Can ouo go to prison more than once for non-payment of CSA?

swingaloo

WOW, clearingout.

What a brilliant post, says everything I wanted to say but so much better. I agree with every word. I just hope the OP listens.

You dont seem to have a thank you button though?


OOOH, you have now, and I used it!!

carlcumbria

clearingout wrote: »

I think that this is a sad story and clearly highlights the deficiencies in the child maintenance and child contact in the UK. Ultimately,the one who has really suffered is the child - and his half siblings. We are at the point where one half of the problem is prepared to go to prison to make a point. Very sad.

I have highlighted the bit above - I am generally supportive of the notion that one parent can turn a child against another. But here we have a classic example of why that might have been possible - serious non payment of maintenance over a prolonged period.

She stopped me seeing him in the first instance due to me meeting/ having another girlfriend months after leaving her mainly, even though she never said it..funny how I had the kid 5 nights per week until then.
I can honestly say that even if I had made every payment on time etc she'd still have poisoned him, she seems that kind of woman.


You have your reasons - and I respect them to a certain degree - but I am very, very much of the opinion that 'good' parenting entails providing financially for your children in as much as you are able. You are missing this point and it is fundamental in maintaining a relationship with an older child - teenagers are a) very opinionated and believe they know right from wrong and b) very money focused with a 'need' for mobile phones, ipods, laptops and the 'right' trainers on their feet. If you're not contributing then you don't care about him. Mum has all the ammunition she needs.

I can see what you're saying although when she finally stopped me seeing him, 2-3yrs after the cicuit judges court order at crown court at the age of roughly 9, it was becuase I had the "nerve" to ask her why she hadn't turned up the weekend before, as she should have done, when she instead took him to Turkey on holiday with no notice to me. I knew she'd lie about this in the future so unknown to her I recorded it via a camcorder on my car, and the audio on a mobile phone in my pocket, and I had the money in my hand on show for the CSA payment too.
"Good" parenting also involved NOT telling your kid that his dad's died. That's kinda fundamental in maintainting a relationship too, thinking you're alive. That and letting them see each other in the first place.

I'm not jumping on you, you come across as a sound enough person from the sentences you've wrote here and it's good to get a balanced perspective from other people too, so thanks.
Not all dads are good but the same, if not more, can be said for the mothers too sometimes. I heard a lot of horror stories from other dads when at court, 2 of the fathers' kids turned out to not be there's and the mothers knew yet let the fathers continue access cases against them and then at the last moment gave up the crucial bit of info! Women can be espescially crule sometimes compared to men I think, but then again I am a man saying this, lol.

The weird thing is my middle boy is actually my partners son from a pervious relationship. I've brought him up as my own since he was 3yr old (13 now) and provided everything for him and I genuinely see him as my own son...unfortunately HIS realy father wants nothing to do with him and has never paid CSA either. Crazy huh. We're kinda of stuck in the middle of 2 extremes.

Sometimes in these situations it takes one of the parties to step back and look at the bigger picture. I have an ex who is probably going to take the non-payment of maintenance as far as a custodial sentence - or at least that is how it feels at the moment - and that's not because I am poisoning the children against him, or indeed, because he's not 'allowed' to see them. It's because he's made a mess, can't see the wood for the trees, has dug in his heels and stuck his head in the sand and no way on earth is he going to do anything which he perceives as beneficial to me. This has included stopping contact with the children. Only people suffering are the children.

Some folks don't know what they've got, he sounds like a loser deliberately stopping contact with his kids, I'd have crawled to the ends of Earth to see my son. Hope it works out for you and your kids regardless.

Seriously, think about it and see if you can find a way out of this now, whilst you still have a chance.

There's nothing to think about really, he aint going to want to see my anytime soon and I don't want to push him into doing something he dones't want to. The court case i've been there too many times before to have hope left.

Thanks for your reply and perspective. Carl.

Hopeless123

I am reading this with great interest, as my son appears to be having a very similar problem. He has been paying maintenance into the bank account that his ex told him to, at the same time as fighting off the CSA who keep being told he hasn't paid. It turns out she told him their son's account that she now says is 'for Xmas and birthday's only. Last month, despite being told that he is paying maintenance (it's not his fault it wasn't into her account), the CSA have taken money directly from his wages. The conversations he's had with them beggar belief.

There's a whole access (or lack of) and court hearing going on at the same time. He has not brought the CSA stuff into it at all, as restoring father / son contact is at the forefront, but we feel she is trying to push him to the limit so he can't afford the legal fees to fight (I'm paying them at the moment anyway, but she doesn't know that). It appears the CSA will believe the mother, without fail, despite being provided with proof to the contrary.

