Hey Fellow Parents
REMEMBER THE SYSTEM IS AGAINST THE RESPONDENT. I say this as the applicant can be the mother or the father. Respondent is Guilty from the get-go and they give no f*7k about Alienation.
This site has been helpful in providing knowledge and support for anyone going through the same situation, I thought I share my experience so far, to help those going through the same issue without the backing of legal aid or no financial support to argue the false allegations.
I will set out my topic with a quick background, ordeal I went through, provide some of my own advice and questions to the forum to help me through the stage.
Quick Background.
Me and the ex-split in 2016 we have 3 kids, she kicked me out and I lived in a rented room down the road.
I was visiting the kids every day/night and weekends
Up until June 2019 when I had moved on and got a new GF, this is when things got ugly and she weaponized the kids as she couldn’t stand the name of my GF being mentioned when the kids returned home and gradually limited my contact.
I initiated the Mediation in Oct 2019 and stupidly missed out on the 3rd appointment, where we both would come to an agreement, as I got the dates mixed up with the following week and asked if we can rearrange, didn’t get a response.
Feb 2020 - Lasted 15 min, I got an Urgent Prohibited Steps Order against me(Saturday Evening by Text message with BEER EMOJIS)) and we agreed that that I will have the kids 3:30pm to 6:30pm BUT THIS WAS NOT PUT IN AS A COURT ORDER. Court Hearing scheduled for 15 June 2020.If you do not have the funds I would not recommend a solicitor here and to make sure you have the child arrangements set out in a COURT ORDER. They didnt not want to hear my story and wanted to Safeguarding in place.
During this time the mother was testing my patience, 2 weeks in and she stopped Monday visitation(3 Hours Every Monday), Covid 19 happened and she used that to stop any contact with me BUT WAS CAUGHT ALLOWING HER FAMILIES OVER ON CAMERA AND PLAYING WITH THEM IN THE PARK, she had mentioned to her solicitor that her Father and Sister was High risk and stopped all contact and self Isolating, This had a massive impact with the relationship I had with the kids and slowly they would say they don’t want to speak to Daddy.
5th June – She tried to apply for a Non molestation Order and was refused and again refused in court as there was no evidence. She also wanted it linked to the Child arrangement order and the judge refused this. Her Solicitor also tried to get me to take an Undertaking – PLEASE DON’T ACCEPT THIS AS CAFCASS AND OTHER JUDGES WILL USE THIS AGAINST YOU Later on. The undertaken was simply to not go round to hers, which seems like an easy thing to agree to but you are also admitting to the allegations. SO PLEASE DON’T AGREE TO IT, IF YOUR SOLICITORS SAY AGREE IT. SACK THEM AND FIND ANOTHER ONE. This is my advice if you have evidence of false allegations and to be honest you do not need a Solicitor at this time as you are simply contesting it or like in my case the Judge had refused the application. A statement is required from you and just respond to only the allegations from her statement. Here solicitor sneakily tried to put in a case summary after I put in my statement the day before but I was given the chance to respond to those claims,.
15 June 2020 – FHDRA, call lasted 15 minutes, CAFCASS gave the report and found apparently emotional and psychological abuse from both parties, but the weird thing is this was not mentioned in her Original Statement. They asked that she provides a GP report as I had alleged she was depressed and misusing her prescriptions. We pushed for Child contact through court order but cafcass said they don’t enforce this and now I am stuck with only seeing the kids for 45 minutes of which she requested I take them to a local park and return them unsupervised as suppose to the 3 hours we had agreed at the PSO hearing.
So that is my story and I will provide you my advice.
1. Evidence is not required at the 1st hearing for the PSO, NMO or CAO BUT refresh your memory of the background of how this has all come across as it will be required later. Even though the evidence is not required be proactive and create a storyline with your evidence. You have long wait till your next hearing and Trust me Keep yourself busy. If you don’t have any evidence, then I’m sorry the court couldn’t care less about your claims.
2. If she has put a PSO or Child Arrangement Order, Get it to be put in an order to have contacts set out, they will agree for contact in court but if its not in the order, 2 weeks down the line she can tell you sorry you cant have the kids today and it isn’t a court order. I found out the HARD WAY. So please do not make this mistake.
