Support needed for facing my horribly abusive ex

[Pebbledashery]

Here is my support thread.. Thank you everyone

I can't help feeling, from what I understand you've said, that the judge made a mistake originally when he allowed parental contact by the father in the first place, and is now trying to justify his previous ruling by finding fault with you. I know nothing about the ins and outs of this all, but from what I can gather, the man you escaped from and are scared to death that he will find you, has abused your daughter and you viciously and should never be allowed to see his daughter again, let alone have any sort of parental responsibility for her. This is clearly coercive control in action and allowed by the judge, despite you having taken your daughter to what you hope will be a place of safety. I'm betting the father of your daughter doesn't actually want to have contact with her, he just wants to be pulling your strings and know he is putting you out and upsetting both of you by insisting on his rights. Maybe I've completely misunderstood, but that's how I see it from here.

@jaichangecentfoisdenom but what can I do.. Appeal his judgement? He made no reference to the Marac letter which was dated a few weeks after the altercation that caused us to flee..
I didn't appeal his first order either because I was so shocked and upset, contact started immediately pretty much. I really don't know.

You mentioned that his legal team were hoping it would now move to unsupervised. This obviously hasn't happened, there is a chance that things will just naturally change over the coming months. You may now see him loosing interest. I suspect he hates being told what to do, and having to see your child at a contact centre may wear thin. Sometimes quietly playing the long game pays off. Well it did in my case.

He won't lose interest, he will turn up to every contact session to just be spiteful

What does your solicitor say?

She thinks the most important finding is the one regarding child abuse, we're going into children's matters now. She's not mentioned appealing but she said it's probably better the local authority do the section 7 as there's been so much involvement from them. I'm not sure really.

It may be that the stalking protection order will help. Speak to your solicitor but that can have quite wide restrictions on what he can do. Possibly your DD can be covered by it too now there is a finding of child abuse.
You now have a court saying he is an abuser. Even if the judgement is flawed you have something that makes it clear he is a dangerous person.

I say this kindly, I wonder if you've misunderstood the judges comment about 'verbal abuse'? The judge isn't there to find one party 100% at fault and one 100% free of fault, it isn't binary. The judge will acknowledge if you were verbally abusive BUT has also commented on mitigating circumstances why you were, that it was one occasion, and by the sounds of it HASNT factored it in when judging what should happen for the child. Theres a big difference between acknowledging something happened, and declaring you to be an abusive partner - I don't think the judge has?
If the judge ignored that instance, then your ex's solicitor could claim that the judge refused to consider the idea that you had done anything wrong, which would mean an accusation of bias.
Perhaps discuss it with your solicitor once you've had a bit of time to process it. But please be kind to yourself and give yourself some time!

There are some harrowing stories in this thread, I'm sorry so many people have had similar experiences

Morning everyone, hope you're ok. I read it again last night, and I feel quite uncomfortable to be honest.. but know that its quite rare for all findings to be made against one person. The Judge said that apart from the incidents of violence he's described, he believed that ex used "reasonable force" to defend himself.. and the incident that caused us to flee last year, he's believed his version of events - there was no mention in the judgement that that incident was the one that caused us to flee with intervention of children's services. If I was the aggressor then I wouldn't have been allowed to flee with DD presumably!
I guess the victory is that the non-molestation order has been extended, he's been described as out of control and that the Judge thinks unsupervised contact isn't appropriate.. but still feel like I've been made to feel like I am also abusive, I accepted everything i did wrong in that relationship, multiple times it was listed in Police reports and reports to Children's services that I was honest etc.. I know the judge has to acknowledge the verbal abuse etc and there's not much I can do if he chose to believe his version of events from the incident last year, but doesn't stop me feeling bruised and almost like he's got away with it.
I guess it can all change when the outcome/recommendation in the section 7 is given.

I know it feels unfair op. But sometimes you just have to look at the end result. Not how you got there, but the actual end result.

Did you get what you wanted out of it? Supervised contact and a NM extension is what you were after and what you got. Try not to stress and worry about the exact wordings. I had issues with family court a few years ago and some of the things said about me, and recorded were downright lies. But in the end I got what I needed and wanted out of the proceedings. Now is the time to try and put those words behind you, and move on with the things YOU want to do.

