YERBLURT..... please can you help!!!!

[looneymum]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/840204-Help-Father-demanding-access-in-Australia

Hi Yerblurt

I really hope you can help! I have been given your name and wonder if you could look at my extremely long post above..... you may need a big cup of tea or perhaps a pot!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Looney

Hi Again Yerblurt. If you manage to read this, I can post a short form of the sorry tale as you will be on for some months reading this post!

Loons

Hullo looneymum,

I'm yerblurt's partner. He's currently very busy doing an MSc and has some deadlines to meet before the end of term ie this weekend.

I will point him in this direction though and he hopefully will be able to reply quite soon.

Would it be possible to write a summary of what's happened so far as your thread is pretty long and he may not have time to read through it all.

FWIW solictors letters are not worth the paper they are written on. Only courts can make orders.

Hi ElenorRigby

Thanks so much for replying.

I feel so cheeky asking specifically for a response..... Yerblurt is obviously extremely well respected on here. Good luck to him with his deadlines!

Here's a summary of the situation to date.

My ex left me in December 2007. We have two DDs age 7 and 5. We divorced in September 2009 after lengthy financial proceedings, that reached a second stage court hearing before I ran out of money.

My exs partner (an Australian) left the UK in July 2009 after a court process allowing her right to remove with her two sons.

My ex indicated he would be emigrating mid way through the financial dispute, to be with his partner, flagging his leaving date as September 2009 and as yet has not gone. Nor has he told me where in Aus he will be living.

I have always offered generous access. He did see the DDs three times a month, although I understand (through my eldest DD) that this is now to be every other weekend. He also sees them during the holidays (although he often leaves them with his parents and goes to work). This arrangement was never encapsulated in a contact order.

His original request was that the children holiday in Australia for six weeks in 2010. Either my ex or his parents (age late 60s) would accompany them. He would pay for the flights. Contact also to be maintained via web and phone.

I indicated to him (we only communicate via e-mail) that this would be disruptive to the DDs and their home life and that whilst they are so young, perhaps contact would be better served in the UK. I also indicated that they can go to Aus, at some point in the future, when they are older.

He has threatened court docs (C100) which I have yet to receive. He reckons he has had legal advice to say he will win any contact battle and has said it will cost £25k.

He has now come back with a new proposal to say he wants contact in 2011 for four weeks. I decided that this was more reasonable and agreed to this contact.

He has responded to say that the contact order should say the DDs should holiday in Aus for:-

4 weeks in summer 2011
5 weeks in summer 2012
6 weeks in summer thereafter

and at other holidays yet to be specified.

I have not responded to him. It is my view that spending half the summer holidays in Aus and half at home is in the best interests of the girls, allowing them time with their friends, with me, with my family and obviously to have time to recover from any jet lag. The children are independently educated (at situation that was in place prior to my ex leaving and which he no longer funds). Obviously should I be unable to keep the children in independent education and once they start primary ed, then they will only get six weeks for the summer rather than the eights weeks they have now. This makes a six week break completely unreasonable, they would have no time to recover.

So, Yerblurt, are you still awake?!! Sorry, that seems like a long old summary! My plan is to respond to his e-mail to say I am happy to consider his contact order but that half the hols is reasonable after his emigration. I would also like something incorporated that would stop him changing the current UK arrangements whenever he fancies, cancelling at the last minute etc.

I am unable to afford another costly lawyer (I paid the equivalent of the deposit on a house in fees for the divorce and barely got that back in settlement). He pays a nominal amount for the girls per month which I have had to accept as I couldn't affort the final court hearing.

Should it go to court, I intend to represent myself.... all very scary!

Any pearls of wisdom?

Happy christmas!

Loons

Hi there

Really sorry about the delay in replying, it's been busy as hell in the house!

I personally think your ex is being unreasonable. It has been HIS decision to move 1/2 way across the world (when he really doesn't have any need to), my view is that both parents should stay within close locality (indeed in some states of the US this is a condition of separation if there is to be a shared care arrangement).

Contact when one parent lives overseas is always problematic and whilst it is impractical for contact to occur as frequently as, say, on a monthly basis due to the distance.

Normally in situations like this nearly all holidays would be for the child to have contact with the overseas parent though.

I think his threats are unlikely to be successful but yes, costs rapidly ramp up in a contact order dispute. You would have no problem self-representing yourself as a Litigant In Person (LIP) with the aid of a McKenzie friend. I would strongly recommend you pop along to your local Families Need Fathers meeting to get some advice. Look up your local FNF branch on the web and give your local branch chair a call/email. FNF, despite the name, are a gender-neutral national charity and help out all parents/carers, indeed about 1/4 of our membership is female (including female parents/carers/grandparents/new partners).

It's worthwhile engaging in dialogue - all by letter (keeping copies for yourself) snet recorded delivery either to your ex's solicitors with your proposals and requesting discussion of the child matters at the local family Mediation services.

It's unlikely the ex will have submitted a C100 form as his proposals really are quite unrealistic.

In my mind it would be more reasonable for the first years contact to be in the UK for a couple of weeks. Especially as the children are 7 + 5. It's OK travelling to mainland europe at this age, but to australia is one hell of a jump in one go. Better to have initial contact in the UK and then a couple of weeks in australia in subsequent years.

It would be normal for the other parent who has relocated to pay for the travel and to organise it, he can either travel here to the UK or organise chaperones. I don't think it's reasonable for 60yr olds to be doing this, plus how many years are they going to be willing to do this? Not many I bet.

Contact in future years could be phased in for longer periods depending on the age of the children. All summer holidays is probably a bit too long - can the ex have contact during other holiday periods such as easter / half-term?

Hope this helps somewhat...

Thanks so much Yerblurt for taking the time to reply in such detail.