3. If you need to contact her make sure it is by text, do not talk to her on the phone, as I had found out she will use this against you and apply for NMO against you. Luckily this is exactly what I was doing and now she has to fight her own allegations with her own text replies.
4. I do not think you need a solicitor for the 1st hearing as it is for them to prove the allegations and you are simply going in there to contest it. NO EVIDENCE IS REQUIRED FROM YOU as this stage. I have forked out nearly £1500 for it, lasted less then 15 minutes with solicitor only putting 1 sentence in that whole call.
5. CAFCASS- As much as you are honest with them. This might go against you as I had found out, I was honest with all her allegations, despite this they said I accused her of mental and emotional abuse and I got the same from her. Even though I was being allowed to see the kids they gave no recommendations to the court to allow more structure to child arrangements until the next hearing. FROM THAT EXPIERENCE THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE KIDS AND HAVE ALIENATED ME FROM MY OWN KIDS WITH LACK OF INPUT TO THE COURT.
6. It be best if you have the funds to put a NMO against them first, again it will be in the persons favour who ever puts the application through first and save you from further court harrasments orders with false allegations.
7. The court asks that you provide all the documents 14 days before the hearing, this is false they allowed both parties to submit them 24 hours before the hearing. this is what my solicitor did and I didnt understand why at first, but apparently this can be done so If you did submit 14days before and submitted to them and the court then it gives the applicant to respond to it and make further allegations 24 hours before the hearing, this will be too late for you to respond to it and it has given them the upper hand for the Judge.
Question to the forum.
1. Should you apply for NMO after you get a CAO, because the ex is going to do it anyway.
2. Her sister is a lawyer and she is getting funds from legal aid, how does someone approach a case like this when they are getting an insight on how to beef up the case and extend the case out as long as possible?
3. How can I get the ex for Perjury as I have hard evidence which will prove she has been lying through out from the start of the court order rather then having to wait till its over? This will stop her from harassing me through further Court orders.
4. She has got me for PSO,CAO and NMO, what else do you reckon she can get me for? Just so I can be prepared and be a step ahead.
I will provide more advice as I go along but I would like to reiterate the RESPONDENT IS GUILTY FROM THE GET GO, CAFCASS REPORT IS SHITE, why it takes them 3 months to come up with a report when it takes them 2 phones calls of about 45 minutes and a report that could of been created with 7 days after that I don’t know.
I now have to wait a further 3 months with only being able to see my kids for 45 minutes each week…. And 1 hour facetime call every other day…
I will provide further update as things go on.
sounds tough. in my case i just applied for CAO early. never gave my ex any reason to apply for NMO/PSO. i do recall seeing paperwork, where she ticked a box to apply for PSO lol. got her nowhere.
opposing solicitors can be pain in the backside often. my ex's tried to get me to agree to postpone the first hearing for CAO, because her legal aid hasn't come through, and shes breastfeeding. :p told them to sod off. later she lost legal aid after i ratted on her for fraud. she somehow got it back a year later. fighting the ex is exhausting and not worth the hassle.
think in all these scenarios, best thing to do is apply for CAO first and focus on that.
These interim/direction/FHDRA hearings can seem like a drag and make you feel powerless.
It's important to have some patience - when it will end up in the lap of a judge at a final hearing, he's going to look at the behaviour of all parties for an extended period.
To that effect I'm not sure what throwing around NM applications is going to achieve. Sure it will grant some further legal hearings/steps that will annoy everyone and deplete resources, but they'll make matters more complicated and will involve more professionals. In the end when it comes before a judge for a contested/final hearings he won't look very favourably at vexatious conduct.
You want to get to your final hearing as fast as possible to get a CAO with contact. Anything in between is temporary, any hearings in between have the potential to delay. You don't want that.
Yeah unfortunately at the FHDRA no evidence is heard.... just a determination of what the issues are... any contact ordered at that is by consent. The CAFCASS report is safeguarding one...
To be honest CAFCASS and their delays are a national disgrace. I can never wrap my head around how a supposed child professional can reach life long decisions regarding a child after talking to each parent for 1 hour and to the child for a few minutes. CAFCASS are always incentivised to go for the most straightforward solution at the expense of kids and parents....And to add insult to injury they take months to do this..
