[Solved] Contact Enorcement

If you self represent, then the cost is the court fee only (about £200). As to whether it will work and whether it's a can of worms - in reality, the position you are in at the moment is that it's not working now, so you have little to lose by trying, but you are going for the enforcement of an order, not applying for an order or a variation.

If your ex is illegally on legal aid, do you have evidence of this? If so, I'd certainly look at reporting this and getting her legal aid removed.

Thank you for your reply

Phoned up legal aid to report her on 3 or 4 occasions and wrote a letter, they didn t seem concerned and diid not even look into it from what i have heard back.

She wants to drag it into a variation and involve caffcass.
Do you know many people who have tried to enforce ? Is it successful?

I heard there had been recent changes to enforcements in favour but can t seem to reference anything ???

Stuart

Hi Stuart

Can you confirm that you don't have a solicitor, in which case we can ask our experts at CCLC for an opinion.

I had a solicitor for the court order a year ago but do not have one now as broke.

Spoke to the courts yesterday and they implied if the mother said the child didn t want to go (and she hated my wife) (she had other excuses throughout my daughters life beore my wife) it would probably go to caff cass and this could go on a bit either way,
is this not what we did at court most of last year all over again.

Why is this so hard ? I have done nothing wrong except want to see my daughter who is happy when with me but is being screwed up by a................ I am not like this, I am really easy going. It was my mother , father and brothers birthday this month and I asked if my daughter could maybe do a card as I am not getting my contact - no reply / no card =--Why????.

She says my daughter wants to see me but does not want to come so does not let her go?? I suppose she would do the same for school. or what would she do if I said this the other way around which does happen and did not bring her home (I do take her beck to her mums though)??

Last year she sited my mum as a place for me to meet me daughter in court now because ex has fallen out with my mum supposedly my daughter does not want to see her and go????

Its all madness and my child is being screwed up, I and my family are missing her, it was horrible at a close family wedding at weekend without .

But i still dont fancy caff cass . ex has already told my daughter she got it all wrong last time and she should of said something else . she told me.

Sorry for rant

Thanks for help

Hi Stuart

Since you don't have a solicitor now, I'll ask the CCLC to pop by and give some advice on enforcing an order. You can self-represent, and it may be worth reading yoji's guides at the top of the legal section

Dear Stuart

Thank you for your enquiry. We would need to know whether you have Parental Responsibility for your daughter.

You would have Parental Responsibility if:
• You were married to the mother;
• Your name is registered or re-registered on the birth certificate after the 1st December 2003
• You have a Parental Responsibility agreement with the mother;
• You have a Parental Responsibility Order from the court;
• You have a Residence Order from the court

We understand this is a distressing situation and hopefully the below advice will be of help to you.

We would advise that contact is seen as the right of the child and not the right of the parent, therefore contact should only be refused for good reason such as a child welfare concern.

We would advise that you firstly initiate mediation with the mother in regards to the contact issues present. Mediation is where a neutral third party would assist you whilst you try and negotiate an amicable agreement with the mother. To arrange Mediation please go on the National Family Mediation website http://www.nfm.org.uk/home or contact them on 03004000636.

If mediation is unsuccessful and the mother is still refusing to comply with the Contact Order this can be seen as Contempt of Court and can also be punishable with penalties. If the mother continuously refuses contact despite there being a Contact Order in place you can apply for an enforcement order. An enforcement order can be found on a C79 form from your Local Family Proceedings Court or through the www.justice.gov.uk website.
You will also be required to attach a £200 fee to this form, once you have filled in the application and attached the fee please hand the form to the Family Proceedings Court closest to where your daughter resides. Once you have filed your application, you will then be contacted with a hearing date.

The Law sees Contact as something a Child should have with both parents therefore as mentioned above contact should only be denied if there is a child welfare concern present. Therefore if the matter does reach court proceedings the Judge will have consideration to all issues present including your ex partner denying you contact despite there being an Order in place. The judge will also have consideration to the fact that there is already a Contact Order in place which has not been successful, after consideration of all issues present the judge will decide on the best step forward.