@Pebbledashery I would also be annoyed

As someone who also fled after a significant event I feel your pain

If anyone dared to entertain my exes version of the event I would be livid

This process is not fair sadly 😢😢

My solicitor just said to go through the judgement paragraph by paragraph and make comments on the factual inaccuracies. Which I've just done. I'm extremely upset that the judge has said he doesn't believe I'm as scared of him as I've said to professionals etc.. I live in hiding ffs. He doesn't know one single detail about us. I left with 3 black bin bags and kept on running. How can he say I'm not scared of him.

Op I have been through the family court system and empathise with all your thoughts and feelings. You said at one stage, you felt like throwing in the towel, as did we as grandparent carers. We lost our finding of fact about him trying to attack me in front of gs. We found out he had already three convictions for actual bodily harm, one being against a child. Cafcass had not looked into this in depth and described his attacks as youthful indiscretions. We found out because as an unrepresented party, I rang Police Headquarters Legal Dept and asked them to make available to the barrister (not ours but cafcass's) full details of violent offending. They reluctantly agreed and there it all was. It involved a 15 yo and a 10 yo.

Losing a fact finding was the worst day of our lives. Being left with two young children to bring up (funny that, if I am a liar) placed with us by the very courts who chose not to believe us.

He went on to gain supervised contact, leading to unsupervised, then back again to supervised. This is very unusual as was the fact the Judge told him he would remove PR if he "interfered" with gs's day to day life.

He went on to continue offending. He was in Crown Court for actual bodily harm then six months later, grievous bodily harm when the victim was in ICU for 8 days. The Probation report stated he had been offending since 12 yo and his violence was escalating again. He was convicted of drink driving going home from an actual court hearing. Twice the limit, on the motorway.

All the feelings of worry and fear you express are those we felt. I can remember my terror and worry in the 7 days leading up to court hearings.

Our social worker told me she thought my treatment by the Judge was dickensian. She and the County Council legal team were shocked. She also told me that in her experience men who behave in this way are the ones who in the cold light of day and reality of day to day care for a child do give up. Mine never did, but left my gs with his parents because he only really wanted very occasional contact as and when it suited him.

This is a good result for now op. Like me though, you have already moved to worrying about the next event - the section 7 report. I wish you all the best and please do not worry about what I have said because you clearly come across a whole lot better than I did.

Me and my child fled to refuge, when my ex was under police questioning he said I’d gone to one because I wanted a holiday?! They will tell any lie they can to try and show they’re not the guilty party

The judge has actually ignored evidence. He's specifically ignored pieces of evidence in the bundle.. In his judgement he's actually written he will only refer to specific pieces of evidence when giving his judgement. I don't even know why all evidence wouldn't be considered.

I'm not sure if I appeal some of these findings if it'll be successful. Everything has been minimised, evidence has been ignored. I don't know.

Judges are on another planet

Just have to hope the section 7 turns things around.

My ExH lost parental responsibility - but it took 9 years.

I know someone whose ex was classed as such a risk to her that her address is withheld and she redacts the name of the school from los reports, she just has to summarise Dr's reports etc in order to protect her from her ex finding out where they live. Her ex has the minimal amount of contact centre supervised access that is ordered by courts. It is possible that your location can be protected and information like school can be withheld as per court order if there is deemed enough risk. I think there was also something put in about her not needing his consent for medical stuff aswell. Even if pr isn't removed, there is remit from the courts to protect you and lo and to limit him using pr to control you.

I feel a bit at a loss to be honest.. the judge has extended the non molestation order and said unsupervised contact isn't appropriate at this point, but yet he's made me feel like I am exaggerating the risk he poses and minimised everything we have been through :( people don't flee for nothing.

I’m asking this very gently, are you getting decent, regular counselling @Pebbledashery?
You need to stop dwelling on what you think/feel that the Judge meant. Even though that’s difficult at the moment.
You need to redirect your focus to the positive things in the judgement like the non-mol being extended and that unsupervised contact isn’t appropriate.
I hope Section 7 happens quickly for you.

No. I don't need or want counselling. I just want him out of my life and away from me. I never want to see his face ever again.

@Pebbledashery

No. I don't need or want counselling. I just want him out of my life and away from me. I never want to see his face ever again.

. From experience, I'd recommend doing the Freedom Programme. Run by people who've been through similar themselves, really helps.

I have already done the freedom programme x