...but keep going.
A section 7 report will now be ordered in your case.
If you want to throw allegations/accusations at CAFCASS/judge, you really want to think long and hard about whether, even if accepted, they will change the case materially. IF they don't, just don't throw them - they'll make you look petty. Unfortunately all the examples you cite above are somewhat of that nature. You need to have some hard evidence of drugs or obvious child neglect. it's a very high bar to surpass.
I would be wary of statement creep - if the other party is making statements after the deadline, tell the judge this and tell him you haven't had the chance to review it.
Thanks Flyingember,
The misuse of drugs was a whatsapp conversation she had with my sister, about taking the pills to stay mellow that honest conversation with the CAFCASS officer has now blown up into a Section 7.
Advice from the solicitors and and feedback on here was to be as honest as possible to the CAFCASS officer, Is it worth mentioning this or what should be avoided when speaking to these officers to avoid them getting a section 7 report?
Surely if they are Children adviosry/support service they must have some power to enforce the court to interim contact in the order for the childrens best interest.
I've said to be patience but 3 months of lock down and then and 3 months where they will be staying at home not doing much is hard to take in,
sounds tough. in my case i just applied for CAO early. never gave my ex any reason to apply for NMO/PSO. i do recall seeing paperwork, where she ticked a box to apply for PSO lol. got her nowhere.
opposing solicitors can be pain in the backside often. my ex's tried to get me to agree to postpone the first hearing for CAO, because her legal aid hasn't come through, and shes breastfeeding. :p told them to sod off. later she lost legal aid after i ratted on her for fraud. she somehow got it back a year later. fighting the ex is exhausting and not worth the hassle.
think in all these scenarios, best thing to do is apply for CAO first and focus on that.
That was the plan if the family mediation didn't work, but she had beat me to it, with I would assume her sisters knowledge of how the system works with a PSO order.
Her solicitor had taken nearly 1.5 months to respond to interim contacts and every response now is over a week as oppose to 24 hours how it was in the first week.
What issues to bring up is a matter for judgement.
I would highlight the misuse of drugs - more so if you have evidence.
I wouldn't highlight things like the beer emoji (not saying you are going to, or did).
A section 7 is inevitable given that residence is contested - has it not been ordered already?
Interim orders must be complied with - and the way to enforce them is via way of enforcement applications. Unfortunately such an application is likely going to end up in the next hearing on the case anyway where you were going to discuss matters further.
The process sucks for the parent denied contact - that's for sure. CAFCASS/SS can help by talking to the parents but they are powerless to enforce.
Thanks Flyingember,
The misuse of drugs was a whatsapp conversation she had with my sister, about taking the pills to stay mellow that honest conversation with the CAFCASS officer has now blown up into a Section 7.
Advice from the solicitors and and feedback on here was to be as honest as possible to the CAFCASS officer, Is it worth mentioning this or what should be avoided when speaking to these officers to avoid them getting a section 7 report?
Surely if they are Children adviosry/support service they must have some power to enforce the court to interim contact in the order for the childrens best interest.I've said to be patience but 3 months of lock down and then and 3 months where they will be staying at home not doing much is hard to take in,
they do section 7 reports as a routine, to investigate if there's any safety/welfare issues of the kids, before making any recommendations for contact. when they interview, just stay child focused and ask what contact you want. you have to stay calm, as you will be expected to respond to some of your ex's allegations.
yes its tough. i have an order already. kids have been kept away from me for 3 months, with lockdown excuse. so all i can do is wait for lockdown to be lifted, or schools to open again. when i was in court. kids were already being kept away from me. i asked for interim contact. instead i just got extra video calls.
Thanks Flyingember,
The misuse of drugs was a whatsapp conversation she had with my sister, about taking the pills to stay mellow that honest conversation with the CAFCASS officer has now blown up into a Section 7.
Advice from the solicitors and and feedback on here was to be as honest as possible to the CAFCASS officer, Is it worth mentioning this or what should be avoided when speaking to these officers to avoid them getting a section 7 report?
