[Solved] New dad, sad start

Hi John and welcome,

Firstly congratulations on the arrival your baby boy!

At least you are on the birth certificate and so have Parental Responsibility....a good first step.

1). Yes you can get legal and regular access to your son, you would need to apply to the court for a contact order. If you take a look at the stickys at the top of this section you will find lots of info about self representing and about the C100 form that you would need to submit to apply for a contact order.

2). As your son is still very young you might find that a court might want your visits to be supervised to begin with, either at her home or a contact centre. But as your son gets older you could expect to be able to have contact take place at your home and for longer periods of time.

3). This is an important question, your son has every right to have a loving and fulfilled relationship with both of his parents, and the courts opinion is that it is in the child's best interests to have both parents involved.

I think though before you embark on lengthy and emotional court proceedings you should consider trying Mediation. This is the accepted first step before court is considered. Here is a link to the Mediation service www.nfm.org.uk .....you would attend initially and discuss the issues with the mediator, they would then write to the mother and invite her to attend. Hopefully with the help and guidance of a trained mediator you can reach agreement. There is a charge for this unless you are eligible for legal aid and you can check that here www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid

Best of luck

Manu thanks for the advice so far.

I fear that my ex partner would not attend the mediation sessions, I am however, more than willing to do what ever it takes to have the opportunity to allow my son to see me.

I will spend some time tomorrow reading the stickies and try and digest some of this information. As you can proberbly imagain, being a new father, work and the issues with access make a daily routine somewhat difficult and concentration level is not quite where it should be. Life is very much focused around this situation.

So, I think if I take my time and do things slowly I hope things come right.

I will keep you all posted as time goes by.

Thanks you once again 🙂

John

Congrats and chin up Jonnybobs...dont be a stranger to this forum as there are a lot of people to advise, guide and give moral support.

There will be times you will need it and the up side is there will be times that you can pass on your experiences and help others.

I think your son will be pretty proud of you that your doing what you are to be in his life.

Regards,

Dave

She offered me to have him for a few hours today. I naturally agreed. I asked to meet at a netural location but was told that this was not possible due to the fact she had no car.

She then told me she was scared that I was going to take him away from her.... (I have no intention of this and am sure I cant just do that even if I wanted to)

I asked her to get back to me asap as I needed to take the day off (Which I did anyway to be safe)..

I heard nothing, I informed her this morning that her way of making short term arrangenents no longer works and that I cannot be expetced to just be there when she decided. I also infomred her that I was seeking legal advice and that I would no longer communicate with her on the matter.

Im going insane here, I just want to see my son and he has the right to me too.....

Problem I have is that i dont think i can afford legal advice, its horrible at the moment. I have no clue what to do.

Hi jb

Since you don't have a solicitor, we can ask the CCLC for free legal advice, so if you have any questions, just post and we'll be able to help.

So, we think we've made progress...?

Kind of, The ex seems to be somewhat worried about going through court. She reluctantly has allowed me access on two days per week for 3h30m each time (incl x2 30 min journeys!).. Great I think, some time is better than no time at all..... This I thought was a great start.

Well, today, my mobile charger has failed (As they do) as a direct result I get a barrage of emails telling me who as she cant get ahold of me how I cant see him and she cant know if he's safe. Obviously its not that easy to get a mobile charger on a Sunday.

Her last words pretty much were, Ill be hearing form your solicitor!......

I guess i'm back to square one again....

Started reading you post and though it was another good news story.....

I'm really sorry but it does sound like one step forward two steps back........

Are you still in the same postion or has her opinion changed, now she has had a chance to think about it?

Gooner

Yeah 🙁 She's not any great help.

As per always, her mind changes like the wind.

This weeks thing is that due to the amount of SMS's being sent from her to me was getting really beyond a joke, so I decided to block her. HOWEVER, before I did so, i ensured that there were more than one ways for her to get hold of me in case of any issues and that I would unblock her when I had the child in my care.

She now emails me wanting to know a bout my private life etc.......... Im going mad...!!!! there is no way of stopping contact, If its about our son then fine... but its not...

A pay as you go telephone is on the horizon i thinks

Aah mate congrats on your boy.

Like yourself i have gone through the exact same thing, instead my missus baled on me at 8months preganant something she planned with her family. She manipulated them to turn against me.

I saw him for 3 months and there were too many games by the mother and mother in law. I am going through the legal process now. fortunately for you both communicate, i do not want to communicate at all with her and it has become high conflict all her own doing. She wanted to make things work even after behaving despicably. I dont know how they can think someone will be with them after there tricks!

I would advise go on a parenting course will do you some good, just try to better yourself to be the best father. I feel like i still have no rights but am fighting every bit of the way. My son is 1 years old now and i havent seen him since he was 3months old. She is playing as dirty as she can..the stupid woman!

Best of luck mate.

Hi Jonnybobs

Unfortunately at the moment in the absence of any court orders there is no legal obligation on the mother to allow you any set amount of contact. You do, as somebody has already mentioned, have Parental Responsibility for your son and as such you have equal legal rights regarding him as the mother does and you have a right to an equal say in all key decisions in his life such as educational, medical and religious decisions and any decisions to remove him from the country. However these rights do not extend to contact and due to this grey area it does put the mother in a position where she can manipulate and dictate contact at this stage, however she does have a legal duty to be reasonable as to contact and if she is not this could reflect badly on her in any future court proceedings.

As has previously been mentioned on the thread your first option should be to attempt mediation with the mother in order to try and come to an agreement with her without the need to resort to court, you can get further information on this process and help organising it from National Family Mediation on 03004000636. You would be expected to attempt mediation by the court and should attempt this even if you fear the mother will not attend. If the mother does unreasonably refuse to attend this will again reflect poorly on her in any court proceedings.

If mediation does not work your next option would be to apply to court for a Contact Order, if such an order was granted it would be legally binding on the mother and she would have to make your son available for contact at the times stated in the order. In order to make this application you will need to use the form C100, which is available online at www.justice.gov.uk. There are also two guidance leaflets available on this website that will help you fill the form in called CB1 and CB3. When deciding on whether or not to issue such an order the court would base their decision on what they feel is in the best interests of the child’s welfare and not on any personal disagreements between parents, in order to do this they will go through something called the welfare checklist:

• Childs physical, emotional and educational needs.
• Effect of any change on the child.
• The age, [censored] and background of the child.
• Any harm which the child has suffered or may suffer.
• How capable each parent is of meeting the Childs needs.

It is also worth noting that contact is seen as the right of the child and the court would normally seek to enable contact between a child and both parents unless there were strong welfare reasons not to.

There is a fee of £215 for making this application, however if you represent yourself through these proceedings that would be your only cost.

If you require any further advice please do not hesitate to contact us. Our advice line phone service on 08088020008 is available Mon-Fri between 8:00-20:00.

Yours Sincerely

CORAM Children’s Legal Centre

Sid4u, Many thanks for your advice, with ref to your situation, keep fighting and chin up mate. Dads on here seem to only want to be here for the best for their child. Sometimes I wish the courts would just stop and read some of these posts as it really does put a complete different light on what seems to be a very one sided perspective.

Coram, Also, many thanks indeed. I will call the advice line next week. Luckily, it seems that my ex is frightened of the idea of court. I however am not as I do feel that my son has the right to me and his other half of his family. I think the laws in the UK should be addresses with reference to fathers and children's rights to fathers.

Once again all, Many thanks thus far.

Chin up everyone 🙂