Cafcass dialling into a hearing..

[Pebbledashery]

Hi all..
I have a family court hearing coming up.. Cafcass are going to be dialling into the hearing.
What can I expect from them doing this? Theres multiple safeguarding issues in our case as a result of father abusing DD and me.. Cafcass recognised this as its all documented by the local authority and police. I know that cafcass normally join some hearings. Will they just advise the Judge on what the best direction to go in is?

Posting here for traffic by the way.

No advice, been following your story and I just wanted to say good luck for the hearing. I hope someone comes along who can advise you soon.

Do Cafcass not provide a written report on their observations and recommendations to you (and the other parent), in good time prior to the hearing? I only know that in my case Cafcass weren't involved becuse social services already were. And they gavea very detailed report on the case, and stated their recommendations in conclusion. Thankfully my ex folded at this point as it was completely damning against her, so we didn't have to go to a final hearing.

The judges are almost duty bound to follow the recommendations of the professionals (cafcass or SS) - they pretty much just rubber stamp what's been advised.

So, do you have any idea what Cafcass are thinking? From my experience, it would seem a bit odd to go into a hearing with so much hanging on their input and not get briefed on it beforehand.

So without too much outing information. Cafcass did the original safeguarding letter prior to first hearing and didn't recommended interim contact because of the level of violence (it was very bad) abuse of DD and my ex giving polarised allegations. They said there absolutely had to be a fact finding. Judge ignored cafcass and ordered interim contact which puts us both at risk. Cafcass have written to the court on a number of occasions to urge the judge to revise the order and suspend interim contact. Ex partner has been behaving badly at contact as well. Anyway, judge has now called an emergency hearing and the cafcass family court adviser is dialling in.. Just wondering what to expect really as the judge ignored cafcass at the first hearing.. Almost everything they recommended he ignored.. Now cafcass have written to the court numerous times to say both DD and I are in danger.. It seems the judge wants to listen.

What I understood from my lawyer is that legally, the judge needs good grounds to not follow CAFCASS recommendations. So now your ex is showing to be dangerous, as you and CAFCASS predicted, he might be feeling on wobbly ground. As he should, obviously.

Are you representing yourself during the hearing? Having been in and out of court with DCs' dad for years now, with an without lawyers, I've learned that you actually can ask for quite specific things. Initially, I think I saw the process as something professionals were handling amongst themselves with me only giving factual input when asked. But now I see it is actually a court case with you as one of the parties, and as such you fully have the right to argue your point and make clear that the judge should have listened to you and CAFCASS. Is there a CAFCASS officer you can speak to beforehand? I've found that quite useful at points where I wasn't sure what we're the possibilities.

Hopefully since the judge has called the emergency hearing he is willing to take into account the written submissions they’ve made and can use cafcass being dialled in to clarify anything he needs to discuss further. Good luck x

I do have a solicitor and will be represented by a Barrister. The Judge was quite awful towards my Barrister last time. Just didn't listen to her at all. I'm the Respondent so it was ex partners solicitor who prepared the court bundle for first hearing.. He's just awful. He left out all of my evidence and statement regarding the violence and abuse.. He obviously knew its very damming and didn't want the Judge to see it. Barrister informed the judge the bundle was incomplete but he didn't adjourn because he had a bundle in front of him

Sounds like the judge now realises that he is on shaky ground. Can you discuss with your laywer what kind of input you'd like to have from CAFCASS?

The family court adviser text me to say she'd be dialling in.. I'm guessing its just reiterating what their letters to the court said.. I was in touch with the family court adviser a few times during the time contact took place and told her i wasn't safe. Ex partner is such a violent bully with bullying representation also. Family court is worse than the criminal court.

I have had cafcass on both telephone and video calls over the last year with my case . I’m not sure which one you are expecting - phone or video ?

Anyway it will probably be a different judge as they don’t often reserve the case for them self .
Virtual hearings are just the same as face to face and u will have the chance to question or ask for clarity on the cafcass reports and also put forward your opinions etc

It will be a different judge -cafcass will repeat their statement and you need to ensure your barrister insists on a full bundle. This time it should be better. The judge for me -did not support's Cafcass -but there was no complete statement but Cafcass had recommended that nothing changed until full statement. In my case this was lots of contact and it would have been disaster for our house selling and other aspects. The judge -she sided with me said no safe guarding concerns and reduced contact as per advice from GP etc and although we have another hearing -in a week -Cafcass still haven't done the report.

