Need advice fast, regarding stopping contact

travelchick

Hello all,

I am hoping someone here can help me? I need to stop my ex having unsupervised contact with our children.
I have been to the proper authorities and they have all agreed that spending time alone with their dad is emotionally damaging to my children. My ex is very controlling and fills their little head with all manner of things that are not true, my 11 year old daughter had a break down at school and told everyone what things dad has been saying, my 9 year old son is in play therapy because of him and my 16 year old daughter has severed all ties with him.
The Welfare officer who liaises between school and social services say i need to stop contact asap and i have a duty of care to the children to protect their mental welbeing.
( my ex is army and had PTSD which they say is now better however from what he says to the children and texts me he seems very delusional and the social services feel that the army should be brought into this situation because they feel he could benefit from more help)

Now I don't earn enough to pay for a solicitor and although im eligible for legal aid, every solicitor within a 45 mile radius of me says they have ran out of allocation until apr? so I cant get legal aid to get a letter sent to my Ex informing him that he is not to visit the children.
A coupe of the solicitors have said to just send him a letter myself however it doesn't seem official enough to make him understand this must stop asap.
I have been offered a fixed fee to send a letter to him for £200 but that's a lot of money just to send a letter? ( especial when that's a months food allowance for me and the kids!
I guess is there a 3rd option? or does anyone know of an online solicitor that is a more sensible price?

I could really do with some help here, I need to get something in place asap that is official and lets everyone know that this can no longer happen?
Social services said they wont get involved unless he is physically harming towards them! however if I have a duty of care not to send them? kinda catch 22!
sorry its very long but i would appreciate any advice

thanks
x

FBaby

How long has contact taken place? When did the welfare office make his report? If he and SS are so concerned, why didn't they act up and referred the case to a judge?

If you stop contact on your own accord, without any evidence of imminent danger, you risk damaging your case. You are better off taking the proper legal route, even if it means your children have to go through it a bit longer (unless of course they are in serious danger). Why don't you contact SS and see what they can do to insure contact stops (unless that is not what they recommend).

daska

Ring your local Family Court and speak with the Clerk. They can point you in the right direction of the correct papers and explain how the system works.

You don't need to take a solicitor or barrister with you but it always helps to have someone so google Mackenzie friend and try to find one in your area. But TBH it's really no where near as scary as you might imagine, judges are usually quite happy to give parents who represent themselves the time to explain where they can be very brief with professionals

You'll need to write a statement but I'm sure there are several people on here who have been in your situation and can help with pointers - essentially you must keep it factual and relevant - and if at all possible get the advice from SS/ welfare officer/ school etc in writing. They probably won't write to you unless you write to them, in which case they have to respond formally, you should be able to include this as evidence.

The case for stopping/ not stopping contact is a difficult one though, on the one hand the children are entitled to contact, on the other you have the responsibility for ensuring they are not put at risk and, despite what SS have said to you, that includes mental and emotional harm as well as physical. If you don't stop contact then the first question you'll be asked is likely to be "Why didn't you do something about it if you believed your child was at risk?" It was certainly one of the first questions CAFCASS put to us and thankfully we were able to answer that we'd taken legal advice and had been told that we didn't stand a chance (and we had the notes from the solicitor to back this up).

travelchick

thank you Fbaby, i cant send them back the damage is worse than i have put on here an the children are scared of him.

Daska, thank you for this as this sounds like a 3rd option, ive started keeping times and dates diary and the welfare and school are happy to give copies of their reports, my sons psycholotherapist is also happy to send a report to the court.
i will try that tomorrow.

marisco_2

travelchick wrote: »

I cant get legal aid to get a letter sent to my Ex informing him that he is not to visit the children. I have been offered a fixed fee to send a letter to him for £200 but that's a lot of money just to send a letter? ( especial when that's a months food allowance for me and the kids!

£200 would be a considerable amount of money to pay if it just covered the cost of a letter. However in this case the letter would put in place safe, monitored contact between your children and their dad. It would mean they could maintain seeing an important figure in their lives but not be vulnerable to inappropriate behaviour from him.

In time just as with your eldest, they may decide they do not wish to stay in contact with him. They will be able to make that decision for themselves based on what they know of him and how they feel about him. You would be empowering them to make their own choices about their dad in a way that is not detrimental to them. Something they will really respect you for in time.

daska

How would one letter put all that in place? Some contact centres are so busy that they only take referrals from the Court, not private ones, they may only run for a few hours every fortnight or month. Chances are that the £200 wouldn't cover the Court appearances or any follow-up.

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow

Can you just stop taking the children for their contact visits and wait for your ex to issue court proceedings.

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow

A judge will probably let an 11 year old decide for themselves whether or not they want contact with their father.

FBaby

You have to be careful though as judges don't like pwc stopping contact with very good reasons. Very good reasons meaning not that you are suddenly concerned despite no specific recent event (but an accumulation that has gone to far) and without seeking support. You are really better off approaching authorities, seeking the support of SS, asking for an urgent meeting with CAFCASS, rather than just stopping contact out of the blue (in the eyes of the authority) and risking being perceived as the uncooperative pwc, who is stopping contact our of spite, the image I would assume your ex will try to build of you.

marisco_2

Daska I had to arrange supervised contact between my ex and our children. His behaviour had become detrimental to their welfare and just as in the OPs case their school had become aware of this.

My solicitor wrote to him offering him supervised contact at a contact centre. He agreed to it. Something that surprised me and no doubt saved me an awful lot of money in getting this kind of contact established.

The solicitor then set it up for us. I dont doubt that these places are extremely busy, so gave no time frame to the OP for how long this would take to be put in place. It does mean that her ex will only see the children once or twice a month but considering what has been carefully and wisely divulged on an open forum that would be no bad thing. It may not be a long term solution, I didn't state it would be, but it would be a start.

travelchick

Thats the fee for them to send the letter and for him to then send all correspondence to me, they will not monitor anything that happens after that.
i have been a firm believer in the 7 years we have been apart that they are his children and he has always had unlimited contact with them, however they are scared of him and have expressed they are scared to go and see him, he has told them he is going to take them to a place where they never have to see mummy again he has text it to my daughter so I have proof of this.
He had started texting me preaching bible quote ( he is not religious in any way?) he keeps phoning and begging me to admit that i dont love the children, he says i will feel better if i give them up now before its to late and i damage them forever? i have assured him that I love them but he said i need to look deep into myself and see that I am not cut our to be a mum and that i dont really like them!
He convinced my 11 year old that she was fat, shes 5ft 1 and weighs 6.5 stone, he kept telling her she was getting fatter like mum so she started skipping meals and got ill, he then started telling people i wasnt feeding her!
when she refused to say she wanted to live with him he made her write a diary of abuse ie mum doesnt feed me mum hits me, how the home is never clean how she does all the housework, when i said made i mean he stood shouting at her until she cried and wrote down what he said word for word, he then keeps this diary as proof im abusing the kids!
to top it all on her last visit he got a social worker to interview her in his home and the social worker agreed that she was not is a safe place and to prevent mummy getting in trouble for being such a bad mum she would be better off coming to live with dad. ONLY IT WASNT A SOCIAL WORKER it was one of his friends in the army!!
as i say this isnt everything but i hope it gives you a better picture of why I cant allow contact to happen until he gets help.
he text my daughter the other night and said when you visit this weekend you wont have to go home, ive got a court order mummy doesnt know about. I had to explain to her that the judge doesnt work this way but shes 11!

I didnt know it was this bad until last week when my daughter had a break down in school, she said sometimes she wishes she was dead because she cant cope with everything in her head :-(