In regards to legal representation you can contact Community Legal Advice on 08453454345 to check your eligibility for Legal Aid. If you are eligible you can visit the Law Society website and use the ‘find a solicitor’ option to find solicitors in your local area who will accept Legal Aid and take on your case to represent you in Court. If however you are not eligible you can always represent yourself in Court.

If you have any further questions please contact us again via our webchat facility. The link to our webchat is http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com and can be accessed Monday to Friday 9am-6pm. Alternatively you can contact us on our freephone advice line which is 0808 8020 008 and available Monday to Friday 8am-8pm.

Yours sincerely,

Coram Children’s Legal Centre

thank you or your reply

I am on the birth certificate and have a court order made last year.
Allowing me half of all holidays, every Tuesday from school till 7, every second weekend . Also stipulating that the other parent should name should not be used in a negative.
My ex has continually broke the order

by not keeping contact
not providing passport
talking in a negative terms about me, my family and coming for contact (unbelievable some of the things she says)

It is cleared with the school that i pick up my daughter from there as the court order after my ex picked her up on my contact one time.
My daughter is really happy when here but any holidays or any irritation e.g my wife and i had a baby then contact stops. My daughter used to be fine dealing with everything but of recent she is totally brainwashed by her mum and family who continually says nasty things to her about me and my family and now consequently is saying she doesn't want to come with me. When I did talk to my daughter with her mum sitting there and her boyfriend then my daughter said she wanted to go to 4 things in my contact time including a wedding. My ex lead the conversation for her most of the time so despite my daughter saying yes my ex said we will see. On leaving the house it was sorted that I would pick up my daughter the next day. 2 Hours later my ex had cancelled two of the things but did say my daughter wanted to see me under her conditions , so it was not that she wanted contact but she wanted them under her terms and would not let her go.

Is that not what the court order is and why I spent a lot of time, money and upset on. So not to be told what to do by my ex and see my daughter and arrange nice things to do with her knowing she is coming. e.g I have booked loads of time off work and a holiday because my daughter wanted to come on her birthday weekend. Reading your reply it feels like my ex can just do what she wants still despite the court order.

I saw my daughter for 3 hours last month (from school). She is saying and holding from contact now because she says my daughter does not like my wife and so does not want to stay with me. My daughter has known my wife fro 5 years. Again when my daughter is here she is fine with my wife and this never came up in the court statements or in the caffcass report last year. But my ex has told my daughter that the caffcass officer got what she said all wrong and that she has to spend more time with me than she should and implied to them and makes out its really bad the amount of time she is with us. My daughter has changed from a happy child to a robot.
has there any new laws been passed to help with enforcement . There is know negotiating with my ex and if you can she goes back on it without a thought...

My daughter is saying she doesnt want to come because her mum has brainwashed her into thinking its bad to come with me, yet I cant make her come so what can I do when all is said and done?

Does the court ever actually back these enforcements attached? and if yes regularly??

from the position I am in with the court order if this does get re opened up what's the worst I could end up with based on what I have said.
If i do represent myself is it a lengthy process and will i be able to do a statement?

Stuart Brown

what would contempt of court involve and would it differ from enforcement?

Hi Stuart

I would suggest that you speak to the CCLC as a follow up to their reply as it would be easier to cover the issues quickly in a two way conversation.

Hi Stuart,

Your ex would appear to be guilty of parental alienation, which is a deliberate attempt by her to create a rift between you and your daughter.

Your ex has broken a court order and is, to all intents and purposes, in contempt of court. This means that the court could impose some kind of penalty on her. Unfortunately you need to apply for an Enforcement Order to get the ball rolling on all of this.

If money is an issue you can look to represent yourself. It may sound like a big step, but lots of dads do it and are successful in their applications. If you don't currently have legal representation you can speak to the CCLC directly for free legal advice. You can find a link to their website at the foot of this page...

FM '70

I have read up on parent alienation over night and this like a light bulb going on. But in reality at court will it wash. ??

My ex said prior to court last year "i have got rid of one father I can get rid of another" she has two children who have never seen there father since 4 years now they are 13 and 15.
The annoying thing is she is really good at this , she could lie for England and does- who else has three kids at private school yet still gets legal aid and all other benefits. I can t believe her bloke does not see through it and god knows what she say to the other parents at school as they hardly are sociable to me. I organised a birthday party for my daughter and only one replied out of 15. it was horrible , my daughter was so excited the night before and morning of the party and asking what dress and perfume to wear (she is 7 soon to be 8 if I see her) with me knowing no one was coming. Thats playground politics for you.