It is the same judge. He's the one whose called this emergency hearing so its definitely him. Ex partners counsel asked for our case to be reserved to him naturally. The cafcass letters are 100% trying to protect us.. The level of violence is quite outing but it was to the point that child protection removed both DD and I from the county we lived in and relocated us. The circumstances of the contact are outing also but it's been that he's been enabled by those who are supervising contact.

Sounds like the judge is an arse. It also sounds like he's mates with your ex's barrister (yes they all know each other pretty well).

But from what you've said it sounds like he's properly dropped the ball here. It also sounds like your own legal team is a bit rubbish.

Sorry, but it's a bit shocking and worrying that it had gone so far wrong for you in court. I self represented, and my experience with family court was really good - first time I walked into the court building to file my papers I was sat in front of a judge within 30 minutes for an emergency hearing, and had an emergency prohibited steps order issued there and then.

I get the impression that barristers in family court mostly just antagonise things. But at the same time I don't think I'd want to be unrepresented if the other side was.

Thanks. My solicitor was utterly shocked. She said she's never known a judge to go against cafcass when there's been severe domestic abuse.. He's also abused DD as well. I did think he might have known my exes counsel but i don't think so. The case is being heard at the local family court to him and not us because he doesn't know where we live but he's vehemently trying to find out. My solicitor and barrister are very good actually.. The judge just didn't listen to my barrister at all... When she asked to speak again he said he'd heard enough. But now cafcass are challenging him.. So we'll see what happens.. A lot of people have told me that what has happened to us is grounds for no contact but i know that's a 1% chance. I just have to hope the court protect us both as I'm terrified of him..
Did your ex end up getting contact with the children?

My situation was rather different to yours - my ex was the primary carer, but social services forced me to apply for custody (which I was happy to do). Social services had been involved several times previously, but their conclusions were always the kids were not at risk in their mother's care. SS kept telling me to take legal advice, but solicitors said I had no chance of winning custody because all the prior SS reports didn't support removing the kids from their mother. Much to everyone's surprise SS did a u turn overnight, after one more incident.

Initially I was given emergency custody and a prohibited steps order saying that my ex couldn't even have unsupervised contact. Then the S7 report was absolutely damning against my ex, so I won full custody. But bizarely, even though they deemed the kids unsafe in her care, they still advised she have fortnightly unsupervised contact.

Mine was a very non typical case - it's very rare for children to be removed from their mother. We had three hearings (all with different judges), the two male ones were great, but the female judge was clearly predjudiced against me. She hated having to rule against the mother, and was derogarotry to me several times during the hearing. Despite me having done absolutely nothing wrong. Her exact words were 'I have no other choice (than to follow the recomendations of S7 report), my hands are tied'.

I self represented, but I took some professional advice before filing my application. After the emergency hearing, I updated the solicitor that had advised me on the application. It was clear from his comments that he knew the judge quite well, and was on good terms with him. Which is why I wondered if your ex's solicitor is with your judge. I do live in a rural area though, and there's only a couple of family court judges round here.

How long is it until your hearing? Sounds like cafcass are totally on your side, and I think their recommendations will resonate with the judge a lot better for being delivered by phone/video.

Why on earth didn't your solicitor file a supplemental bundle when it was seen that your statement had been omitted? Solicitor here, abc that's the first thing I'd have done. Would have taken literally 5 minutes.

