Hey all, this is my first post here ( if this topic is in wrong area please feel free to move mods) but thought id share some of my experiances and see if others have had similar experiances themselves?
My story starts with the birth of my first child..me and my ex partner worked full time for the same company, where we were both doing opposite 12 hr shifts (one at home the other at work each day) roll on another 18 months and my second child was on the way, Not long after the birth ( 2 months) i gave up work to look after my children as my ex began her nurses training, we split up whilst she was ending her second year, it was a little messy and i must admit to being pretty depressed by this point (id given up work, had stopped seeing my friends, she was in control of the money, plus we had been made homless and put into B&B and temporary flat due to not being able to take over tenancy of previous property, ).
Anyways after a tough few weeks it resulted in the next 8 or 9 months with us sharing the care still, I had the children 4 days and her 3 days a week,. all was pretty amicable until she was about to qualify from her training. Out of the blue she didnt return the kids and just sent one text saying she wanted them living with her full time(at her parents i might add). A week later i get a solicitors letter stating she wants full residency and offered me no contact whatsoever. At the initial court appearance she refused any mediation with cafcass and offered me one sunday a fortnight (not even over night) which ofcourse i had to take until any evidence was heard. cafcass were appointed to the case and the rollercoaster began.
statement after statement began, full of pettiness, spitefulness and lies..such as i was continuously drinking too much etc on top of that she said I had previously stopped contact and due to that didnt see the kids at all for a 3 month period between sept and xmas, This was actually over the period when my eldest had first started school so I arranged to meet her teacher (who thankfully had remembered me well from the school pick up)
In that hearing out of the blue a letter was produced written by that teacher saying she was lying and she remembered me well from sept and that actually since she had had the residency of the girls my eldest was continuously being late for school.
The judge basically tore my ex apart and in his judgement called her pathetic and trivial and that in no way had she thought about the girls wellbeing nor the fact that they have always had me in their life on atleast a shared basis.
cafcass were ordered to do their section 7 report and as it was the school holidays he put it backed to a shared 50/50 arrangement until the next hearing in late sept.
This is the part that left me speechless.. A cafcass officer came to mine and then i took the girls to see her at the cafcass centre.
during my meetings with them i raised my concerns..basically that she was using them as a weapon and that i was worried about the lateness at school and also sleeping arrangements as they were living at her mum and dads with 2 sisters a brother and 2 dogs in a small 3 bed house etc
i started going to the school and printing off the registration when it started again and found out that since we had split up over a year ago the lateness averaged 4 days a week and was still continuing in that pattern. this is in contrast of my zero lateless for the same period ( its a pet hate of mine..bit ott i know!)
2 days before the hearing i get the section 7 report. Basically they went against everything the judge had said, had not even mentioned the lateness at school, her lying or infact anything that was anywhere near my side of things, they said i should see them every other weekend and that she should have full custody. This was backed up in the report by the cafcass officer saying that shared care could not work.
In court, to cut a long story short the cafcass officer was actually taken off the case as she had obviously had no understanding of the law regarding shared care and another officer was appointed to do another report ( it was the original cafcass officers superior) they were given another 8 weeks to compile this with the date set at that time to return to court.
now this bit beggars belief.. a few weeks later i received a letter addressed to my children who were 5 and 3 by this point (I was tempted to actually attatch an image of that here!) in the letter which they wouldnt be able to read let alone understand, it said that they knew how important it was for them to see mummy and daddy equally and that is what they would tell the judge, they even done a rota of days where they could see both parents equally!
eventually we get to the final hearing, the section 7 report was re written saying they think it should be shared residency..
alls well.. until the above officer after being asked questions by my barrister decides she wants to defer to the original report and again saying shared care just doesnt work!!!
basically she gets taken off the case too and then gets absolutely ripped apart by the judge for writing to the kids and even more so doing a rota when it would be up to the court to decide what happened!!
i get shared residency and both barristers and judge talk about cafcass and their non understanding of the law. the barristers ask the judge wether they can write to the cafcass legal side of my local area to see what is going on,,
I then decide a few months later to do a formal complaint as i was shocked how bad Cafcass were. so who deals with the complaint? the exact office im complaining about! they say they have never heard anything from the courts or either barrister and defended themselves against my complaint completely.
head against brick wall springs to mind.
now i dont want to be negative for anyone dealing with cafcass as im sure different branches would be better in dealing with things but i do think to be safe just make sure you document everything and get as much detail possible to back your evidence up. i was told by my barrister the courts as a norm go with the section 7 report 90% of the time.
as for shared residency, this has been working well and we have the kids a week at a time each with the changover on a friday after school and its been nearly 5 years since it was awarded.
that said, the girls still live at their grandparents with their mum who works full time and earns pretty good money. As i have no other family i am only able to work part time to get by financially (crazy but true as i dont earn a big wage). this is due to a loophole i quickly found in having child benefit and tax credits split between parents (i get for one child and ex the other) this basically means i can get help for childcare for one child and zero help for the other. I still pay 50/50 for everything but am now thinking of getting maintenance to help if i can. (not too sure if its worth it?)
on a moral ground having the shared care im more than happy to split everything but after ex left i found out she hadnt paid any of the bills for nearly a year so she left me in a quite a bit of debt which she has never helped pay back.
Do you guys think going for maintenance is fair when its shared residency? it will certainly rock the applecart again 🙁
thanks for reading guys
I think that you should request maintanance but as it will undoubtedly upset the apple cart you must balance this with keeping any status quo for the benefit of your children.
If you decide that requesting maintanance is the way to go having considered this then I would do it.
Regards,
Dave
I can't add anything really to what DaveR has said - ultimately it's up to you whether you think it's worth the money to rock the boat - if she decides to claim the children are living with her more than 50/50, then you'll lose the child benefit etc.
One thing I'm not clear on - are you paying maintenance to your ex for one of the children? If so, perhaps you could simply come to an arrangement to stop that.
the way the court set it was that we each received child benefit for one of the kids, its completely 50/50 as we have them fri to fri alternatively. she isnt getting maintenance but she could in turn claim for our other child but due to me only working part time it would still be alot less. id be paying about £5 a week roughly where as she would be paying £24.
to be honest if there was any way i could just claim back the money she owed in debt for when she lived here i'd just do that and have be done with it. it was a bit complicated as through her nurses training she got a dependency allowance for me being at home with the kids (while i earnt sod all) and yet because i still lived at the address after we split i have had to take the debt on and yet she paid the graand total of zilch.
i just dont know whether legally she is required to pay atleast her half. believe you me if she can get away with it she will!
it certainly would be a [censored] of a lot less in the long run, i guess its just tricky as i dont trust the court and/or children services and i can imagine her kicking off again. thanks for the advice i appreciate it though., im actually quite a proud person so dont really want to even go there but its frustrating when shes been living at home for 7 years with baby sitters on tap and on a good wage while im struggling to make ends meet but still paying half of everything regarding the kids and paying off her debts on top of that!