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Hi All,
Two children 6 and 9. Wife has left the family home just before the summer holidays, took the children and is living with her mum. Initially she refused all overnight stay's with me, but I was getting contact. after two weeks I brought the kids back home as the eldest is very close to me and kept breaking down when I saw her. Wife called the police and they decided it's best for the children to stay with me. Since then we have shared overnight stays. Wife issued an ex parte against me and it was thrown out with the judge asking that I get served. Recently had my first hearing, we couldn't come to an agreement, so we need to go back for an Interim hearing.
Always been a very active dad with schooling and everyday care.
Now I do have a solictor but been doing a lot of the leg work with getting the information over to them. We been asked to get a statement done for the hearing. I don't know where to start.. what should the structure of the document be like? what information is expecting in it? etc
Thanks
DadTalk.
Take a look at the sticky at the top of the Legal Eagle section (this section) called "guide to representing yourself in court". It contains an example of a statement there. Was the requirement for a position statement or just a statement. If you go to the custody minefield website you can buy template statements for a couple of pounds and I used that one to do my sons statement.
A statement does have a specific format and its best to stick to it....if you have a solicitor perhaps they could provide you with a template. It has a front page with court name at top left, case number and date top right and childrens names/DOB and respondent/applicant details centre, then title of document ie statement of dadtalk. Each section has a heading ie brief history, my concerns, request to the court etc. each paragraph should be numbered and each page numbered bottom middle. The spacing is important too.
Thanks NJ,
It’s a full statement, I've managed to draft most of it and sent to the Solicitors to finalise.
On another note, the SBEX has been living at her mums for the last month or so. We are both on the mortgage. This weekend I packed up the remaining of her things and txt her to pick them up. She currently refusing to pick any of it up, as her excuse is that in the long term we don't know who will be living in the family home. Now not healthy for me with all her things in the house and going to sleep and waking up in the morning surround by it all is pretty awfully to be truthful. The children are on holiday for the next week so no better time than now for her to pick up the rest of her things.
My question is if I was to just take all her things up to her mums and leave it there for her to collect, would this look unfavourably on me? I would always inform her of what I was doing and make sure nothing got damaged...
Can you not just pack it in boxes and put it in the loft or a spare room? May look better that you have done that. I’d probably do a contents list so that you can keep a copy to get her to sign when she does eventually collect…..may also be worth taking photos of her stuff as you do it…..its all about proving things now…she may claim you’ve destroyed stuff or damaged stuff.
I may be sounding rather sceptical here but having seen what my ex has been capable of this last few years so I’d not put anything past anyone where emotions are running high.
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