Father wants custody

[residentmum]

NC.

How likely is it for residency (court order in place) to be transferred from the mother to the father?

Father currently has regular contact with the kids (9 and 11) which is dictated by the court order.

Long history of domestic abuse towards the mother which the children have witnessed on occasion.

No issues at mother's house. All happy and healthy. Have lived there going on 10 years. Kids happy at their schools, 99% attendance, progressing well, involved in several after school activities, good friendship circle of many years. Kids have their own bedrooms and are happy and settled. Eldest awaiting assessment for ASD/ADD. Younger half sibling at home too. Nice area and friendly neighbourhood if that's relevant.

Father lives with partner and 5 other kids (some his, some not) in a tiny 3 bed house in a different area. Kids not enjoying contact for various reasons. Don't like the partner, father often not there, frequent arguments, partner storms off, belittles father in front of kids and criticises mother. If residency were awarded to father then the kids would have to change schools, would never see their friends, and would be separated from their sibling. Totally different inner city type area.

Social services have concerns about contact with father but are awaiting information from the police.

Is residency likely to be transferred in such a situation?

Three pages of why she's unhappy. Makes me so sad and so angry that her own father is doing this to her. Him hating me is one thing but making her feel like shit is unforgivable. He's taken her childhood away in a sense. She should have had happy and carefree years instead of those years being dominated by her father abusing me and making her life all about him.

I feel so sorry you and your DD are having to go through this.
I had a Court Order in place that my DCs were supposed to go to their dad's.
They came home and they were not happy at all. He was a terrible father and abusive to them.
He only did the Court Order because he wanted to keep the house(which I was not in the least bit interested in).

When she was 9 she came home and said that she was not going again ever...I had to wait for her to say it because I could not be seen to be influencing her decision.
But as soon as she said it I called the Solicitor and told them she would not being going to see him again as it was her decision and that she had suffered enough having to spend 6years EOW in the company of a bad tempered, abusive man.

I told the Solicitor that they can take me to Court I don't care but my daughter is not spending anymore time with that vile man.
She never saw him again and was a far happier child for it.
I feel guilty to this day that I was forced by Court Order to send her to stay with him. I hated myself for having put them in that situation.

He didn't bother contesting her decision because really he didn't really want her there anyway.

My advice to you is let her stay with you and reassure her that she will not have to go and see him again.

Oh god butterfly56 that's so sad. I'm glad your daughter said something. Mine have tried to in the past but the judge has said they have to go. Maybe this time the judge will listen. Unfortunately their father wants to punish me as much as possible so will use whatever means he can now that he can't physically or sexually abuse me anymore. His favourite mode of abuse now is to use the courts to psychologically abuse me.

There is no way the Father, would get custody with the facts you have laid out. I like others would be interested in the reasons he thinks he should get custody.

Hes got more chance of plaiting piss.

I will hopefully get the papers today or tomorrow so they'll make interesting reading.

How old are your DC?

FFS ACats, from the third sentence of the OP: "kids (9 and 11)".

I get not reading the whole thread, but maybe try the first post? It even had proper paragraphs for your reading convenience.

@ThatLibraryMiss you'll see I posted up thread as well with some advice having clearly RTFT and the opening post, I just happened to miss that line with the DC's ages in the OP when I scanned through again having read further replies. Did you really need to be quite so unpleasant?

@residentmum your DC are of an age where their views will hold more and more weight as they get older, I don't know what effect if any your eldest awaiting assessment for ASD/ADD will have on this though. I'm sorry to hear it's three pages worth. Is it all to do specifically with her dad or are there general grievances in there as well that aren't actually bad things e.g. "dad won't let me stay up late"?

From the info you gave I would say there's virtually no chance he would get custody

I have the documents. He's moaning that he didn't get contact one day when there was no contact actually arranged. I agreed to contact on another day but he refused to confirm details so it couldn't go ahead. His version of events is quite different to that which my solicitor has documented evidence for

Sounds like absolutely nothing for you to worry about!!

Hopefully he'll get his arse lucked in court for wasting their time...

Kicked even

Sound like you'll be fine if you have documented evidence to back you up. Even without that they're not going to turn the kids lives upside down and transfer residency based on one missed contact day.

I hope it gets kicked out as wasting time too but my solicitor is going to raise all the issues with contact and of course the police investigation which will throw a different light on things. I can't say too much on the police thing but suffice to say they are serious allegations.

Good luck OP you’ve nothing to worry about, I have a feeling he might have actually just shot himself in the foot by trying to be a twat to you

I really hope he has. I'm sick of his abuse.

I suspect the judge will take a long hard look and if anything reduce contact