Partners Ex Blackmail/Child Maintenance

PrincessPlaty

My partner has 2 children with his ex wife aged 4 and 7.

He contacted the CSA and put in a claim (she was demanding cash payments, refusing to give bank details etc, stopping him from seeing the children because he wouldn't give her any money).

Obviously at that point because she was stopping him from seeing the children full rate would have been payable. It worked out at £423 a month.

After 8 weeks waiting for the CSA she contacted her solicitors complaining she had no money and couldn't live (she is claiming income support, CTC and CB aswell as CTB and HB). He said to her fine if you give me your bank details I will cancel the claim with the CSA and I will pay you £400 a month, this was in the hope that she would let him see the children.

Well it worked and she started letting him have the children every other weekend to start with, progressing to every weekend, progressing to him dropping them home ready for school on a monday morning on his way to work. Including whole weeks during the school holidays etc.

It now works out that he is having them on average more than 175 nights.
For the month of August he has them for 20 nights out of the 31.

He has approached with her this morning about reassessing the amount he is paying because he is having the children more than what she is and we are quite frankly struggling because of it. Working it out with the CSA calculator with the amount that he is having them he would only have to pay her is £160.07.

Her simple answer was fine you don't see them at all then. Wouldn't even consider discussing it at all.

The children do not want to live with her the have told her this to her face on numerous occasions, when they are here they never want to go back to mummy to the extent they are locking themselves in the car so they don't have to get out and go in the house!

Bare in mind this woman is only interested in money (she was previously escorting the reason why they split up). He has contacted social services and they are not interested. She has 2 other children who are now 17 and 18 who she walked out on when they were 4 and 5 and never had anything to do with them and nor did she pay anything towards them.

Is there anyway of him convincing her or anything that he can do to get the payments reduced without her stopping him from seeing the children?

We can't afford to take it to court because of the amount that he is having to pay her every month!

He seems to be stuck in a situation where she is blackmailing him in where she is saying you have to pay me £400 a month or your not seeing them!

Please help

clearingout

there is little to be done in these situations other than to challenge through the courts - there is no need for a solicitor, it can be done on a self-representation basis. Have a look at wikivorce and Families Need Fathers for help and advice.

At ages 4 and 7, the children won't have much of a personal voice in court but it is likely that CAFACASS would interview them without either parent present which would be interesting. I would suggest your partner needs to grab himself a diary, mark in it every overnight he has had in the last year, put in writing that according to the overnights he has had and the CSA calculator, he will reduce maintenance from X to Y next month. I would also suggest that he offers something to sweeten the pill a bit by saying he's more than willing to make additional contributions towards school uniform, schools, after school activities etc. by paying for these directly.

Assuming she then stops contact, it needs to go to court immediately - no procrastinating as doing so will weaken his case. One letter needs to be sent which is time limited suggesting that they attend mediation ('if I don't hear from you within 7 days on the subject of mediation, I shall progress the matter with the courts') and when she ignores that, the court application goes straight in.

What really gets me in these situations is why on earth would you have a relationship with someone who had been seemingly happy to abandon and non support children they already have?

Mojisola

It's a shame he didn't keep the children with him when they split up. He should also have gone to court as soon as she stopped contact. Child maintenance and contact are two completely separate issues. Children are not "pay for view"!

Follow the good advice from clearingout. In addition, keep any texts, emails or letters she sends and it would be worth recording any phone calls.

PrincessPlaty

clearingout wrote: »

there is little to be done in these situations other than to challenge through the courts - there is no need for a solicitor, it can be done on a self-representation basis. Have a look at wikivorce and Families Need Fathers for help and advice.

Many thanks for that I will look into this now.

clearingout wrote: »

At ages 4 and 7, the children won't have much of a personal voice in court but it is likely that CAFACASS would interview them without either parent present which would be interesting.

