Ex partner charged with a child sex offence

[Genevieve79]

The father of my child was arrested in 2022 (two years after we broke up) for sexual communication with a minor online. We have a 7 year old daughter together.

Since his arrest, under police bail conditions, social care have allowed him daytime contact with our daughter under supervision. They didn’t specify a particular person to supervise, but after assessments were done by social care, his new partner was approved to take on that role. I have very little relationship with his new partner and do not particularly trust that she would tell me if anything untoward was happening whilst my daughter is in their care. Neither of them seem to respect my place in this situation or the difficulty involved in navigating it.

My daughter thinks the world of her dad, and when I have stopped contact in the past due to being so unsure of the situation and what I should and shouldn’t be doing, she has been distraught. She currently sees him alternate weekends.

There hasn’t been a sentence yet but that will happen soon. I want to be in a strong place mentally to be able to make decisions myself and fight for what I think should happen after he is given his sentence.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation and been torn about what to do? Some of my family and friends say I shouldn’t remove him from my daughters life as he isn’t a threat to her, but others say they wouldn’t let her anywhere near him if they were in my position. I am genuinely torn as to how to move forward.

Please be kind, I’ve never navigated anything like this before and am looking for helpful advice and opinions over anything else.

Thank you.

I haven’t posted on here for a while but am still in the same situation, with the addition that he is now going down a legal route to have contact with our daughter. I have received a letter from a solicitor and believe it will now go to court.

He has refused all contact arrangements offered to him through social care meetings, eg wouldn’t agree to supervised contact in the local community, refused me being a supervisor at a park or local place because I’m “hostile”, refused third party supervision etc. He maintained that he only wanted to take our daughter either to a family members home or his own home under the supervision of his brother or his girlfriend. His argument is that there is nothing legally stopping him from those arrangements.

This situation has destroyed my mental health, it’s been going on for nearly 2.5 years and I am exhausted with being torn between an upset child who misses her Dad, and the need to keep her safe. She hasn’t see him for almost a year now and as of three months ago I stopped virtual contact too because of all the manipulation. He continues to send letters and gifts but I do it pass them on because they confuse my daughter.

I cannot afford the family court process having read cases of it costing nearly 30k in similar cases. I lost my job earlier this year after a mental breakdown and being signed off sick. Legal aid is not available because there is no history of domestic abuse (apart from manipulation).

Where on earth do I stand with this? I know there is a pending law change that all serious sex offenders could lose their parental rights automatically - but the lines are blurry with where I would stand with this.

Is there a contact order in place? I would not allow any contact to take place without one. If not, let him take you to court for contact. The judge was an arsehole to remove contact restrictions with your DD and is in no way qualified to make that judgement. Are you in touch with your local DA organisation? If not, maybe they can support. I'm guessing there's a whole history here that you haven't gone into. Well done for protecting your child from this abusive offender.

So sorry - I hadn't read your update when I posted x