[Solved] First time going to court

Hi there Cuddles and welcome 🙂

I'm also a mum and I supported my son in his fight for custody, which we won!

I'm not sure what legislation you are refering to, there is Legal Aid reform coming in in April.... Parents will no longer be able to get Legal Aid to go to court for contact/PR/ Residency etc.

So if your son is on Legal Aid it wouldnt do to delay, although if he already has his Legal Aid certificate then he will be ok, at least for the duration that the certificate is active.

If your son has been threatened, it would be advisable to report that to the police. If there are any threats made in future, its advisable to report it to the police. They would log it, ask them to, and it can be bought up in court to illustrate unreasonable behaviour. Without that theres no proof this sort of thing is happening. the police may wish to talk to her and her family about it but that would be the extent of it.

It would be advisable to start some kind of diary of events and keep a record of everything that happens, keep all txts and emails. Its always better to make contact through txts, emails because then there is proof of content. If thats not always possible make transcripts of all conversations. In fact make a note of absolutely everything and anything!

The facebook incident, whilst unfortunate, isnt the end of the world and you could claim entrapment if it were to be bought up in court. The very reason for having to go to court is because they are denying the contact that is necassary for the bonding process. The court will always want both parents to be a childs life and this is considered to be in the childs best interests.

The first hearing is likely to be very short, will your solicitor be asking for an interim contact order? Make sure the court are aware that you were allowed regular contact which was stopped for no goood reason.

Good luck with everything and keep your chin up 🙂

...I meant to mention, it wouldnt be advisable for your son to go to their house alone, or place himself in any situation where accusations can be made against him, such as harrassment or worse, violent behaviour. As they are happy to use underhand tactics to back their position, they might think nothing of making false allegations!

Thank you Nannyjane for your reply.

My son had contact at their house from when the child was born until August of last year. They had a mediation meeting where things were arranged that he would become more involved with the little girl. When they came out of mediation, she spoke with her parents who she lives with. He was supposed to go down the next day to start this extra time and he received a text saying that she had not agreed to anything and that only what came from the solicitors would be what was happening. A few days later, he received a letter stating that contact was being cut from every week until every 2 weeks. By this time, the child was crawling and crawled over to my son and they spent the 2 hour visit playing, which did not go down well with the family. The next time he visited, the mother took the child upstairs and spent the whole of his 2 hour visit up there. Their excuse was that she needed to sleep but they would not let him change his visiting times. I know babies need to sleep but my son could hear the mother and little girl playing in the bedroom when he nipped to the loo. This happened every visit until it was stopped completely in September.

We have been asking the solicitors from the beginning if he could take the child to our house or to a contact centre where he could get proper contact with her but they refused stating that he needed to bond with her before she could go anywhere with him. He asked if they could both take her out for a walk in her pram on nice days but again that was refused. They have been terribly controlling in this situation.

None of our family have ever met her and I doubt she would recognise us or even my son with her being such a little one.

Not sure what the solicitors are going for to be honest. We are not happy with them but cannot change because he is going through legal aid.

The new law I was wondering about was the Family Law legislation that comes into effect on 18 March. Only know about this as a family member is involved in mediation and said they are having lots of changes due to the new law.

In my opinion most family law solicitors are blood sucking parasites!......draining the life out of fathers at the expense of the children who would benefit so much from having two loving parents not just one!

a father who loves and misses his child terribly, a father wanting to be invloved with his child life and not miss out on their growing up...... to a solicitor/law firm this is an easy way to make a lot of money!!! £10k seems to be the figure most of us fighting seem to end up spending.
the more delays and letters they send the more it cripples a father......this adds more stress and tension to the pot and makes it almost impossible for the parents to act rationally over what is really best for their child.

Rant over!

for time with such a young child its difficult to suggest what is reasonable.......but being under their roof with the girls parents there is not a healthy environment for you son to be in....it leaves him way to vunerable to any number of allegations that would be their word against his.

i would suggest a contact centre would be a better place for a starting point to build the bond up with the child....less stress on the father which can be picked up on by the child. also without the girls parents there the girl may actually be a little more relaxed too.

I would suggest that contact needs to be away from the home as it's never going to work there from what you have said. I think initially it's best to talk through the options with the solicitor.