[Solved] If my ex freely gives me my child can i keep her

Hi there and welcome 🙂

As you have parental responsibility and you are concerned for your daughters welfare, and there is no residency order in place that was ordered in court you might be able to do this. I would however give the police a call and explain your situation and ask them what your legal position is before acting. If the police tell you that you cannot do this then I would contact the Social Services and tell them that you have serious concerns for your daughter, that you believe the mother is often under the influence of drink and drugs whilst in charge of your daughter, and also the distress your daughter is displaying... use the words at risk of harm and suffering psychological abuse. Ask whoever you speak to at the SS to make sure there is a record of your call and what your concerns are.

The next step would be to apply for Residency through the courts so that the mother is not in a position to take her back.

My son has custody of his son, his mother at first told us to go and collect my grandson but then after a couple of days demanded we take him back. We refused as he didnt want to go and there were neglect and abuse issues. The police came but said as my son had parental responsibility they couldnt intervene. It ended with a court battle for custody and my son was successful. However I have heard of other dads trying to keep their child and the child being forcably returned to the mother, that why you must check with the poilice first.

Good luck 🙂

ive spoken to my local police station and they said to me that i could take her and she can't do anything but the only thing is that it will be on record so she can use that against me in court.

now i dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing?

confused

...I'm afraid no one can tell you what will happen or what to do, its up to you to make the decision about what is best. I think you must weigh up the pros and cons and give it a great deal of thought.

How long have you been having contact on Friday, as you say you didnt see her for 2 years. If the contact has only just been re-established it might be difficult to get a court to grant you Residency. If you took her and then were ordered to return her, just imagine what effect that might have on her.

I know how upsetting it is to think your child isnt being cared for properly, but usually there must be a serious risk of harm before a court will remove a child from the mother. Leaving her upstairs and not allowing her to talk to you are not in themselves what might be considered as causing serious harm.

Its an awful situation to be in and I have every sympathy for you....in my sons case, his son was known to Social Services as a child at risk and the mother was known to police, she tested positive for cocaine, so there were a lot of issues that led to my son being granted custody. Even with everything it was still touch and go wether the court was going to send him back to his mother.

the police said that when she comes to me i have to check for bruising then if their is bruising i would have to ask how it happened if it turns out that it is a case of the mother or her new bf then i have to bring her to the police station for a statement, once the statement has been written n i tell them that i will keep her in my custody till court ( the marker would not stand on me in court as it was for the sake of my daughter "risk" etc etc.

Her mother is 37 years old and i am 23 my daughter is coming on 7 years old. she started sleeping with me when i was 15, she used to invite me and friends in gave us weed n alcahole then one thing led to another, she mentally brainwashed me and at the time i was unaware what what going on, i lived on cloud 9 n not the earth she introduced me to cocaine and it went from their, then she started to kick me out but when it was pay day she would wanna know me again ( like i said at the time i was on cloud 9) anyway their is a lot more to the story than that but i'm not gonna type everything on here.

she works at the school as a dinner lady but at 2pm is down the pub untill its time to pick up the kids. ( and b4 u say call SS i did and they are so useless they stated to me that it doesn't matter how drunk the parent is they can still b in charge of a kid ( baring in mind that my daughter told me mummy was drunk and had a fight with the neighbough and she got kicked n fell on top of me) i told Social Services and they didn't care! after that incident she stopped me from seeing my daughter for 2 years
i also took present to my daughter for her birthday and she called the police on me saying i was kicking down her door and threatening to kill her etc. luckily i had everything on record from before i got to her house till when the police turned up so no charges where bought against me, they did send a report to social services that stated at 7pm mum smelled of alcohol but social services ignored that.

i hold a personal licence and a security licence so i have to record everything i do when it comes to her so i don't loose my licence because she makes things up.

i know that my daughter is not happy and i had to listen to her a number of times shouting at my daughter n making her cry while my daughter was on the phone to me.

its stressful n even more stressful that the new legal aid law is coming out in april.
i had a car accident 3 weeks after i last say my daughter in 2011 where i had 2 exploded disk in my back because someone crashed into me while they was busy on the phone.

anyway thanks for your help and sorry about the moan lol just needed to get it out 🙂

...Its ok to moan and get it out! I understand what you're going through 🙂

Social Services can come across like they're not interested and it makes me so angry. They let my son down too 😡

Do you have a solicitor? If not you have just under five weeks to get one and get your application for legal aid sent off, as you applied before the cut off, you will be covered. Even if you decide not to take your daughter, I think you should still apply for a proper Contact Order.

