Dating a man who has supervised contact centre visitation... red flag?

[DilemmaEmma2]

Just that really.
Would a man who has contact centre visitation strike up a red flag to you?
Would you do your utmost to find out as much as possible about it?

@Deathbyfluffy - it is extremely hard to persuade the courts to order supervised contact. The applicant would have to provide serious evidence of really serious abuse affecting the child; the respondent would get a chance to respond. The court would test this. It’s very rarely going to be the result of someone telling lies.

You're not serious?

Yes find out it could be just a bad seperation and their mum doesn't want them to see him visitation centres offer a middle ground, but absolutely ask questions and don't be too quick to believing him.

Going against the grain here for sure, but my husband was forced to have contact in a contact centre.
This was about 18 years ago, and the family court said on record that it was for no other reason than to placate the mother and put some accountability in place as she was persistently refusing to hand over the children for contact as ordered by the court.
The contact centre reported to CAFCAS that she was frustrating contact and influencing the children by refusing to leave them and hiding gifts behind chairs so the children couldn't see them.
When it went back to court, the cc was dropped as the judge said the ex was not capable of being reasonable.
A few years ago now and just my experience to attempt to balance.
We have been married for 20 years and despite what most posters think, I was not a shiny eyed new wife not did I believe a massive pike of made-up old bollocks.

Her children matter too.

Contact her. Tell her exactly why he has only supervised contact centre access to his own children.

She needs to know the detail.

She will not believe you.

She will believe his stories. And what he says about you.

Doesn't matter.

You'll have done your duty - and you do have a duty there.

Up to her whether she does hers - or not.

He has supervised visits because of domestic abuse and he had been found to be abusive to our daughter physically (severely) and emotionally. She was an infant at the time.

Might I add at the time, shamefully I stood back and did nothing and didn't protect our daughter from him. I left him before he ended up killing someone and it was with the help of the authorities

So she doesn't know it's through a visitation centre? That's why it's not raising flags then surely.

In that case I honestly think you need to report the current situation. Not out of malice but becuase 2 more children are at risk of harm. Nothing will happen because of one report of a possible risk, but it's important those children are an someone's radar IMO.

Whatever is going on with new woman, you can guarantee she doesn't know everything.

Right so his storey is probably that you only let him have the child once a fortnight and won't let the child meet her. So she thinks he's trying hard to get access and doesn't know he's a violent threat to her kids.

If you have her details, I'd be notifying social services

You can ask for a Clare’s Law disclosure on behalf of someone else. The Police won’t tell you anything about their decisions but if they deem there to be a risk to the person they will contact them to inform them of the risk. So if he’s been convicted for domestic abuse against hour daughter then the Police might decide that she should be informed of this if she confirms they are dating/moving in together.

Sorry I didn't read on I see it's a new girlfriend for him, he's told her a pack of lies clearly.

It is a major red flag BUT you’ll be surprised how many men have to go through contact because there is an arsehole mother.

my boss’s lovely partner is always in an ongoing court battle because of his jealous ex stopping contact for no reason or for making allegations against him that are always unfounded. (Apparently he stalked her when he was out of the country for the month). He had to have supervised contact due to allegations made a few times that never came to fruition.

My best friend had to go through something similar because of allegations made by their mother which have been proved to be false.

I work in social care and unfortunately see cases similar from time to time. I completely get where you’re coming from because it sounds like he’s horrible and it’s hard to see why others would even consider it. But I suppose on rare occasions when the above happens, it makes it harder to know

I am so sorry that happened to your child!

With that being the case I would definitely let a worker know and see if they can contact her. I wouldn't attempt to contact her yourself. For many reasons but also because it is almost guaranteed to be taken seriously if an official is informing her.

A massive red flag. No decent father would need it.

Sorry I don’t think I made it clear enough to say he’s an absolute evil arsehole too x

Have you reported this to the local authority where her children live?

Lol! I take it you have never been in a domestic abuse relationship! How people behave to other people on the outside and their version of the story that THEY tell you will be extremely different to how they are behind closed doors! Almost anyone who has been abused will tell you that their partners played the genuine lovely person to people on the outside, always polite, charming and helpful to everyone! However behind closed doors they are nasty mouthed abusers!!!

Suoervised contact isn’t given on hearsay or the word of what an ex said, there HAS to be evidence put in front of the court!! Unless you was there in court with them then I can assure you that the version of the story you have heard will not be the truthful version! No court ever grants only supervised access just on the words of a bitter ex, there will have been extensive research done by cafcass and evidence out to the court!! My ex was violent to me but he was given unsupervised access alternative weekends!! Courts try to keep things very low drama and act on the best interest of the child! They do not take accusations thrown about likely and supervised contact is usually granted as a last resort and it is very hard for the victim to prove why they feel their child should only have contact with their ex in a supervised setting!!! So for someone to be only granted supervised access means they must have done something pretty bad, backed up by evidence!!!

This made me laugh!

There's no way on earth you know he's lovely. Abused women put huge energies into hiding that and abusers often are very popular characters. In fact the more she's telling you how lovely he is, the more likely it is that he isn't.

In these circumstances I'd be a psycho bitch ex and contact social services. No man who has abused a child or reached the supervised contact threshhold should be moving in with another woman and her children.

Surely him moving in with her needs to be reported to social services asap if he's a known domestic and child abuse risk?

And no decent mom would stand back and allow her husband to severely physically hurt her infant daughter

@DilemmaEmma2 in your situation I would find a way to warn his new partner about him. By the sound of it, you and your daughter went through hell with this man. Surely you'd not wish it on anyone else. He as probably spun her some story and she probably doesn't even know that contact is supervised, let alone why.

Do you know anyone who knows her? Even just an anonymous message saying "hello, you might want to do a Clare's Law disclosure on Mr X"

If the case is in court they have a responsibility to safeguard any other children who might be at risk. Therefore social services should be aware and should be assessing how safe her children are, which in theory should involve a Claire’s law disclosure being done with her.