Children’s father has previous with Social services

[Kestrel82]

My childrens father had a child removed from his care a long time ago and I don’t know many details and he has just started to try and buiod a relationship with our children. They are only 1. I have been meeting him once a month to build a relationship but I recently had a conversation with SS as I get support from them as I have a disability. I mentioned this to them and they said he has to have an assessment before he can ever be left alone or do things with the chikdren but they said they couldn’t disclose why which has really worried me. Is there any way I could access this information or just any advice would be appreciated on the whole situation. Thanks

You can contact the Coram Children's Legal centre for free advice.

Claire's law?

Did you know about this before deciding to have children with him? You’d usually need to disclose that to your midwife during booking in. I had my kids ages ago but they definitely asked about any previous social services or police involvement. You should have been supported on this from then, and they should have done the assessing. Why is it only happening now?

Whilst I was pregnant, early on he told me he had a child previously and that they was adopted out 20 years ago and when I asked why he said it was due to his ex partner having problems. I don’t really know anything about these kind of situations. We split up not long after as he was very controlling and said that he had many years ago been im domestic violence situations. I didn’t have any contact again as I was cared for by my mum and my pregnancy was being well monitored as I have a disability. He got back in contact about 6 months ago and asked if we could meet up and he could try and get to know the girls and be supportive. I agreed as I would love them to have their father in their life but just recently I was telling my health visitor about this and then I got a call from children’s services just asking about it all and that is when they said that me meeting up with him with the girls is fine but if he was to want contact alone or do anything with them then he would have to have an assessment from them but they couldn’t tell me any information on why so I mentioned his other child and again they couldn’t tell me anything. I didn’t want to mention the convo with them to him but it didn’t sit well with me so I asked him what happened with his previous child to see if I could get anymore information from him but he said the same thing again so I then said well SS contacted me as I mentioned thst we were back in contact to my health visitor, His face looked very shifty and he seemed annoyed that I had spoken to them, again didn’t say why, I am just trying to find out if I could get the information from anywhere as once I mention the assessment to him I want to be able to back up what I am saying. I wont be letting him see my children unsupervised but at the minute it is niggling at me about even being around him at all as I am constantly wondering what the reasons behind everything could be as I will never put my children in any danger

In your position I would stop talking to him about it, I am worried that could be putting you at risk.

I think that the best option would be to either stop seeing him for a bit, or see him with someone else there (like your mum) so that you have a bit of backup for supervising the kids. Don’t let him have the kids unsupervised, even for a few minutes.

I would go to a local police station, take your mum with you, explain to them about the whole situation and ask what they can do to help. There are two laws - called Claire’s law and Sarah’s law - which let you find out information about someone’s previous convictions if it is relevant. And I hope that the police will help you to use these to get more information.

Just tell him you’re not confident he is safe to be around the children and why. Let him fight for access. I’ll take bets that he won’t bother.

Be more careful next time!

There is some information here on Claire’s Law and this is about Sarah’s Law.

I would phone 101 and say that you want to talk to someone about both Claire’s and Sarah’s Laws.

Gosh. Please don't facilitate anything with him..dont help.himtmo understand whT he needs ti do for contact. Don't help.him see kids he may be a risk to. You left him because he was controlling. Sounds like he still has that power...dont trust him.
Stay away..let him fight for access . Hopefully he will leave you alone. And the.children. you're living in cloud cookoo land....kids are not removed easily..

And I do agree that Children are not removed permanently from their Parents easily.

Next time a man says that he doesn’t see his DC I would see this as a huge red flag.

If he says there was DV in the relationship he’s telling you that it’s him in 99.9% of cases.

If he’s also had a DC removed and adopted, well you know now what kind of man he his.

I would send him a message saying that you’re happy that he wants to be in the DC’s life but tou think you should come to some arrangement and he should apply for a Child Arrangements Order, then just repeat every time he asks to see them.

I think tou also need to take done steps to protect yourselves.

Have you got him and his family blocked on all of your SM? Have you got your location turned off on Snapchat and how do you usually communicate with him?

You need to request a domestic violence disclosure (Clare's law) - the social worker should have advised you to do that already. You can do that online via your local police department. Think very carefully before allowing him in your life and your children's lives. He's definitely minimising what his behaviour was and his part in the child being removed.

You need to protect your dc. Presumably he is not on their birth certificates, so he has no pr nor does he have a court order. Distance yourselves, comply with ss and make your enquiries. It is easy for him to dismiss his history as an ex’s problem but kids are not taken away from either parent without evidence of abuse or neglect and poor parental choices.

End all contact now. This man is dangerous.

Let the DCs initiate contact if they wish when they are 18+.

This

Hoping you’ve had time to read the replies by now @Kestrel82

The OP hasn't done anything wrong, no need to scold her.

Domestic abusers win contact with their kids every day in the UK. The bar to stop them having contact is extremely high. The bar to remove kids entirely is even higher.

He dodged it when you met it, but you really should have been savvy enough to read between the lines instead of having kids with him as he is clearly a dangerous man. It’s done now so you have to do everything you can to protect your kids.

He isn’t on the birth certificate so has no rights. It’s time to stop contact entirely. Let him fight for contact because you’ll find out everything during that process. He probably won’t bother though.

He is a dangerous abuser whose child was permanently removed. You don’t need to know the full details; that’s enough. Stop all contact, raise your kids in a safe environment and get on with your life. Any day dreams you’re having about a family life with him are pie in the sky. You don’t want that. Walk away.

Some advice for the future as well; I’m a single mum, and have been since my kids were 6 months old and 2 years old. I started dating again when my kids were 10 and 12. Online dating sites are full of men who don’t see their kids, and everyone one of them will say it wasn’t their fault, they had a crazy ex, the kids are too far away (because the man moved away from them), they might mentioned a volatile relationship. It’s all a massive red flag. All of it. If you meet a man who doesn’t see his kids, do not continue talking to him or dating him. On the balance of probability, not seeing their kids means they are not a good man. You need to be more savvy. This advice won’t be needed for years but please keep it in mind. Do not date another man who doesn’t see his kids.

I do have to agree with the sentiment in this post.

It’s a long, long time since I was on the dating scene but I had a rule that I didn’t date anyone who had DC but no contact. There’s always a reason and it’s never a good one. Plus I had a fabulous DF and I wanted the same for my DC.

The two men who I did date who had DC both had a good relationship with their DC and had them stay over regularly. They also had good relationships their exes.