CAO enforcement with a 13 year old

[outofinterestcan]

Can a child arrangement order be enforced if the child is 13 and doesn't want to come over every other weekend ? Basically can they be forced to come ?
Thanks

Generally no though mediation can be used. Far better to sit down and work out an arrangement everyone agrees to

If you are in England then a 13yo is deemed capable for making the decision.

I know a family where it is being enforced through the courts for a 14yo, so I don’t think it’s always as straightforward as ‘they can make up their own mind’.

Can you give any source for that statement?

Do you know why it is being enforced ?

It’s part of the Children Act. One of the factors to be taken into account is “the wishes and feelings of the child in light of their age and understanding”.

I've been through this on the other side of the situation. My kids didn't want contact with their father. There is no real age that they're deem to be old enough to make up their own mind. From about 10 onwards, they're more likely to listen to what the child wants but even at 13, if they decide that it's in the child's best interests, they can override what the child wants.

This would certainly be the case if they feel the child's decision making had been swayed by a parent, for example.

However it's something which is always open to change. So if they made arrangements for a 13 year old to see a parent, against the child's wishes and the child refused to go, putting up a fight each time, it would end up back in court and they might reconsider. In the end they try to do what's best for the child, although they don't always get it right.

Don't want to go into massive detail and don't want to drip feed but dsd doesn't want to visit every other weekend as her friends are doing things and understandably she's at that age where she thinks she's going to be missing out. We also don't want to force her here if she's going to be miserable all weekend. Her mum is of the impression she should still be visiting every other weekend so she gets a break and that she should be forced. So it's a funny situation and not sure where it would go if it got taken back to court because it might be headed that way

How is it being enforced, no one will lay hands on a child of that age to bundle them in the car to go and see someone they dont want to

Or do you mean that the parent has been preventing it and its being enforced on the parent?

Yes but as you say, that is one of the factors. It is definitely not the case that a 13 year old is 'deemed capable' of making the decision, even if they are more likely to be listened to than a younger child.

How is it being enforced, no one will lay hands on a child of that age to bundle them in the car to go and see someone they dont want to

Ultimately (in extreme cases) the court could very well decide that the child is forcibly removed from one parent to live with the other aginst their will: www.channel4.com/press/news/torn-apart-family-courts-uncovered-dispatches

But clearly that's not the case here as the mum seems more than happy for her to go to her dad. It's rather difficult to see what would be enforced in this case. The order is an order to the parent to ensure that the child is made available for contact, not an order to the child to attend. It's tricky to see what they would actually be enforcing. It's really a situation where the parents and the child need to work out a different arrangement to reflect the fact that she's growing up.

At 13 we cant even get the police to forcibly remove children who are with 'friends' and we dont give permission for them to be there. Even sometimes we have had removal orders issued by the courts for the child to be removed but if the child is not at immediate risk of harm the police wont do that

Who else do you think is physically removing the child? The court can make an order of course but it has to be enforced by someone.

Who else do you think is physically removing the child? The court can make an order of course but it has to be enforced by someone.

It would be the tipstaff, generally acting with/through the police.

Just to be very clear I am not remotely suggesting that the police would be involved in the routine enforcement of CAOs, such as that in the OPs case, of course not. Even if the case gets as far as enfocement action that will usually be against the parent who is not complying. But ultimately in extreme cases the court could make an order to transfer the child to the other parent. If the parent/child are not going to follow it willingly then the tipstaff can be directed to enforce it. The police involvement would come through the tipstaff. The 2 police forces that gave figures in response to the Dipatches FOI request said (between them) they'd been involved in 24 forced removals over 5 years, so it's in no way routine. It's clearly a hugely damaging thing to do to a child but the argument is generally that the child is being damaged through alienation so is already being harmed. If you look at the dispatches programme and the few reported cases on this, they quite often involve teens/pre-teens.

Of course none of that is relevant to the OP. For the OPs case it sounds as if the parents and child need to get together and listen to each other (especially the child) so that they can work out a way of moving to this phase of her life.

Let it go back to court. As it stands the CAO is legally enforceable and the "refusing" party may be implicated with patent alienation if not complied with. If it goes back to court the child gets a say at 13 so it will probably be varied or discharged.

my advice would be attempt a solution through a trained mediator with experience in this area. Any new arrangement that is agreed can then be used to vary the existing order. This way you are in control. If you go through the court system because you are not all in agreement then the outcome is decided for you. It is obviously also costly and time consuming.

@Ana86 thanks for the link. V interesting.

Also

"The order is an order to the parent to ensure that the child is made available for contact, not an order to the child to attend".

I think this is a really important distinction and one that hadn't occurred to me. Thanks for pointing it out.

How far away does her father now live? Can there be a compromise where she's still able sometimes to meet up with friends?

Thank you everybody.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as mediation, my dh has tried that 3 times in the past and the mum never turned up.
It's a little more complicated as social services are involved due to dsd behaviour. Which is typical teenager stuff btw, but mum claims she can't cope with her.
The mum wants dsd out of her house but not permanently it would seem. So it's tricky. We live 45 mins away so not like we can take over school runs etc when we have children to get to school our side and dh works full time

It doesn't sound as if CAO enforcement is really the issue here. They need to find a new way to parent and help your DSD through tricky time. What would your DH ideally do? Can he change his working hours or work flexibly so that staying at yours more could be one of the options on the table? Is she happy and doing OK at her current school?

It’s being enforced with regard to the obstructive parent making the young person available, not a case of the young person not wanting the contact. It’s a case with parental alienation involved.

Well that was my point. There isnt an order that will compel a 13 year old to do something, unless its a secure order whereby a child is forcibly removed by secure transport to usually a secure setting.

The idea that police or court staff are going to be physically moving a child of that age to visit or live with a parent they dont want to is fantasy, it doesnt happen

The removals referred to in another post are not relevant for this thread. In nearly 20 years of working with children and families in the family courts, both private and public law the only orders are to force a parent, not the child. And even then the parent if they refuse to comply usually get away with it by saying the child doesnt want to visit dad (its usually that way round).

But thats not the case here.

It doesn't sound as if forced removal is remotely in issue for the OP, or for the vast majority of cases, so this is not relevant for the scenario she is asking about. But people do go search through mumsnet for discussions that might be relevant to their situations and might be coming from very different circumstances. I wouldn't want a person in a very different situation to search for threads about CAO enforcement and assume that they can happily go along with their 13 year old's refusal to go to contact as there's no chance of that escalating through the courts. That could be very dangerous for them. There are clearly cases in which the court will order the transfer of residence of children (including teens) resistant to contact and will take steps to see that through if it can't be put in place in a consensual way.

The order is called a collection order. It's not regularly used in these kinds of cases but it's definitely not fantasty. You can see that from the dispatches page I posted above. It was a controversial documentary but the filmed removals and the FOI responses make it clear that it happens. As they said Dispatches looks inside the family courts system and reveals how courts can order the police to forcibly remove children, who are not in danger, from loving homes. Here is an example of a reported case authorising its use www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5a8ff7bb60d03e7f57eb19ef

It all sounds a long way from the OP's situation but it might be relevant for people reading in the future.