Handhold needed - Ex partner has not returned child to my care despite Court order

[DontGoChasinWaterfalls]

I just need a handhold tonight. I am extremely upset, but trying to remain grounded. I have extensive experience of the Family Court and I understand the process and what I need to do, but emotionally this is very difficult.
My daughter (aged 7) was due to return to my care this evening at 5.30pm. We operate a one-week-on, one-week-off arrangement, which was determined by the Family Court in summer 2025. Proceedings had been ongoing for over five years, largely arising from domestic abuse and repeated assessments.
During those proceedings, false allegations were made and a professional recommendation was put forward suggesting a transfer of residence to her father. Thankfully, at the final hearing we had a very child-focused and robust judge who rejected that recommendation in its entirety. The court ordered that my daughter resides with me, with equal contact to her father. This is not shared care; it is a structured 7/7 arrangement that runs consistently throughout the year.
Since judgment, the father has continued to make allegations to the police and to social care that I am physically harming our daughter. I have never been contacted by the police in relation to any allegation. I proactively contacted them and offered to attend the station or have officers attend my home, but I was never followed up. The father also made a referral to social care, which prompted a Child and Family Assessment. However, this has not been treated with any urgency by the allocated social worker, who is now on annual leave.
My daughter has told me that her father pressures her to say things. For example, if she tells him she got a bruise at school during PE, he will push her to say it was caused by me. She has had extensive professional involvement throughout these five years, and I have made a conscious and sustained effort to step away from conflict and allow her to experience a normal, happy childhood.
She broke up from school on Thursday. I have not seen or spoken to her since last Friday. She was due to return to me today. Her father confirmed the handover time and location in writing just three days ago. I attended the handover point and waited. After ten minutes, I contacted him and received a message stating that he was exercising his parental responsibility, that he had spoken to the NSPCC, and that he was therefore retaining our daughter. My understanding is that no statutory authority would advise a parent to breach a court order. I have contacted both the Police and Emergency out of hours Social Care this evening, both of which will not do anything to help (which I already knew).
What makes this particularly distressing is that the order was only made four months ago and my daughter has settled well into it. She was due to travel with me tomorrow to see her maternal family for Christmas and to meet her new cousin. I offered the father an opportunity to reconsider and return her by 9am tomorrow, but based on past behaviour I do not believe he will do so. I have therefore submitted an urgent C79 application to enforce the order.
The court also made a barring order preventing repeated applications for two years. I understand that this does not apply to enforcement, but it means the father does not have a straightforward legal route back to court should he wish to vary arrangements.
My daughter is due to return to school on 5 January. That is her scheduled week with me. I do not know what happens if nothing is resolved by then. I am heartbroken. I have not seen her in eight days, and it could be three and a half weeks. I miss her deeply, and the thought of all our Christmas plans being lost is overwhelming.
I know where her father lives, but I made the conscious decision not to attend his property to retrieve her because I did not want to create a scene that my daughter could witness or hear. That choice feels incredibly painful, but I believed it was the right one for her.
It feels very deliberate that this has been done during the school holidays. I am frightened, exhausted, and unsure how I will get through the weekend knowing the court will not review my email until Monday.
Thank you for listening.

OP, firstly Happy New Year to you & your sweet girl. I hope 2026 is a peaceful funfilled year for you both.

Is there any way you can get the court to make him pay your costs?? He is the one causing all of this so should he not be made financially accountable?? Apologies if not, it was just a thought.

Dear @DontGoChasinWaterfalls just read your whole thread again... and just want to say (again) how much in awe of you I am.

This thread is an inspiration. You are so strong, selfless and capable. I am also not surprised you have great friends and support in real life.

I imagine you will want to get this thread removed before long. So before it disappears I wanted to say again how much I admire you and wish you and your girl every happiness for 2026. You both deserve it so much x

This OP. Well done and best of luck for the next steps. And for the rest of 2026.

@DontGoChasinWaterfalls do you mind if I ask you something?

in your initial post, you said that a professional had originally recommended your daughter lived mainly with your ex. Can I ask why they came to that decision? The reason I ask is that your ExH has demonstrated in this recent activity that he is controlling and abusive. It is shocking that a professional would ever advise he was the ‘better’ parent.

I think it would be useful for any legal/ child protection professionals to understand how people like him manipulate the courts and system generally to abuse the (mainly female) non - abusive parent.

Has he made no attempt to contact you @DontGoChasinWaterfalls?

@thegrinchwasontosomething it states in the OP that he made (and continues to make) false allegations. That particular professional was obviously fooled by him but thankfully subsequent ones haven’t been.
This thread is filling up now so may not be room when there are any further updates so I wish you all the best OP

Yes - it’s clear he made false allegations. But that’s not the point. It’s the fact that professionals seem to make life changing decisions based on false allegations.

I’ve had similar issues with my ExH - with these kind of men, there’s a script. I think it’s helpful for people to know the kind of thing that gets bandied around, so they are wise to it.

For example, my ex has a habit of contacting social services etc and telling them I’m mentally unstable and have a personality disorder. The truth is that over the last 25 years, I’ve had 2-3 instances of taking anti depressants for mild depression. The last couple of times were as a result of being in a controlling and abusive relationship with him!

There’s a real problem with men like this causing mental trauma to women, then using it as a reason to show they are unstable.

that might not be the case for @DontGoChasinWaterfalls but I’d be interested in what BS her ex came up with to discredit her as a mother when it’s so clear from this thread she is an amazing parent to her DD.

My cousin’s ex claimed that her PTSD made her unstable.

