Daughter is having first overnight with her abusive father tonight..

[SantaFeSister]

How do you cope sending your kids for overnight contact with their father who is abusive?

Ex is very abusive. Long domestic abuse history and also abused DD as an infant. I left him and he took me to court. Family court for many years. Contact progressed very slowly now its at one night overnight. Dd was upset this morning and didn't want to go. She cried at handover. The court directed I may have a facetime with her on Saturday nights. I had this and she seemed in good spirits but told me she missed me and wants to come home tonight and not sleepover at daddy's.. he was standing there.
I miss her so much. I miss the smell of her hair, her breathing in the night, her sleepy cuddles (she still sleeps in with me) I've been slowly building her up by arranging sleepovers at friends for her to ease her in as she's never ever been away from me. I have seen her every single day of her life.

Does it get easier? It's the fact he's an abuser that makes it so very hard. I've kept busy today and met my girl group of friends for lunch. My best friend said I could stay over tonight at hers but I decided to come home as its just prolonging the inevitable.

Does it get easier?

I'm going to send the cafcass guardian an email with what DD has disclosed and ask her for her advice.

I totally get the courts wanting the child to see both parents, but when there have been safeguarding concerns and incidents like this why oh why can they not let the child to back to the mother overnight at least and just see the father in the day, the children would feel more secure knowing they don't have to spend the night and it still means time spent with both parents. The father bloody strangled his very young child ffs and now she is being forced to go there and spend the night, it makes me so fucking angry and upset for everyone going through this. Absolutely appalling. Imagine a woman being forced to spend the night with someone who had strangled her, there would be an uproar and rightly so! Yet our children are having to do his because of 'father's rights'.

@Shiningout i agree with you 100%. I hate the family courts as they make it so arbitrary for the children. I managed to get a shared cared arrangement with ExH 50/50 which means if my children are sick they don’t have to be pulled out of bed to the other parents home to satisfy the order or risk punishment. My ex was abusive to me but mentally though he takes good care of the kids I still worry.

How is there an incredible Father bias?

Often post separation/divorce a Father is lucky to get every other weekend with the kids.

The reason the family court system is in such a mess is the 'gaming- of the system by a large number of Mother's and Father's. The court struggles to fathom the truly abusive cases from the made up allegation cases. So everyone is tarred with the same brush (at least initially) and hence you get these outcomes.

I do have sympathy for the OP in this case mind.

It's shit isn't it. I will always worry about this and have it hanging over me until my child is old enough to choose. It's no way to live. Although my situation is no where near as awful as ops, I still feel the utter heartbreak at knowing our children aren't as happy as they could/should be.

But if I raise these concerns to the Children's Guardian, do they have a duty of care to look into these allegations?

You obviously a) can't read and b) know nothing about the family court system.

There was plenty of evidence of abuse exhibited in the case. As you neglected to read I'll say it again. Every single professional said no to contact progression. Except cafcass guardian. Who is father bias all the way.

You don't appear to have a good grasp of how the family court works do you? That's ok, I pray you never have to go there.

The only disgusting thing here is your clear lack of understanding and ignorance.

Oh you know this case personally do you? You know everything was true because you were there right? Sorry didnt realise you knew OP personally… oh wait you don’t your on the internet believing everything coming out of a strangers mouth and I’m the idiot? Give me a break

Erm....she is the OP 😂😂
Are you drunk?

She is the OP you fuckwit @Despair132 (sorry OP - this sounds intolerable and I wish you all manner of calmness to navigate this ongoing abuse)

To those saying go get your kid, move away, I wouldn't let it happen. I've actually watched this happen (father was emotionally abusive ) - mother refusing court orders. Mother was eventually threatened with prison time. It took quite a while of refusing contact and being back in and out of court (years) to reach that point. But that's where it ended up.

Lol. Is all I have to say.
You obviously also have no understanding of how mumsnet works either.
Are you malfunctioning today?

@Despair132

Sorry didnt realise you knew OP personally… oh wait you don’t your on the internet believing everything coming out of a strangers mouth and I’m the idiot?

We'll maybe a bit, yeah, because she is the OP 😂

So I'd say she definitely knows OP personally...

These situations aren't as simple as you think, when it goes to court all the evidence and the proof is put forward even police evidence if there is any about the abuse towards the OP and the little one, if the court has said he can have contact and over night contact there is nothing OP can do which is really shit because she knows what he is like. If OP was to obstruct this court order and be known as being 'difficult' the father would get more contact even custody which is not what is wanted here, you have to play it carefully and let it play out how it will do. Eventually it will become known that this is causing the younger one distress every time. OP I would contact social services and explain what is happening and I would keep a log on your daughters mood the day before and the day she is due to go to her fathers then you can gather some of your own evidence I would also put the dates and times of the video calls and what is spoken about for example his shitty comments he's said to her about you and if she's in distress just keep a log off it all! Hopefully social services will help you out and see how much distress this is causing your daughter and it may go back to court hun.

