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I wonder if you can please help me? I split with my partner when my son was six weeks old. My ex partner basically didnt want me as soon as our son was born. It broke my heart to leave him. I am his bioligical father and I am named on the birth certificate. When I left she promised me faithfully that she would never stop me seeing my son. It started off fine I was visiting my son every other saturday for the day. Then out of the blue my ex said that my visits had to be cut to 4 hours every other saturday. I had no choice but to go along with it as my son is only a baby. I continued to visit for the fours she said, then again out of the blue I recieved a letter from a solicitor saying my visits were cut to four hours once per month. I was totally devestated and couldnt do anything whatsoever about it. I have pleaded with her to return to fortnightly visits but she refuses. She is trying to say that I have never been to visit my son fortnightly and have never even contacted her to ask after him. It is all lies of course. Every week without fail I call, text or leave an answerphone message asking about my son. I either get completely ignored or get a one word answer back say 'fine'. I even had to contact one ger family a few weeks ago because she was ignoring my calls and I needed to make sure they were ok. She then went on to say "prove you have been here every other week". Fortunately I can prove it because I never visit my son without taking photographs and videos of him to show my family. and with todays technology every photograph and video is dated the day it was taken. Because she has started to tell lies about I am worried sick about going to see my son alone in case she falsely accuses me of something. The last visit with my son was in February, my mother and my sister came with me which my ex agreed to. We had a really lovely time with my son even though my ex refusing to let me take him out of her house. my son is nearly eight months old now and for the fours we were with him my ex had no interaction with him at all and yet she refuses to let me see him without her being there. I have now received another letter from her solicitor saying that contact will only be for 4 hours once per month in her home and I must always be on my own or I wont be allowed to see him. Because of her lies about me I am so scared that she is trying to set me up, get me there on my own and then falsly accuse me of something because I wont have any witness's to say otherwise. I have made an application to the court now but i'm new to all this and i'm scared of the outcome. Plus I dont want to have to wait until the court before I see my son again but equally I cant risk going on my own. Can you please help and advise me.
Hi Magshan
An awful situation, and you ex really does sound like she's trying to manipulate the whole situation very much to get you in trouble.
It sounds like you have been extremely sensible keeping photos with dates etc, even though it presumably wasn't your original intention to have to use them in court. If you can show that she is saying you didn't attend, and yet show that you did, then immediately, the accuracy of anything she says is going to be questioned, which is good for you in court.
As for the coming visit, consider getting something like this (and make sure you know how to use it comfortably before you go):
http://www.maplin.co.uk/spy-camera-watc ... 8&t=module
The recording is limited to about 2 hours, so you may need to figure out a way to extend this, as I would say that you need to record the whole contact, rather than just start it if any trouble occurs, just so that you can show you haven't cut out bits that aren't favourable to you. I'm not sure the about the legality of using one of these (though you will have been invited into your ex's house for contact), but if it were me, I'd be happy to face a charge of illegally using the camera in order to avoid a ficticious, and more serious charge that may be levelled against me - plus you could easily argue mitigating circumstances if you were charged (let's face it, you are only going to reveal the existance of the recording if your ex makes false accusations against you). As always, I would recommend taking legal advice as a matter of urgency before your next contact visit.
I hope you're right about the court. I have always had a bad feeling about courts but people keep telling me that family courts are different and will want the children to have contact with both parents. I pray they are right because right now I feel she holds all the cards.
Generally, the court system is adversarial which is why a lot of people fear the courts. The family court tries to get away from that idea - their prime objective is the welfare of the children and they are (in my experience anyway) extremely good at cutting through the [censored] that is sometimes thrown at them.
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