She had PTSD because he broke into her house in the middle of the night when she was a few weeks pregnant and attacked her, told her he was going to kill her, and left her physically scarred for life.

Ironically when prosecuted he claimed he had no memory of this attack (although he accepted it was him) as he had PTSD due to a bereavement. It absolutely enrages me that he escaped prison.

@DontGoChasinWaterfalls

I'm so glad you've gathered your 'troops' around you. Support is so important and you've found your 'soft place to land'.

You are amazing. This thread could serve as a blueprint for other parents facing this situation. You have kept a cool head, reasoned things out, and took action after careful deliberation. I salute you!

Onwards and upwards!

How’s things @DontGoChasinWaterfalls?

Hi everyone. Thanks for the continued support. I've been trying to regain a sense of normality for DD across the last week. I've made it clear to her if she misses her dad or wants to tell me anything or is worried then she can just tell me and the grown ups will deal with it. She's quite happy being at home but I want her to know I don't discount he's still her father (even though internally he's an abusive cretin). He got served with the court orders last week, I paid for a process server. I'm told he spouted a load of garbage about allegations against me etc. Additionally, I also found some graffiti with a horribly abusive word on my car... I reported it to the police. On Monday morning I applied for a non molestation order, by Monday 3pm it was granted on paper without notice, so I'm just organising another process server to serve him in the coming days. I'm unrepresentated in these proceedings but it's cost a fortune.. I'm just lucky I was sensible with my income from my second job.
Dd is doing OK though, she seems happy and is happy to be back at school in a normal routine. She told me tonight she just loves being at home and with me so I take that as she feels safe with me. We have a return hearing in a few weeks where he's expected to attend and explain his position.. the judge will then order further directions from that xx

Oh OP you are so strong and brave and all the things I wish I had been when I was going through court proceedings for dd1 10 years ago. I really hope he just fucks off somewhere into oblivion for you both to have the quiet safe life you deserve.

So glad your DD is feeling safe with you,your EX is a horrible cretin and thankfully the courts and law is on your side in all this,it's terrible she has to see him when it's clear she's unhappy doing so,I hope everything works out well for you both,you deserve a Happy New year xx

I feel exactly the same. Wish I had been stronger.

Thank you for your update. It must actually be more stable for your DD to be in one place with you. You're doing a marvelous job and hopefully her father won't continue to have joint custody as it clearly doesn't work. His last trick certainly did him no favours. Hopefully a judge will see that he isn't fit to look after his daughter. Supervised visits only would be better for your DD. 💐

Dont feel like that, you were as strong as you could be at the time. You did all you could do. And I bet you did brilliantly.

It makes me so fucking mad that women like OP and you and to a far lesser extent me, have to go through these gymnastics to get even the basics of safety and respect for ourselves and our children.

We have to prove that they are abusive, even when the evidence (usually from their own mouths) speaks for itself, rather than them having to prove that they are not. And even then they are given chance after chance. But we step out of line ONCE and we are the bad parent!

Its a fucking joke. And yet men like him (and a hell of a lot of women who should be fucking ashamed of themselves) still spout the lies that courts always go with the woman and "steal" the kids from the fathers. I can only hope that when the young children who are forced into these awful situations become lawyers and barrister and then judges themselves, things will change.

Well done for getting the non mol done. I’m sorry he’s done that to your car. It’s another piece of evidence against him. He clearly can’t control his anger. I hope he doesn’t get anything more than supervised contact and they’ll have to arrange it so he can’t come near you

If you haven't already, please get yourself some ring cameras or similar, especially if you suspect he had something to do with your car. You're being so brave!

Well done on getting the non-mol so smoothly. It's terrific that you know what to do and how to do it. Very resourceful. Sounds like he's the opposite. I for one will be hoping he doesn't bother to turn up to the hearing and DD can settle into a steady home life with you.
Men like this get chance after chance after chance - which they don't deserve. They never really change. They're like shit stuck in the crevices of a shoe. They stick and stink.

Those who say about my conduct so far. It wasn't always this way. Remember i said I was in proceedings before. I'm using that experience to guide me through this time around. I was fortunate enough to receive legal aid last time and was fully represented right up to the final hearing. My barrister was a very senior, experienced barrister and she said I'd become an evolved parent by the end of proceedings and I think that's 100% correct. Some of the choices have had to.make have been gut wrenching like not going to his house to retrieve her and waiting for enforcement but I did as not to expose her to conflict. I can't control what he does but I can control what I do. She often tells me she wishes he was like me so I know I'm doing it right this time x

Good to read your update @DontGoChasinWaterfalls . I hope things go well for you, when you go back to court

Apologies if you’ve said or it’s been said ad infinitum but definitely get security cameras. It might be really helpful for your upcoming case if you can catch him in the act.

I think you’d make an excellent family law solicitor if you had the capacity to retrain in the future.

@DontGoChasinWaterfalls How right you are. I fought to keep gs1s dad away because of his escalating violence. But the Judge and cafcass viewed me as anti authority and I simply failed to play the game. I was unrepresented. The police installed panic alarms at our home after the case concluded.

Later he was convicted of gbh and the police search for him was on national news where I failed to recognise the photofit of our tormentor.

I took criticism on another thread for urging to follow your path. You cannot win. You do have to prepare for contact.

Again I wish you all the best.

I would definitely try to get a dash cam for your car with parking mode (ideally buffered) and some ring door bells for safety.

Just going to let the Court lead on this..not preparing myself for anything except attendance at Court. The burden isn't on me to prove anything, it's squarely on him.