We're here to help, advise where we can and listen... please let us know how you get on with it all 🙂

thanks alot for your help, i will be applying for legal aid and would like to get a residence order in the long run

thanks a lot

The police are obviously sympathetic to your plight. What you could do is to tell your daughter that if she is scared of her mum, because she has been drinking or fighting, to ring you straight away. You can then ring the police immediately and tell them you think your daughter may be in danger, and ask them to go to the house and you'll meet them there. If you can get the police to remove your daughter from the home and give her to you, you have a much better chance of getting residence in court (and you apply immediately she goes home with you) as you will have the police report to back you up, plus the police have removed her, not you, so there is no case for abduction.

Only problem with that is I live 100 miles away n my daughter has her phone taken off her at 7pm till 9am.
The police said as long as she hands her over to me for my weekend there is nothing she can do as she has no court order to stop me, and the police have done a report on her that at 7pm she was already drunk, they sent it to SS but when I called them they said their is no limit on how much a parent can drink so they brushed it off didn't even go round their

..I'm sure that its an offence to be drunk in charge of a child. I would contact them and ask to talk to the Manager or Senior Social Worker because I believe you were given the wrong information.

Only problem with that is I live 100 miles away n my daughter has her phone taken off her at 7pm till 9am.
The police said as long as she hands her over to me for my weekend there is nothing she can do as she has no court order to stop me, and the police have done a report on her that at 7pm she was already drunk, they sent it to SS but when I called them they said their is no limit on how much a parent can drink so they brushed it off didn't even go round their

The case I gave above wasn't hypothetical, it's pretty much exactly what I did with my daughters - I had a 200 mile drive at no notice, and I made it very clear to my older daughter before I phoned the police for her, and jumped into the car, that under no circumstances was she to let the police leave without taking her with - the police persuaded my ex to allow them to take both my daughters with them and I picked them up from the police station about 3 hours later - I was in touch with the police on the way up just to make sure they knew I was on my way, and that I believed my daughter would be in danger if they left her with my ex. You obviously have problems with the fact that your ex takes away the phone, but you could tell your daughter that if she feels she is in danger, then go round to a neighbour (assuming she knows them) and ask them to call the police.

It is an offence to be drunk in charge of a child under 7 in the uk and 10 in scotland

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Primary&PageNumber=87&...

Neither of these laws make it an offence to be in charge of a minor in a private place, such as the home. However, parents who are incapacitated through drink could be charged with neglecting or exposing their child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health under Section 12 of the Children and Young Person Act 1937.

It is necessary to stress that being drunk in charge of a child is not in itself child abuse, for that there needs to be exposure to significant harm or specific risk. The key factors in the determination of the degree of risk will tend to be issues like age of children, proximity to hazards, circumstances of household, frequency and duration of behaviour. For example, a crawling baby near a blazing fire is clearly hazardous whereas a ten year old asleep in their own bed is generally not.

I can only echo what NJ has stated. I have problems with my ex-wife, contact order first, if she is making allegations against you (same as me) injunction will put a stop to it as it is harrassment.

Social Services/Police/School all sided with my ex at the start making contact with my daughter very difficult, I persisted and finally had an hour with her having lunch at school. Keep squeaky clean and you're doing the correct thing, record and report everything this will help you in court. Any threats made against you report it straight away and get incident numbers.

I feel sorry for you mate as I am going through a similar [censored], I am lucky in the fact I have good support from my family and friends and the worm is starting to turn at last! 🙂