Honestly I would like to be a fly on the wall for that one, not last week the week before they were due to go home on the sunday evening, they were adamant they didn't want to go. So he text her and asked if she minded, she text him back asking her to call him as she wanted to speak to the children. 7 year old refused to take the phone, 4 year old took the phone and said 'hi mummy i dont want to come back to your house i want to live with daddy' and handed the phone back :eek:
I have made sure that no bad word is said about her in the presence of the children, the time they are here is about them and not about her. They very rarely talk about her whilst they are here, though in the recent weeks we have had 'mummy lies and its naughty to lie', 'mummy shouts at me all the time', 'mummy smacks me', 'uncle smacks me', 'nanna went to the toilet in the garden', 'uncle said he is going to stab you daddy he made us cry', 'mummy only gives us sandwiches for dinner but sometimes if we have friends over she does us noodles'.
As I say it has been reported to social services and they are not interested.

clearingout wrote: »

I would suggest your partner needs to grab himself a diary, mark in it every overnight he has had in the last year, put in writing that according to the overnights he has had and the CSA calculator, he will reduce maintenance from X to Y next month.

This has been done since day 1 on the computer and back up on paper also just incase anything was to happen!
This is what he said to her this morning it was at this point she said she would stop him from seeing the children if she didn't pay him £400. He didn't propose a figure to reduce it to just asked if they could discuss it. He has since text her asking if she wants the money and has had no reply. He has emailed his solicitors asking for advice, I told him not to send her anything until he hears back from the solicitor.

clearingout wrote: »

I would also suggest that he offers something to sweeten the pill a bit by saying he's more than willing to make additional contributions towards school uniform, schools, after school activities etc. by paying for these directly.

We already provide them with toys and clothing (she sends them with nothing), week before last we had to go out and buy them new school shoes each, and uniform as she hadn't sent any with them all which went back to her. Clothes from here that they may sometimes go back (socks or knickers they are wearing) never get returned. We try to make sure that we send them back in the clothes that they came in. He has offered to pay for after school activities the children have said they don't want to do any though, this is a major lack of self confidence issue.

clearingout wrote: »

Assuming she then stops contact, it needs to go to court immediately - no procrastinating as doing so will weaken his case.

The thing is i don't think he could cope emotionally if she did stop contact, when the children are not here he is a totally different person to when they are here it's like a part of him is missing, he has even at lowest points talked about going back to her because of the children because he misses them that much.

clearingout wrote: »

One letter needs to be sent which is time limited suggesting that they attend mediation ('if I don't hear from you within 7 days on the subject of mediation, I shall progress the matter with the courts') and when she ignores that, the court application goes straight in.

Will get him to do that.

clearingout wrote: »

What really gets me in these situations is why on earth would you have a relationship with someone who had been seemingly happy to abandon and non support children they already have?

That one I can't answer and I know very little about the situation. I do know it was 14 years ago, and since he has left the family home she has decided to rekindle a relationship with them. I imagine they are still rather naive being only 17 and 18 and having to grow up without a mother....

PrincessPlaty

Mojisola wrote: »

It's a shame he didn't keep the children with him when they split up. He should also have gone to court as soon as she stopped contact. Child maintenance and contact are two completely separate issues. Children are not "pay for view"!

Follow the good advice from clearingout. In addition, keep any texts, emails or letters she sends and it would be worth recording any phone calls.

I agree with you however when he found out about her escorting and left her she decided to get him arrested (for something he hadn't done) and bail restrictions were set so that he could only contact her via a third party for contact with the children. He got friends to contact her and the solicitor and she ignored all contact. A week later she admitted to the police that she was lying and told a third party she only did it to stop him from seeing the children. She then after that ignored all letters from his solicitors and then decided she was going to sort it out between themselves which is how the current arrangement came about.

I whole heartedly agree with you about them being separate issues and the fact that they are not 'pay per view'. I just wish she could see that.

The fact that the CSA band it by how many over night stays the children have is not helping the situation though. As this is what she is going by she knows that if she stops him from seeing them and contacts the CSA she will still get the £400 from him she doesn't seem to give a damn what effect it is having on the children.

All correspondence is done via text, the only call has been when she requested to speak to the children, She refuses to give him her email address and all letters go to the solicitors.

kevin137

It is a hard thing to do, but have you thought about not returning the children, if there is no official order in place, and it is purely CB and CTC etc that is going to be the paperwork to prove she has custody, then apply for these to be moved into your partners name, and just refuse to return them.

I understand this can cause some problems, but again, if this is what the kids want, then in theory, she would have to call the police to say that they had been abducted, and on the police attending, it would be hard for them to remove the children if they are saying they want to stay there.

All this means that she would then have to apply through the court and not you.

If you have them for more of the time in August i would consider this as the time to do it, when you have them for so long, and it would be harder to argue for her.

