Firstly I think your partner needs to grow some balls. I'm being totally honest here with experience from going through the family court system when my ex tried to apply for sole res of my daughter when there was a shared care arrangement in place. She spent thousands on legal fees and in the end a shared residence order was made after a good cafcass report which recognised the strength of relationship between daughter and her dad.
Your partner should sack his solicitor immediately, in fact I wouldn't recommend using solicitors as they are by and large a bunch of useless idiots who are only interested in lining their own pockets and you will not receive a good service. As you are not eligible for legal aid you will end up thousands out of pocket. Self-represent yourself (as I did).
Join Families Need Fathers, a national support organisation who will help you out practically and emotionally. There will be a wealth of experience and advice to tap into.
The situation seems to be that daughter's mum has flitted in and out of child's life and I wonder why she is back now (there is also a financial element I suspect, she is probably after the tax credits etc). Mum has not fulfilled the parenting role that the child deserves, she has chosen to be absent (indeed, she is the absent parent) by living overseas and has placed her own selfish needs before the child (witness the summer hol contact). Now she has appeared back on the scene and is demanding SOLE RESIDENCY
... let's just reverse the sexes for one minute here - how would this be viewed, not very favourably I would imagine.
the bottom line is;
- dad has and still is the primary carer (this is recognised by him being in receipt of the child benefit too. Btw has dad considered making an application to the CSA for child maintenance as mum is the absent parent???)
- dad has provided stability and security for the child's life, even when mum has decided to dump the child. Dad has been there to pick up the pieces.
- dad is not opposed to contact between child and mum , on the contrary, it should be encouraged as a child does need the input of both parents. You have grave concerns about the possibility (based on mum's consistent past behaviour) that mum will do a midnight flit.
so I would under these circumstances completely reject mums wish for sole residency. Just because she has sent a solicitors letter (which is meaningless and has as much legal weight as a rat dropping) doesn't mean anything. She is on legal aid, a solicitor will just pass on their clients wishes.
As the ex is on legal aid she will have to request mediation. Personally, I would go along with this - not only will it show willing, it will look a bit bad on yourselves when it undoubtably goes through the court system.
Mediation isn't legally binding and it is voluntary, if you do not agree to the ex's proposals then you are under no obligation to agree. In fact it probably would be a good opportunity to hear the ex out, put your concerns across and try to find some common ground to move forward to a mutually agreeable parenting solution.
When/if it goes through the court system you will find it very adversarial and all sorts of tricks coming out of the woodwork.
My personal feeling is that you should come to an agreement on the parenting and this can be in the form of a Shared Residence Order (lets face it, as a dad you will not be getting sole res, mum has be shown to be a drug-abusing prostitute for you to get sole res), but the division of the parenting time should be something like alternate weekends the child staying with mum (say fri, sat, return to you sunday eve) and a midweek tea-time contact for a few hours before returning to dad. You can agree on holiday,birthday, xmas+new year arrangements too.
Then if mum does a moonlight flit you would bang it straight back into court and ask for a variation of the shared res order to a sole res order for dad.