@Despair132 it's good for you that you don't understand the family court system but it's people like you that are a big problem. You assume because court allow contact the woman is lying. You assume a man is safe because the court said go on let's see what happens to this child. Actually if you bother to look into it it's a huge problem abusive men getting contact and child and women continue to be abused using our system. But guess what? You can't talk about what happened in family court so woman can't go public with what is happening. And if they do it's their child in the press so we wouldn't. My abusive ex got contact and I've met women on freedom program whos abuse Ive ex got contact. I've met a couple who lost their kids to the ex and they had to be the one with contact centre contact because they just refused contact believing the system would protect their kids.

I absolutely hate reading comments like yours. Children all over this country suffer because attitudes like yours are so prevalent

😄 Thanks for the laughs, but put down the crack pipe FFS. You're making a fool of yourself as well as being despicably vicious to the OP. I just hope you aren't a parent. You lack both empathy and common sense.

I would probably get legal advice. My advice isn't the right advice but what I would do is age appropriately tell your child you are court ordered and can't stop contact. Tell her that to stop contact the court would need to have concerns she's not safe being raised by school the dr etc and not mummy because they don't believe mummy. Then leave it at that and hope she makes the connection. If you get caught doing this however you will regret it it. But then my experience is these people won't actually do anything. I have had school comment to me there is a clear pattern of an urge day before ex weekend and then challenging behaviour for a couple days after with child soiling themselves after ex weekends. But the school never reported shit. Neither did nursery before. Actually my daughter la school didn't report anything either although her behaviour doesn't show her feeling so bad. She had some councilling at school due to anxiety and she tells me she told them x y z about dad (definitely should have been a safeguard referral) to my knowledge nothing happened. I've even hear my son tell his disability social worker daddy locks him in his bedroom all night and won't come when he's calluses so he has to sleep in the wet sheets because he's had an accident. But they did NOTHING. And if you ask them they will probably tell you as there is a court order then you need to take it back to court. And when you get to court without any new evidence it makes the situation worse for tou and child.

You need your child to have enough understanding of the system to know you can't do anything and that she needs to be telling every single adult she's in regular contact with what is happening and tell them again and again. Until they finally think maybe they should report it. After multiple reports and you being contacted saying yes you know what's happening you said it in court but the order was made. Eventually you can do SARs and have enough evidence to try reducing contact but how you do that without it looking like you coached your child is not known so even with evidence all he has to say is you told dd to say that and a judge to believe him.

I've shown photos of my child's injuries to a social worker and the response was but there is no way of knowing the injuries happened with dad. I've paid childcare to do handovers and them report the injuries and then been told but I'm paying them they are not impartial. And then the childcare quit because he intimidated them.

As long as I obviously tried to protect my kids it's like I was egging him on. I went grey rock and started working when he had them to save childcare at which point he decided cancelling contact last minute would mess my life up more than having the kids. So what is you ex motive? If he genuinely wants contact you may struggle but if it's to hurt you you have to show him he doesn't then he may move on to a new victim

@Despair132 no you’ve made yourself look like an idiot, you’ve just asked the OP if she knows the case and the OP personally.

I actually don’t understand posters who have either minimised what the OP has said, or questioned whether what the OP is saying has happened or projecting their own family situation onto hers.

it is an advice forum therefore if you actually want to help and give advice you’ve got to take what posters say happened as what happened.

Obviously if you are a judge or jury actually having to make decisions on a real life cases you have to challenge and probe everything so you can make a decision. But we’re on fucking mumsnet!

Are there OP’s on mumsnet who make things up? Possibly? If that’s the case then all advice to them is pointless so the only person it impacts is the poster. Are there women in the world who use courts to punish their children’s father? I’ve no doubt it happens, but the OP is telling us that this evidence was not taken seriously by the Cafcass guardian. I don’t understand why you can’t accept that this is what happened and instead feel the need to aggressively challenge that!

@Despair132 just leave the thread, you're embarrassing yourself.

Tell her that to stop contact the court would need to have concerns she's not safe being raised by school (etc)...not mum

That is leading and coaching the child.

The system is broken and does not protect children so what's the alternative.

I would also argue that it's giving the child a full picture of how it all works. Otherwise, she may think her mum can protect her from all of this so she doesn't need to disclose it. Unfortunately the system works against the natural instinct of a mother to shield her daughter from having to go around telling other adults what is happening.

Op what happened?

It’s a long game I’m afraid. I’m in the same situation only years later. There was no contact for years then slowly it built up. Absolutely nothing you can do but provide a happy safe home and hope. I have had the school involved and she has a safe person to talk to. They do tend to side with the abusive parent to please them for a while. My daughter has suffered damage and I do my best to counter this but there is only so much I can do and I hope time will be our friend eventually. One day when she is older she will vote with her feet.

@SantaFeSister does she still have to go there ?