SO update, hearing was this week, the original Judge (who made the order) was removed from the hearing and it was escalated to a High Court Judge who is basically the head of all the family Courts in the area !, my Counsel basically said that when it gets to him, things are very very serious!
He admitted that there was severe professional failings from the previous judge and he would be putting that in his judgement! he was appalled by what he read from CAFCASS who had contacted the court multiple times with safeguarding concerns for the interim contact that was taking place... he said he was utterly horrified by what he read and the case we find ourselves in is very serious domestic abuse allegedly perpetrated by Father towards mother and child.
He wanted to order no contact, he kept referring to CAFCASS or at the very least indirect and saying he couldn't ignore what they were saying. However, because during that review hearing my application for a variation of the court order was heard also, he agreed to my proposal which was fortnightly contact centre contact.. He addressed my ex directly and said he could not understand why he was not taking the opportunity that I proposed to see his daughter and when my exe's Barrister tried pushing for it to be weekly, he again addressed my ex and said he should be thinking more about his DD and putting her first because it is a significant distance away we live from each other now and that it would not be fair for her to endure the car journey every week.
So basically we have the fact finding hearing in the Summer with the original Judge, but because professional failings will be listed in the Judgement from this weeks hearing - he will have to follow everything by the book! He made a monumental error by ordering interim contact against the recommendation of CAFCASS and not allowing CAFCASS to give evidence on why they made that recommendation. He put both me and DD at risk also.
So all in all the hearing went very well. Just a bit traumatized by the fact he said it was very very serious domestic abuse, I can't give too much details as it's very outing but it resulted in me leaving the former family home with black bin liners full of our stuff and a child protection officer from the local authority relocating us!

@TooTrusting Yes, she did! the FHDRA was on a Monday and my ex is the applicant, so his Solicitor sent the bundle at 3pm on the Friday! my Solicitor prepared a supplement bundle that was emailed to the Court and a copy was also walked over to the Court.. but apparently he didn't ever receive it! it was all very very fishy!!
I have since found out the original Judge was a financial remedy Judge and the High Court Judge said he was hugely inexperienced and had no background in children's proceedings, he also said had I appealed my appeal would have been successful! the only reason I didn't appeal is because the order said contact was to commence straight away so I still would have had to go whilst appealing.

@elwoodblues sounds extremely serious for your children to be removed from the care of their mother :(
Does she still see them now? - I can imagine you got a bad press in Court, I think the abuser Fathers really tarnish good Fathers with their paint brush! although saying that, you're not the only Father I've seen on this site whose said the children live with them full time because the children were removed from their mothers care. I fail to see how parents can neglect their children so badly to the point of removal by the Courts or the authorities :(

[quote Pebbledashery]@elwoodblues sounds extremely serious for your children to be removed from the care of their mother :(
Does she still see them now? - I can imagine you got a bad press in Court, I think the abuser Fathers really tarnish good Fathers with their paint brush! although saying that, you're not the only Father I've seen on this site whose said the children live with them full time because the children were removed from their mothers care. I fail to see how parents can neglect their children so badly to the point of removal by the Courts or the authorities :([/quote]
There was ongoing low level neglect putting the children at risk in her care. Each incident in itself was only low risk, but it kept bubbling away like that. SS said they were trying to help her, but while she struggled to parent, she was dismissive of their help.

But more seriously, her mental health was all over the place, she had addiction problems, and was self harming (semi credible suicide attempts). Obviously that was all quite destabilising for the kids.

For ages SS said that becuase I always step in and pick up the peices during these breakdowns, that teh children weren't at risk. Ultimately, I had to stand up to SS, and threaten to refuse to take care of my kids, in order to escalate the case to an 'at risk status' Crazy, but that's how the system works - I basically had to play blackjack with my kids welfare at stake.

So glad you've got things sorted out, sounded like very serious failings by the court, and your latest update confirms what I'd hoped should happen to resolve it. But it should never have unfolded like it did in the first place - we put our faith in the legal system and mess ups like that shouldn't happen that badly.

It's no wonder your ex's barrister wanted to keep the original judge exlcusively! But he should never have agreed to that as he's not even a family court judge.

Christ what a mess and yes he endangered You and your Child... good luck 🌺

OP if you want to pm me I'm happy to help

And very glad to hear how it ended up.
How did it get transferred to that judge? Was it out of the blue (perhaps cafcass worked some magic for once)?

I was traumatised when my ex's abuse of me was described as serious and I was referred to MARAC. Really hit it home.

@Pebbledashery i was really curious as to how it all turned out for you? I'm currently about to go through family court