Can someone who knows about (or has been through) Family Courts talk to me?

[jorange5]

Hi there I hope someone can fill me in on what the Family Court is like. A relative of mine is stopping her ex seeing their daughter. He is taking her to court over this but he has no idea about what is involved or what is really going on. She has had a social worker friend of the family round to talk to her about it all and brief her about what to expect/say etc but the father has no such support and I am worried that it might all go against him just because he wasn't prepared.

The background is - they are both 20, she cheated, moved out to her mum's, told everyone he is violent, told everyone he is likely to be violent to their daughter (2 yo). They did fight during their relationship but I believe it was a 2-way thing. Her close family all believe her side of things and her mum went to hospital with her after one of the fights and she always says that it was after a 'beating' and not a 'fight'. I have overheard an arguament about these fights though in which the truth was told (nobody knows I was there to hear it though).

I have lots of questions to ask about this situation really. Fundamentally though, the father is a good guy. The mother, although my relative, is a selfish lying moo who everyone believes. Is he going to be OK or can I help in any way?

She had to go to hospital after a 'fight'? That's violent abuse and I think it is AWFUL you aren't supporting her.
How often did he have to go to hospital after a 'fight'?
How come you know so much about what went on behind closed doors?
Sometimes violent men murder their children when they get access. It happened recently.

Hi melinda, thanks for replying. I realise I haven't given as much info as I could have done really, I didn't want to go on and on incase there was nobody out there able to chat about this right now. Hopefully I can answer your questions.

She didn't have to go to hospital after the fight. She had a swollen ankle after falling over when they were having a fight. By fight I mean pushing and hitting at each other after a row. She went to her mum's and her mum took her to hospital so that it was 'down on record'.

I know what happened behind closed doors because I was in a relative's house feeding my baby when they came in and started rowing about what had happened. Specifically she was laughing in his face about everyone thinking he was beating her up and he was saying how she had attacked him first and she was saying yes but nobody will believe him. They don't know I was there and until i heard the row I always believed her story. If I thought he was a violent man I would not bother writing all this obviously. They are both young and very very immature, they argued a lot and I have no doubt that they are better apart but I would feel awful if the father could be denying access to his son.

I think it is a bit strong to suggest that he might murder his little daughter. I can't see that I wrote anything to suggest that he might do that and I really hope that the court system wouldn't see things like that.

denyed access to his daughter, sorry, not son.

denied

this is very wrong, he shoud get a solicotr and maybe with you go along and tell them exactly the situation, the friend and so called Social Worker could be sacked for abuse of power if she know the dad is basically innocent and this is all tit for tat.

What an awful situation.

I used to live in a house with a man who had left his wife because she was beating him. A neighbour had called the police as she had believed that the noises she could hear through the wall were the other way round.
The policeman asked this chap why he hadn't hit her back - he never never did - this occasion she had broken his jaw in 3 places with a heavy based frying pan.

I would never suggest it is right to hit a woman. Not all women are very nice though and sometimes it can be the woman who is violent.

Anyway back to the point.
I would speak to your relative and firmly point out that you know there are two sides to every story, she needs to understand the consequences for her child never seeing the father - children need their dads (unless there are very very specific violent circumstances!) Maybe even make it clear to her that if she persists in massaging the truth of the situation you would volunteer the conversation you overheard to the family court.

here here

I work in this area and there are good and bad mums AND dads, and I have to say, Mothers can be poisoness!

children are not commodities for porning!

what happens very much depends on teh specifics of the case.

he should speak to a soliciter at the very least.

i am now into my 3rd year of court case over access to my children from my violant ex.

from what you are saying there is some dispute as to whether there actually was violance so it is probable that there will be a fact finding hearing. this is like a mini case within acase. there is a trial where both sides are given the opportunity to give a statement and get witnesses and provide evedence of what they are saying happened.
your male friend will have the chance to get people liek yourself to give evedence as to what you saw or heard.

that way the judge can make a ruling as to which side they believe and this will then be teh basis of the access hearing.

but please, although i know us MNers have a mulitude of expertise he really does need a Soliciter ASAP

Gosh, thanks for all the replies. I don't know where to start really as I don't know the father well and as I am related to the mother, if I get involved I will cause an enormous amount of upset. Nobody except DP knows that i heard what i heard that day, and TBH, I would rather it stay that way unless I really need to spill the beans. I know this sounds awful and selfish but it would cause a big split in my family. Obviously I would come forward if need be but I am hoping it wont come to that.

So, wouldn't he have already talked to a solicitor seeing as they have a court date arranged? And if she says that she doesn't want him to see their daughter because of the violence and presents the hospital visit as 'evidence' can they just decide that that is the truth and stop him having any access?

So what will happen the first time they go to court? Or will there only be one time? Will he know what she is going to ask for before they get to court or will it all be a surprise?

court cases drag on a loooooong time. the first hearing will be nothing much, it just gets the ball rolling. they will have to go through the process of a cafcass report, during which the officer will speak to them, health visitor, doctors etc. if you are worried you could maybe call cafcass and ask to speak confidentially. i dont know if you can do this but you dont lose anything by asking and if they say no you have the option of not saying anything

my ex is violent and has a number of convictions to prove it. the court didnt stop him seeing our children but i didnt ask them to. however i was warned by my sol at the first meeting that its very unlikely a court would do it. i doubt he will lose access even if they believe her about her ankle being all his fault. the judge we had was unwilling to consider any claims of violence without proof as they hear so many lies.

I've been through the family court system and it wasn't a nice experience one bit, but my ex was unilaterally trying to change the shared care arrangement our daughter was thriving under - she didn't want to or agree to attending Family Mediation. She applied to court for a sole res order, wasted THOUSANDS of pounds - probably about 8 thou, I self-represented myself , probably spending about 3-4 thou and got a shared residence order.

I recommend your friend joins Families Need Fathers.

By all means, go to three or four different solicitors and get a free initial 1/2 hour consultation and post back here what they say!!!

If you have information that is material to this case then you should immediately give a witness statement to him/make yourself available as you may be required to for a Finding of Fact hearing. You can be cross-examined at a FOF hearing and it's very serious.

But so is false accusations of domestic violence - which is what this is, and there are children involved, just think of that little girl growing up hearing that her dad was violent etc.

Don't believe the courts will 'sort it out', the family courts are civil courts and the burden of proof is the civil burden of proof i.e. on the balance of probablities - who tells the best story. If you have directly witnessed what you say you should be prepared to give a sworn statement.

Get your friend to join FNF and get him to go to a local FNF branch to get advice.

Your friend should be applying for a Shared Residence Order, this will ensure that he is a fully recognised equal legal parent (I have a SRO).

btw is your friend named as the father on the child's birth certificate? If so, and the child was born after dec 2003 then he automatically has Parental Responsibility.

Good luck to your friend, ask him to feel free to contact me and I can help out with practical advice and support. Also, he should get over to dads-uk forum which is a free forum for no-nonsense practical advice for dads.

Yerblurt thank you so much. This is just the info I was looking for. I am going out now but will come back to this later. Thanks again.

my pleasure, feel free to contact me or better still, get your friend to contact me or join dads-uk and FNF, he's in for a rough ride potentially and needs all the advice he can get...