Surely if they are Children adviosry/support service they must have some power to enforce the court to interim contact in the order for the childrens best interest.I've said to be patience but 3 months of lock down and then and 3 months where they will be staying at home not doing much is hard to take in,
they do section 7 reports as a routine, to investigate if there's any safety/welfare issues of the kids, before making any recommendations for contact. when they interview, just stay child focused and ask what contact you want. you have to stay calm, as you will be expected to respond to some of your ex's allegations.
yes its tough. i have an order already. kids have been kept away from me for 3 months, with lockdown excuse. so all i can do is wait for lockdown to be lifted, or schools to open again. when i was in court. kids were already being kept away from me. i asked for interim contact. instead i just got extra video calls.
Heres the thing, CAFCASS From there report to the ex gathered it was emotional/psycological abuse to her, but in her application to the court she stated it was domestic abuse to the kids. CAFCASS haven't gathered any issues about the original allegation, so why is there a need to stop the Child Arrangement order going any further or limiting interim contact?
They are now asking for 5 statements from each party before proceeding with a fact finding hearing, does this mean they will be delaying it even more? does anyone know how what the delay is from the statements to CAFCASS saying they would want a fact finding hearing.
1) I would not apply for a non molestation order . You wouldn't get one even if you tried to obtain one. when you apply for one your ex will be 10x more hostile and also would seek revenge and feel like she got one over on you as you failed.
2) It doesn't matter she knows someone that is a lawyer if you refuse to ruck with them. best way is not to get involved in mud slinging . I would raise no allegations and concerns towards ex and fully concentrate on children only. if you want to mudsling as dads always lose and you are disadvantaged as she does have lawyer who no doubt knows the ins and outs of playing dirty. if there is a fact finding hearing only person that can lose is you and not her.
Even if you win you are likely to get contact you would of got anyway and maybe noted on record that you more than likely didn't do something .
3) woman don't get done for perjury. its very common in family court for ex partners to lie over and over again. it is also common for them to lie in criminal courts. there is no penalty only in rare cases if a dad perhaps had been locked up for a significant amount of time
4) don't text/ring unless only about children. when you do have children to protect yourself make a small log of what you done that day and what they had for tea /dinner . if they were happy or any issues that come up.. email it to yourself as it will then have time and date and you can refer back to it if necessary if you are accused of untoward things
section 7 reports are always 13 weeks no matter what case it is . This isn't cafcass fault . the family court is a very long process.
I would seriously consider wether you want to provide 5 statements for find a fact hearing knowing she wont get into trouble and actually just forget about ex partners awful behaviour and concentrate solely on getting a great contact order and how u can make it work so it cant be sabotaged.
school picks up for example is a must to avoid conflict with ex and false accusations
Thanks Flyingember,
Heres the thing, CAFCASS From there report to the ex gathered it was emotional/psycological abuse to her, but in her application to the court she stated it was domestic abuse to the kids. CAFCASS haven't gathered any issues about the original allegation, so why is there a need to stop the Child Arrangement order going any further or limiting interim contact?
They are now asking for 5 statements from each party before proceeding with a fact finding hearing, does this mean they will be delaying it even more? does anyone know how what the delay is from the statements to CAFCASS saying they would want a fact finding hearing.
from what i experienced, the way the courts work is if your already seeing your children regularly,and you head to court, then it highly likely they will continue to let you see the children during the interim. when i first went to court, I was seeing kids every saturday. so court had no reason to stop contact in interim, and while more hearings happen. there have been cases though where they do stop contact, if one parent make serious allegations. they stop contact while the allegations are investigated.
yes, fact finding hearing delays things even more. its similar timeline to a Section 7 report. 8-12 weeks.
Is there any point in me doing the 5 allegations against her, As I really don't want to delay the case any longer and simply just respond to her allegations. For some reason I get a feeling this is just a tactical approach to delay the final hearing as much as possible.
I don't see what I will achieve by providing 5 allegations, hoping someone might shed some light here
All I want is Visitation at the end of the day as a court order.
there probably is no point to be fair. what you want is a contested final hearing and avoid a find a fact hearing. you just want to get a good amount of contact and co parent with childrens mum. let her raise allegations if she decides too and just politely respond by saying they aren't factual and it didn't happen. raising allegations just lines solicitors pockets as only people ever gain from such hearings are your ex partner as they ones withholding contact