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I've not been on the group for a while. In court, my ex used a comment from a forum against me.
"Going back to court on Tuesday to hopefully get proper access to my son"
Apparently that was aggressive and designed to stir up trouble. So I'm not to mention the case on any forums etc.
My question is, if the mother leaves the father & moves 160 miles, when overnight contact is agreed, should the father be the one to do all the driving?
To collect the child & return him is 640 miles. For one night.
The mother is in good health, doesn't work, has a car & more expendable income than the father.
The father gets tired as he's still recovering from at least 3 strokes, pays maintenance & the mothers debts by working a full time job.
It's not very common as far as I know for the court to order that the parent with care does the travelling - whether your circumstances would warrant an exception is not something I have experience of, but the mother is going to try to make a case why this should not happen. In terms of cost and time - would there be any sense in you travelling up there and staying in a hotel overnight instead of travelling down and back up again?
Also, unfortunately, your first comment does highlight the drawbacks of a forum - it is very public so you have to expect that anyone can see it, and even if you don't use your own name, if someone is looking, or is made aware of the forum, enough can be said to identify you on a forum.
Thanks ACTD.
I was hoping that the court would say that "the father can collect the child on the Saturday (from the mother) & the mother can collect the child (from the father) on the Sunday".
I'm trying to get Friday to Sunday in the future.
I tend to stay with a friend, who lives 40 miles from the Ex, the night before seeing my son. But I can't really impose on a friend every 2 weeks as he's got a young family too.
Since the ex left, my family (some are quite old) haven't had a chance to see our son, some have never met him. He's 18 months old, so I would prefer that he spends time with my family while they're still around rather than staying in a hotel. I can't see the other hotel patrons being happy hearing a small child screaming through the night as I expect him to. For some reason (against everyone's advice) the ex still rocks our son to sleep and sleeps next to him, thus making him dependant on her.
I had this very statement written into my court order.
So I pick up my child from my ex and then at the end of the weekend or week she picks up from me.
Don't forget if you pay CSA you can apply for a variance in your amount for travelling to and from picking your child up. There is a minimum limit of I believe £20 - 25 before you can claim but your round trip would easily be over this amount?
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