So, I feel for the OP and read the posts with interest.

tattycath

Hopeless123 wrote: »

I am reading this with great interest, as my son appears to be having a very similar problem. He has been paying maintenance into the bank account that his ex told him to, at the same time as fighting off the CSA who keep being told he hasn't paid. It turns out she told him their son's account that she now says is 'for Xmas and birthday's only. Last month, despite being told that he is paying maintenance (it's not his fault it wasn't into her account), the CSA have taken money directly from his wages. The conversations he's had with them beggar belief.

There's a whole access (or lack of) and court hearing going on at the same time. He has not brought the CSA stuff into it at all, as restoring father / son contact is at the forefront, but we feel she is trying to push him to the limit so he can't afford the legal fees to fight (I'm paying them at the moment anyway, but she doesn't know that). It appears the CSA will believe the mother, without fail, despite being provided with proof to the contrary.

So, I feel for the OP and read the posts with interest.

That's disgusting - it really does beggar belief how some PWCs try to stitch up their ex partners-not giving any consideration to the child/children who is/are paramount.
I hope your son gets it sorted hun ((hugs)) x

Hopeless123

tattycath wrote: »

That's disgusting - it really does beggar belief how some PWCs try to stitch up their ex partners-not giving any consideration to the child/children who is/are paramount.
I hope your son gets it sorted hun ((hugs)) x

thanks tattycath, sure it will get sorted eventually, but it's heartbreaking at the mo and my son is having great difficulty coping. He is doing everything he is told and 'by the book' iyswim. I won't go into the dirty tricks that the ex has pulled, just to say it's quite shocking, the above is just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately :-( All can be proven and presumably will eventually come out in the wash, so to speak, including possibly questionable mental stability.

Like the OP though, he in no way would want to be responsible for affecting his son's relationship with his mother, by getting her into trouble, etc. The child's welfare is the most important factor overall and he is well aware of that, just wish she was....

There are presumably a lot of parents in very similar positions.

regprentice

Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question - many very knowledgable people on this board have been quite technical and i may not have grasped points being made.

If the OP does not pay his arrears, goes to prision, then when he finishes his sentence his arrears are still outstanding. He cannot go to prision again for that arrears notice but can go to prision for further 'new' arrears.

How does the OP stop the CSA allocating any repayments in future to the old debt?

For example if he owes £10k, goes to prision and then begins to repay the CSA from that point onwards then they will use these repayments to pay off the £10K before any further accrued 'debt'.

So the OP may consider his 'new' repayments to be chipping away at his 'new' post-prision debt only, but the CSA repay the older debt first, and then when this issue comes up again the threat of prision will be for the 'new' debt which the OP accrued after prision but which his repayments were not used to clear until the original £10K had been cleared?

Is this perhaps where this will go wrong?

carlcumbria

regprentice wrote: »

If the OP does not pay his arrears, goes to prision, then when he finishes his sentence his arrears are still outstanding. He cannot go to prision again for that arrears notice but can go to prision for further 'new' arrears.

How does the OP stop the CSA allocating any repayments in future to the old debt?

For example if he owes £10k, goes to prision and then begins to repay the CSA from that point onwards then they will use these repayments to pay off the £10K before any further accrued 'debt'.

So the OP may consider his 'new' repayments to be chipping away at his 'new' post-prision debt only, but the CSA repay the older debt first, and then when this issue comes up again the threat of prision will be for the 'new' debt which the OP accrued after prision but which his repayments were not used to clear until the original £10K had been cleared?

Is this perhaps where this will go wrong?

That's the thing I really need answered I suppose, otherwise I'll be going on "holiday" for 3-6 weeks for no reason.

Thanks.

carlcumbria

Hopeless123 wrote: »

I am reading this with great interest, as my son appears to be having a very similar problem. He has been paying maintenance into the bank account that his ex told him to, at the same time as fighting off the CSA who keep being told he hasn't paid. It turns out she told him their son's account that she now says is 'for Xmas and birthday's only. Last month, despite being told that he is paying maintenance (it's not his fault it wasn't into her account), the CSA have taken money directly from his wages. The conversations he's had with them beggar belief.

There's a whole access (or lack of) and court hearing going on at the same time. He has not brought the CSA stuff into it at all, as restoring father / son contact is at the forefront, but we feel she is trying to push him to the limit so he can't afford the legal fees to fight (I'm paying them at the moment anyway, but she doesn't know that). It appears the CSA will believe the mother, without fail, despite being provided with proof to the contrary.