It is also worth thinking that the more you do by email sms etc, where there is an electronic trace of all things said and sent, the more proof you would have for the court. So emailing that you are concerned that the children keep saying they want to live with you, that the maintenance and amount of time you are having them no longer adds up etc etc, and hope she replies with the same attitude as before.

It is not about control in situates like this, but there are 2 parents, and sometimes needs must.

The other thing you could consider is trying to get custody of the kids full time while you have them more, it is not so drastic, but maybe easier as you already have them in your care, so an email/sms saying we are having a wonderful holiday etc and it is good they get to spend so much time with us for holidays in the summer, will return them on the ?? august and hope you get a reply, then if you make an application for custody she could not say they had been abducted as you already have the agreement for time in writing. If that makes sense.

Whatever you do, it will be a long drawn out fight for what is best for the children, but some people never learn..

PrincessPlaty

This is the thing he wants to avoid doing in all honesty.

When she had him arrested she took the children to the police station with her and then told the children they were arresting daddy :eek:

In the time when he didn't see them she tried to turn them against him, however she failed miserably.

But the children were extremely stressed by the situation and even now when we are out if we drive past a police car or there is one behind us they will start getting upset and asking if they are going to arrest him. If the police were to come to the house whilst they were here it will distress them and its the last thing that he wants.

I suggested to him earlier and tries to get her into mediation asap to formally put in writing the contact arrangements, ie more than 170 nights a year and not mentioning the money. Thn he contacts the CSA and puts a claim in himself so that he is paying her only what he is entitled to.

However I am unsure what the consequences would be of her trying to stop contact after getting it agreed with the mediator when she finds out about him putting in a claim with the CSA.

RAS

Hi

I suggest that you search for Rainbow Dreamer's threads on the problems she is having with her ex. Despite the children living half a week with each parent he has kept them for several weeks at a time and this is on-going. In that case, he is the abuser.

Doing it all "honestly" is fine when you are dealing with someone honest.
What is the longest period he will have them in August? Is there a residency order in place?

PrincessPlaty

I will have a look for the thread.

The arrangements for august is that he has them every weekend as usual Friday evening to Monday morning so 3 nights, plus 1 whole week at the end of August.

So the longest period will be 10 nights.

This has been her asking him to have them and not the other way around due to her 'needing a break' because they are on school holidays. There is no residency order in place every time she receives a letter from his solicitor her instant reply is 'lets sort it out between ourselves'. I think she may have been advised by someone that because of the amount he has them he has more chance of him getting joint custody if it goes to court, after a comment that she made. She seems to be doing her level best to keep it out of court and away from solicitors. The only time she starts screaming solicitors when he mentions money....

clearingout

for what it's worth and I'm no expert (but I have been through court for the residence of my children), I don't personally think not returning the children is an option. It perhaps should be - particularly in the circumstances you are describing - but if you get it wrong (and particularly without legal help) you will risk ever succeeding through the court system. This really is one of those 'softly softly catchee monkey' situations and assuming you're telling the truth (not suggesting you're not!), it sounds like there is a strong case in favour of dad which just needs to be built with the appropriate support and some reading up on family law and how the system works. As well as Families Need Fathers, look at thecustodyminefield (or something like that), the much berated Fathers for Justice, wikivorce, and the CAFCASS website. Get a feel for the process, how to gather your evidence and how to avoid putting words into the children's mouths. Your partner has good access now - don't jeopardize that without being 100% sure of where you're going to go next. You should also be aware that its possible to get free sessions with family solicitors - many offer a first half hour or meeting free - and I would advise when you're clear with how it all works, note down your questions and go and see a couple of solicitors free of charge. Beware those that will tell you what you want to hear (my ex got himself one of those!) and be 100% honest so they know how to help you properly. Once you've done that, you know where you're at and how to proceed.

Good luck - it can be a long journey but if you play it right, you should have some happy and safe children at the end of it it.

PrincessPlaty

Many thanks will have a look tomorrow, full of cold and in need of my bed, the joys of kids :rotfl:

As i said he really doesn't want to not return the kids due to the potential emotional damage the whole situation of doing so would affect them. We did discuss earlier about discussing with the solicitor going for joint custody and try and get it done for when he has the children here for the period of ten days so there is as little disruption for them as possible.