Good day everyone.
My son is 3yrs and 3m now, currently in mum's care, she is medically diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and anxiety, she has 2 other kids who does not live with her due to her mental health instabilities so the two kids are living their dad, in addition, she admitted smoking/spending £25 on cannabis (an illegal drug) a wk and suffers anxiety! By the way all the above are fact about her.
My problem had started even before my son was born, so to long to mention in here so I shall stick to present situation.
In 2016 and again 2017 the Redditch children's services did an assessment which a lot of worries about mum's erratic behaviour due to mental health was done as a results of calls from myself, neighbours in mums flat, mum's sis call to the services concerning her worries ect, Drs n child's nursary concers and many more. Each time the go for a visit, mum refuses them entry, one occasion she allows a door step check, long and sad story short, the case was closed saying 'due to lack of mothers willingness to engaged they were not able to gather enough evidence to escalate to child in need. Is that statement even legal, I thought the safety of the child is the services prioritise. The children's services knew about her diagnosis and her use of cannabis and many many other allegations from even her family members and yet nothing was done.
I wrote to the Worcestershire children's services telling them I disagree with thier way of handling the situation and recommendation, I have even wrote to my local PM asking for help, in the end nothing happened as I was advised by the services I would need to go to court. I feel very much victimised I most say, knowing the little I have above about my son's mum, his still left in her care, how is this still possible, her other two children don't even leave with her due to he mental illness and chaotic life style!
Taking the next step, I then went to court and in the 1st hearing she again managed to convinced and feed the court with more lies.... anyways some contact orders were put in place by the court of which she broke them right from the very 1st one. She had told the courts I was now a stranger to our son so a 1st supervised visit at her chosen place be made and it was to last for 3hrs due to the gact she said our so had a party to attend, a friend she brought to court was to bring my son to meet me. Well she turned up 20min late with my son herself and messaged me an hour later saying i can have him till 5 that evening saying she don't mind cancelling his part. And she has broken every single one since then.
My biggest problem now is the court ordered cafcass to do a section 7 report to include:
Where the child may live, his wishes, investigate my alleged mental, emotional and physical above and neglect my has been and is still suffering in the mums care, requested that mum ask her GP to provide a professional opinion on her medical conditions and the effects her very strong medications she takes might have on her cannabis use, a home visit to both parents house was ordered aswell.
I conducted a telephone interview with the cafcass FAV and it felt and seems I was beeing listened to by someone for a very long time. Then she visited mum just a day after my son went back from mine to his mum again after the Easter holidays, the FCA then rang me to say she will not be conducting a home visit to my house saying there was no need at this stage! This was when the alarm bell starts ringing.
The report has been concluded and the cafcass report was very biased and had twisted every said between myself and her and was very defensive on my ex partners side. Did not mention anything about my concerns in the past and present as I wrote her an email 2days after my son left telling her how worried I was and some stories this little 3yr old was saying randomly and his anger problem as he learns from mum. She did get the most important documents which was the GPS medical report of my ex of which I paid £55 for it already! She then stated her report that she used the adult wellbeing tool comprising of 4 responses based on honesty to justify my ex mental ability as a mum! Shocking to me! She has a mental condition so this tool dont even do or say nothing about her mental ability in adfition to anxiety and cannabis use. Believe me there is just so so many blunders and failures n the cafcass report that it makes anyone that reads it weep. She has recommended to courts that our son stay in his mum's care and that anytime she gets a relapse then my son to be brought to my care but that I must return him if mum gets better but did not say how i/we/who determines when she's ok so I assume she can just ring or txt me anytime to am well now bring him back, is this arrangement not a big disruption in the kids up bringing, educational and even emotional being toosed from mum to dad's willingly as mum's mental stability dictates?
I would like some help/advice as I have written to the cafcass lady handling the case to inform her her report was very biased and that it lacked credible understanding and investigation that where needed, she then say I'd have to take it up in court, my worries the conflict resolution court dates is in 2wks and I was the court my just act on her report and recommendation which was not done properly as I understand the courts listen to cafcass a lot. I have written a stament to the court addressing each point/recommendations cafcass has made letting the court I refuse it based on the points I made, I rang the court to inform them about this and I was to I could send it to the court using an email but it's not a guarantee that the judge might read it!
I am representing myself in a family court and do not have the backing of a lawyer so I'd please appreciate if anyone could advice me on what I can or should do to get the judge to read my email.
Thanks all
I had a very similar experience and found that the cafcass letter to the court barely covered the actual conversation that we had had over the phone. I then emailed cafcass with a point by point reference to each omission or error.
I received a letter back from them basically stating to stop wasting their time. It has been months since the email was sent and it has never been raised in court.
You've done what you can - the judge may read your email but whether or not he acts on it is a different thing. It may be that the errors that they've made may be grounds for an appeal at a later date.
Thanks a lot, it's a nightmare dealing with all this problems of one parent playing the spiteful game trying to punish the other and then forgetting that the child used as a weapon is being destroyed in the process and when the department who are supposed to be there for the kids blatantly refused to see and or do the right thing for the kid!
Sad really as I realised from reading others experience with cafcass, they seems to believe the parent who is clearly lying or manipulating, it's is said that these days the quiet n gentle ones suffers. Thanks anyway and good luck on your side.