when i was 19 i started seeing a 31 year old i worked with. He lived in my street and i shortly found out i was pregnant. he told me that having lost both his parents to cancer within a year of each other, all he wanted was a family and would be there fir me and the baby and we should move in with each other.
This is when it all went wrong. he became manipulative, controlling, and finally violent. i found out he was on dating sites, and seeing prostitutes. i was so pregnant i felt trapped and cared of being a single parent. i stayed.
He got gradualy worse and worse, always saying it was my fault. i believed him. i developed anxiety and he said that i couldnt leave him now as the boys would be taken. his aunt was a scial worker. he said he knew every trick in the book to take them from me. we had a second baby 2 years after the first.
a week before DS2's first birthday, he told me he was leaving me. he said it frequently and i always begged and said id change. not this time. he wasnt expecting this, and became more and more violent to the point i got the police involved. he was let off with a caution. he efused to mve out of the house for 8 months, and did things like bursting into my bedroom at night as i was on the phone, and smashingmy laptop as he thought that i was talking about him.
he moved out, and a year later i started to see someone. he got jealous, and di things like smashing my things and ripping my new wallpaper when he was at my home having contact with children.
at this time, i had to have a serious operation, and he looked after the boys while i stayed in hospital. he didnt bring them to visit me. instead he emailed me telling me things would be easier if i didnt survive the operation.
2 days later i got a kock at the door from social services. they wanted to do an ssessment of me. they wouldnt tell me why, and said id get a report 6 weeks later. I told him, and he made a list of people he suspected of reporting me, and said i should cut thrm off for being malicious.
The report arrived, saying the referral came from him. he had taken them all the way to their offices saying i was a terrible parent, and that they should take the chldren. they had found nothign of the sort when i informed him that i knew, he threatened to sue social services.
the same happened several times, until i got a report saying he uses them to cause trouble. they refused to take any more referrals off himand told him to direct them to the school who if they agreed ould pass them on. I was called to collect DS1 early several times as he was shuotign and swearing in reception.
I was doing well without him, my anxiety was fading, i had a job with the nhs, and as still seeing new dp.
his contact was always intermittent as since leaving, he lived in a shard house and was living a single man lifestyle. eventually he stopped seeing them altogether as DS1 got a SEN statement and he was ashamed of him. I took this opportunity to move house.
I moved us all into out new house with the help of dp. he left on the sunday night, we waved his car off. and the ex walked out from behind the next doors bushes. my sister had told him we were there.
He then started agan seeing the boys and letting them down. i invited him to birthday parties etc and he wouldnt turn up. until he sddenly started seeing them regulalrly, for 4 weekends. he then started with the social servces referal again. they came and asked the same questions again, and i told them that they werent supposed to be taking more referals from him, but was told different LA meant they did their own assessment, but everythign was fine.
Until he refused to give the boys back. i was told the police wouldnt get involved as he had PR. so i had to get a court prder. i was told it was a rubber stamp job. a technicality really.
The solicitor i went to see was the social workers relative, and couldnt act for me. so i had to speak to another. he told me the same that it was a formality and would be fine.
Except they applied for the wrong thing. and instead of giving ex 24 hours notice like the barrister later told me they should have done, they applied for a court order. as the children were "known to social services" the judge said they had to write a report. they were given 18 weeks to do it.
in this time the social worker told me everythgn was fone and if i just went along with the report, i would be fine. i was given weekend contact. (to this day i dont understand why i didnt just not give them back but i was scared of SS). on the forst weekend he was really off with me when i took them back. the next day he then refused to let me speak to them on the phone. i knew something wasnt right so called the SW. i was told the EX had made allegations that i had hurt the children. my contact was stopped.
the boys had to undergo a medical (nothignwas found) and a police video interiew, where the eldest said "this wasnt my idea i dont want to say anything". as such the police said there was no evidence of anything untoward, and dropped it.
SS said that they didnt work to those criteria, and istead o had to prove i didnt.
theyhanded the report to court late. and the social worker had left. they asked to do anither one. and were given more time.
i was given supervised contact at a childrens centre. by xmas, (they went to their dads in july) i said i had had enough, and that as they kept telling me it was a voluntary arrangement so they could write th report, i wanted to end it. i asked was there any grounds to stop me if i wanted to take them home from the contact sessions. I was told no.
So i went to do this as they said i could. The police were then called, and i was accused of abducting them. the police said they werent lawyers so couldnt unravel what was going on, but that as the boys norally lived with ex, they should go home with him and i could contact a solictor to sort it out properly. the next day he went to court and got an order saying that the boys were scared by me attempting to abduct them, and i shouldnt be allowed near them. the solicitor only called me 30 mis before court to tell me this was going on, and said that ex had said if i didnt contest it, then i would get contact, and the best thing to do was agree as it took it out of SW hands.
It did - and he then refused to give me contact. and SS wouldnt get involved as they decided they had no concerns. he refused to let me see them after the yougests birthday in 2012.
The court battle went on for so long, that it was said that even if he shuldnt have taken them, they were now with him for so long it wasnt in their best interests ti give them back. we were told to sort contact between ourselves.
instead he has moved, refuses to tell me where, and i only hear from him when its their birthdays, or xmas, when he offers ot let me speak to them on the phone, or asks me to email them. but the phone calls never cone, and the emails go unreplied to except for a tirade of abuse from him.
I have a 3rd DS now, and i am so scared he will get social servoces involved, that i am scared to fight him for contact.
when i was regnant with DS3, a midwife got suspicious, as my notes sakd i had 2 children who didnt live with me. she assumed they were removed by child protection, and referred me to safeguarding. we then had to go theough an assessment, and were told a posible putcome was him being taken at birth. we fund out that the previous LA SW aso told them that i had taken an OD while pregannt, but that the current LA socia worker didnt believe them and chased it up wit the hospital. because i was undergoing this assessment i was judged, and treated horribly by every midwife i saw. the whole experience was horrible and made me ill.
none of my current friends know about any of it. i am scared there will be a "no smoke without fire" attitude. obviously my current DP knows everyhting, but his parents dont. Im scared tot ell anyone in case they believe ive done smethign awful, and dont want to be friends with me anymore. i feel like he is still destroying my friendships now.
I dont even know what to tell DS3 wen he is older than his current 10 weeks.
I cry every day about my lost children, and the only photos i have of them, i ave screenshotted from their school websites.
I know one day there is going to be a knock at the door and everyones lives are going to be destroyed.
sprry for wall of text, and for typos.