, but has been in trouble with the police on other matters which didn't lead to any convictions (once dropped someone's toddler on their head when drunk - got a warning).