Stopping contact - petrified of court

[Giraffe888]

I recently left my H after 11 years of domestic abuse. We have three small DC.

I have everything logged with the police, my GP and have had from a DA charity. Social services have been involved after referrals from the police but only in terms of making sure me and my children are ok.

H was continually harassing me and turning up in places after separation so I applied for an ex parte non molestation order which was granted, and he didn’t contest it so it didn’t need a court hearing. It’s in place for 1 year.
He has been having the children EOW and it’s just horrific. Everytime they come back they tell me of more things that he is saying to them to emotionally abuse and manipulate them. He tells them he knows where we live, that he has people watching our house, shows them photos of our home on google maps, says mummy sends rubbish clothes, says mummy ruined their lives, mummy caused everything and it’s all my fault, that if they ever move school they’ll lose all their friends and will never have anymore etc etc. the list is endless.

when they come home they are so emotional, angry, overtired and just really unsettled for about a week. It’s massively impacting my son at school and there’s concerns already been highlighted from them on how he is when he’s been at dads.

He has an older child who stopped seeing him 3 years ago as ex was violent to him. His child and also his ex girlfriend would be prepared to do a witness statement on what H is like.

From advice from my solicitor and social services I have decided I’m going to stop contact. I have no intention of applying to court for a CAO, I’m leaving that to H for if he decides to do so.

what scares me is that he’s always said he wants 50:50, I know it can be down to what judge you get, but given all this what is the likelihood he’d get 50:50 or anywhere near that kind of contact?

Huge, huge sympathies to you OP. What you're going through is dreadful and nobody rational would blame you for trying to protect your babies. I have no direct experience of your situation so this is more of a bump, but I can tell you that should he choose to seek a CAO, the judge's focus will be on what is best for the children. If he's being this abusive to you, and has a documentable history of abuse, there's no question but that the judge will take that into account. You must be prepared for some contact though, even if it's supervised through CAFCASS. But you know that nobody in the internet can give you definitive advice, only a solicitor specialising in DV can do that.

That said, in your shoes I would be getting a ring doorbell, a security light, good locks and making sure my address is flagged with the police. All the best, you sound like a fantastic mum xx

That is such a tough thing to call as the Family Courts can be really biased towards 50/50.

Are you able to talk to your DV support workers about what is the best thing to do in this situation?

I have taken advice from my solicitor and social services, but they both have to kind of remain on the fence and not say what they think will happen in case it doesn’t go that way. Everyone pretty much says it depends on the judge that you get which just seems so crazy!

Hey, ive been where you are now, I actually have cctv cameras on my house due to ex partner, long long story, bottom line unfortunately the courts will probably award some sort of contact.
My advice, keep everything! Any threatening texts and your replies, any fb posts, solicitors letters etc, for your children when they are older, my ex told my Daughter so many nasty things/lies aboutme and step dad that by the time she was 12 she started to give us so much attitude and disrespect, she was normally such a lovely caring girl so one day we sat her down and asked where this was all coming from and after some gentle prying she admitted her dad told her not to tell me and it all came out, told her things like he was gonna beat mummy and step dad up for taking her away from him and showed her the knuckle dusters he was gonna use to do it, said step dad broke us up and stole me from him and thats why we weren’t a family, that i cheated on him and she might not be his the list goes on, i told her the truth of why we split up (he was abusive I won’t go into details) but of course cause of her dads lies she didn’t know if she could believe me so i finally dug out all the stuff i had kept for 13 years so she could see for herself who her dad was (i never put him down before this, i kept quiet and waited for her to see herself who he really was) she stopped contact herself at 12, that was 3 years ago, he is now in prison due to being abusive to his ex and court has ordered no contact with any of his children, im just glad i was able to show my daughter the truth in black and white xx

I’m so sorry that you and your DD had to go through all of that Avie but you handled it beautifully

Thank you, that actually made me a bit teary, it was a very hard 13 years keeping it all under wraps and enduring the threats and abuse, because DD thought the sun shone out his arse and i didn’t want to ruin that for her xx

Sorry forgot to ask, does he normally ask for contact or do you contact him and ask him when he’s having the DC?

@Avie29 thank you for your reply and I’m sorry what all you’ve gone through

whenever my son comes home from being with dad he is really angry with me because he’s believing what daddy is saying to him! But because I never say anything bad about him to my children they’re just believing what he says.

j fully expect that court will give him some sort of contact, I’m just trying to get some sort of understanding of what that might be? Surely he wouldn’t get as much as 50:50? Does anyone know what kind of costs he’d incur going to court as I think that would also be a deciding factor for whether he’ll apply!

The agreement since we split has been EOW

How old are your children? I would start keeping a diary of any things he says to them that is lies or inappropriate to present to court, that way he may be deemed unfit to be around them unsupervised, im sorry I can’t be much help, it never made it to court with my ex despite his many threats to take me xx

@Avie29 they are 6 and 4. I have been keeping a diary and I write every single thing down that they say or do x