I have done nothing wrong but love my daughter and want to see he. Little do they know she is illegally claiming all these benefits, begging me to get back with her while with this other chap who she say is the best thing since sliced bread (he was ok until start telling me what i can and cant do with my daughter) and messing my daughters brain up.

When she was younger my daughter loved me so much and didn t want to go back to her mums . I wish i could turn back the clock now.

UK courts have been slow to recognise parental alienation, but I understand that it's something that's gaining more momentum and I see that your current order has a specific provision for neither parent to speak of the other in negative terms.

Stick to your guns. I don't think she's used to anyone standing up to her. It won't always be easy, but you must keep moving forward. Keep any text messages/emails and start to catalogue the details of any conversations you have with your ex or incidents that occur.

The CCLC will be able to advise you far better than I can on all of these issues.

Good luck!

FM '70

had some legal advice, had c79 ready to post , statement ready to enforce the order. But I am worried the ex is just using this to vary now my daughter is totally brainwashed and ready primed for caffcass. my ex stopped contact for over month now (mine 2weeks of it) but is offering contact on her terms e.g. my wife not there, but that would be like acknowledging the order does not exist and going back to being dictated to never knowing if you can or cant see my daughter. so I have ignored her offer. . Also looking back at caffcass report they totally had the wrong end of the stick (they talked about things that never happened e.g. weekly phone calls etc and even then you could see ex influence. Daughters birthday and holiday she requested coming up within month though. Any ideas??

Hi Stuart,

I think you should stick to your guns and go through with the enforcement.

As you say the reason behind the orginal contact order was to free yourself from the restrictions that your ex imposed on you, which ulimately interfered with the quality of contact that you had with your child.

I would would make a point in the enforcement application that not only is the mother restricting contact, and thereby physically alienating you from each other, you also have reason to believe that she continues to speak about you in a derogatory and negative manner designed to undermine your relationship with your daughter and alienate you further.

If you're not reperesented by a solicitor, then contact the CCLC and see whether there's an emergency order you can apply for to ensure that planned birthday/holiday contact goes ahead.

FM '70

hey iv been reading through your notes and i see you are are loggerheads like me......iv been going through this since 2007. over 20 broken orders onmy wifes part... 3/4 years with no contact . despite the orders in place.... on 5/8/2011 after monthsof no contact despite my constant calling a leaving messages i i again took this matter back to court... despite having all the proof i needed to show the judge that my wife was making this as difficult as poss he was not intrested.... alltho i suffer on a daily basis with the emotional stress and pain this causes to myself and my son the judge done nothing....alltho he did amend the contact order for a fresh year of visits he failed to punish my wife for failing to stick with these orders... i tried to tell him that this would still not work it fell on def ears..... on 10/8/2012 i was back in court as i applied for an enforcement of the contact order as once again the new order failed the min i walked out of court one years preivious... the order in place was that my wife was to make my daughter call me 2 times a week and i was to have half share of all holidays... i had 4 calls in the 1 year and 5 days since the order was made ... and no visits... i felt this time she would sure be in trouble for this and the judge would see something needed tobe done...... how wrong was i ... infact i came away from court feeling more deflated than iv ever felt due to the fact that my wife made my daughter wright a letter to the judge saying she didnt want to see me any more..... despite 5 caffcass reports saying otherwise this again fell on def ears to the judge....im completly dumbfounded the courts have cost me my relationship with my daughter..... altho i tried to remind the judge that we were there again to inforce the order she walked out once again smiling.........iv devoted almost 5 years of my life researching my case... and where the courts have failed and been negligent by failing to take the necessary steps in to place....iv now gone that step further and have a meeting with my local mp on the 25 /8/2012 for which i will be asking him to get involved with this and once again bring this to the attention of the houses of parliment.....i will fight our cause as hard as iv fought my courtcase and il leave my mp no choice but to make this a conversaton for someone who will listen and try put this right... i will also get him to join this site so he can personally read some of our stories and see what thousands of men like us go through on a daily basis... good luck with your case ..