V difficult situation with ex h

[wombat2]

My exh usually saw our 2 dds every other weekend - as he lives with his mum, this was at his mum's house and she would help with childcare. dd2 has SN and his Mum would usually mainly help with her while dd1 would play with her Dad. This arrangement seemed to work ok (exh had been abusive to me during marriage and had had drink problem but this seemed to be resolved). 3 weekends ago he asked to look after the dds at my house as his Mum was tired and wanted a break. I agreed.

I was going away to a wedding that weekend with dp. Exh arrived and seemed ok. We set off but realised after 10 mins that we had forgotten the wedding present, so returned home for it. When we got back, we found the house open and unlocked, dd1 and exh gone and dd2 asleep alone in the house ! On ringing him, he had gone back to his house more than 30 miles away to collect items he had forgotten and 'to have something to eat'! There was plenty of food in my house as I'd made sure the fridge was stocked! He shouted abuse at me and threatened not to return with dd1 (who was crying in the background).

He returned eventually 2 hours later and had no excuses. I asked him to leave and he has not seen dds since.

What should I do with regards to access to the children for the future? How can I legally restrict access to when he is supervised? He just seems irresponsible and unable to be trusted with them on his own .

OMG!

how old is your daughter that was left??

how awful for you !

She is 6 but has SN and is more like a 12-18 month old. It was unbelievable...

he left the house and drove 30 miles away, leaving your SN daughter alone in the house??

horrific

I honestly would never leave your daughters in his care ever again!

I think you're right - but am worried as dd1 adores him (despite everything). It seems harsh to not let her see him - have you heard of these supervised places where they can see each other in company of someone else??

Never been there myself but I think I'd go to court and get him some supervised visits ONLY.

How do I go about doing that? Go to a solicitor?

OMG, talk to the CAB at once and make sure you never let him see the children alone again.

I think you should get a solicitor if you're not sure what to do about it but try Citizens Advice to see if you can get free sol advice?

thank God you went back.
You definitely need professional advice, I would second going to CAB and hopefully others will come on who have more experience

Yes, speak to the CAB or a local family law centre as soon as you can. You are perfectly entitled to insist on supervised access in future after an incident like that - becasue his behaviour here shows he's not a fit person to be left in charge of children without supervision.

Yes, thank God we forgot the present. Will try CAB. Thankfully he has only had dds on his own a handful of times, my instinct told me he was not up to it, I shouldn't have trusted him this time. At least we now know he can't be trusted again.

OMG

Did you report this at the time?

It is not actually illegal to leave a child, so as no harm was done, the police may not have intervened, but I'm sure social services would be interested in this.

I would NOT get ss involved at ALL. Blimey. They'd probably blame you.

That's absolutely awful. Am totally shocked. I mean, gasping and jaw dropping shocked. Talk to a solicitor about asking for supervised contact if you want that for dd1.

you dont necessarily need a solicitor / to go to ct.
you might write to him setting out in full detail (as a written record as much as anything else if you should need to go to ct) your account of what happened. then set out why you will not let him see the girls unsupervised again at thios time. then set out any arrangements that you will consider appropriate for the dd's and ask him to respond in writing.
seems to me ball is in his court if he wants to see them on any other terms than you suggest..... if there is no court order at moment he would have to go to court to seek a contact order (and would have some explaining to do!). if there is an order in place you should include in your letter that you consider it suspended by his (appalling) actions. he would again have to seek to enforce it..... and good luck to him!
you must have been so angry and scared for dd's.
hope you sort this out.

As the partner of someone (who is a perfectly capable dad) whose ex continually obstructs contact for no reason except spite, I am all for fathers seeing their kids, but would NEVER advocate this when they are so stupid, selfish, thoughtless and reckless to leave a young (particularly vulnerable - though "even" if she didn't have SN, I would still be horrified) child on their own - AT ALL - never mind for what could easily have been at least 2 hours.

Thank god, you went back. Maybe "forgetting" the present was fate intervening somehow. If you're anything like me, you will have been torturing yourself ever since about what might have happened - but thankfully didn't.

STUPID SELFISH IGNORANT PIG of a "man".

I can only echo Controlfreaky's very sensible advice. You are more than entitled to lay down the conditions under which contact should continue if he is capable of being this mind-blowingly dumb. I feel very sorry for your daughters.

Fucking hell.
That is unbelievable.

Do you feel I was at fault aloha? I have beaten myself up about this plenty already - but he seemed to be reasonably sensible and capable of looking after them based on about a year of him having them with his mother on hand. Obviously this was wrong - but would Soc Services really blame this on me? I have been trying to do what was right with giving him access with his mother there...

.

What restrictions would SS put on Wombat though? Surely as it's her xh who has been irresponsible, not her, they would put restrictions on him, not her?

Or do SS just penalise a responsible parent who happens to have an irresponsible xp? I won't be terribly surprised if the answer is yes...

Womabt, I really don't think Aloha was implying that you were in any way to blame, rather that SS don't always get things right.
I have no advice to offer re seeing a solicitor, but this behaviour by your ex was dangerous, irresponsible and very, very stupid.
Could you perhaps speak to your ex MIL and get some reassurances about her being there for any future visits.

Sorry, I guess it is easy to get paranoid... Thanks for supportive words, the nightmare of my exh seems to go on and on, even when divorced. I would be happiest to never have to have any contact with him again tbh.

Went to see a solicitor today about this - she advised me to go to mediation service, with aim of setting access either at a supervised centre in this town (not ideal as apparently it is a large room with lots of arguing ex-couples!) or allowing him to have limited access to one child at a time and never overnight. She seemed to think the issue was him being unable to cope with 2 dds at once.

Not so sure - I feel he is more likely completely incapable of being a good parent -he hasn't been in contact at all since that weekend (in May). It's just that dd1 misses him and seems to want contact, otherwise I wouldn't be bothering!

As for allowing contact at his Mum's, his Mum has little control over him anyway - if he was doing anything 'wrong', I doubt she'd be able to stop it.