So, I feel for the OP and read the posts with interest.

I'm assuming your son and his ex weren't married, however I think modern laws automatically give Parental Resposibility to non-resident parents, whereas when I took my ex to court I had to be granted it in court. This at least will give him rights to things such as school reports etc although I'm going to take a stab in the dark that the child's too young for school right now, is that correct?

Get your son to make payments ONLY to the CSA, and with regards to birthdays and Christmas etc I'd simply buy presents for when he gets to see him/ her at his own home..otherwise what's to stop her saying that the presents came from her and dads a sh*t for not buying him/ her any! You've simply got to assume she'll do everything she can to make life as bad as possible for him access-wise.
My advice for now is to ask him if it came to it would be be willing to jail her? If not just hope she caves before then as there's little all else can be done, although I'd fully understand if he doesn't want to hurt his child by jailing his/ her mum, afterall I did too but I regret it now, kinda, that said God knows what would have happeend since then if I did.

With regards to the courts/ CSA believing everything she says, your right to a large degree so he needs to think ahead and block all avenues of lies in advance if needs be. My ex once told the Cafcass officer that I'd left him at home on his own when he was around 2yr old (can't mind on his age now, long time ago) and went shopping. I had to provide proof that he was with me when I went up town or they were going to obviously believe her...unfortunately for her I was in Lloyds TSB at the time and Jessops camera shop about 5 minutes later, luckily I had lots of CCTV evidence but what if I had took him to a park or to the river for a walk where there's no CCTV? Would I have got to see him again, probably not.
I also got accused of jumping on her car bonnet and clinging on stunt-man style whilst she drove off with me on there, again though luckily I had a sworn afadavit statement from the guy parked up in the car beside her saying I didn't even touch the car (I'd noticed she wouldn't clip him into the child seat and asked her why not, so she said that to the courts!), othrwise they'd have believed that too no doubt.

I also eneded up recording all handovers/ contact with her to thrawt any further lies in advance.
I simply refused to speak to her whenever I could, what's the point!

Just be as cautious as possible regarding things, it'll prove the sensible thing to do over time no doubt and there's nothing lost if it doesn't turn out that way.

Tell him good luck, I know how heart breaking it can be. I ended up removing photos of my son from my walls and even got his name covered up on a tattoo on my arm to save my sanity, it almost consumed me mentally, literally every waking moment I missed him and the pics and tattoo didn't help so ended up putting it all away as physically and mentally as I could, harsh and cruel as that may seem, I just needed to for me if you know what I mean. It ultimately turned me into a colder-hearted version of the person I used to be.
Things will turn out well for your son and his kid, I certainly hope it does. All the best, Carl

Roy_G_Biv

regprentice wrote: »

Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question - many very knowledgable people on this board have been quite technical and i may not have grasped points being made.

If the OP does not pay his arrears, goes to prision, then when he finishes his sentence his arrears are still outstanding.

Yes, it will still be outstanding.

regprentice wrote: »

He cannot go to prision again for that arrears notice but can go to prision for further 'new' arrears.

Correct. He cannot be committed for the same liability order twice. But he can be committed for a different liability order.

regprentice wrote: »

How does the OP stop the CSA allocating any repayments in future to the old debt?

He cant, the CSA will pay the oldest debt arrears first.

regprentice wrote: »

For example if he owes £10k, goes to prision and then begins to repay the CSA from that point onwards then they will use these repayments to pay off the £10K before any further accrued 'debt'.

It all linked to the liability order the debt is secured.

regprentice wrote: »

So the OP may consider his 'new' repayments to be chipping away at his 'new' post-prision debt only,

He will pay arrears as well as his current liability.

regprentice wrote: »

but the CSA repay the older debt first, and then when this issue comes up again the threat of prision will be for the 'new' debt which the OP accrued after prision but which his repayments were not used to clear until the original £10K had been cleared?

Something like that.

This amount of arrears dont apear out of nowhere. The OP is better off looking for irregularities in the assessment and he can use that to overturn a committal application and that leaves the debt permanently entombed with the CSA.

Roy_G_Biv

OP, if you lived in France, you would have no child maimntenance liability. Your post indicates the other parent is a single parent of choice and therefore cannot claim maintenance from you. The other parent has the burden of proof that you have abandoned your responsibilities as a parent.

Came into force last year to harmonise with benefit claimants.