Court without report?

Shortypie1

Hi,

Sorry this is not necessarily "money saving" but I don't know anyone in real life who might have the answer.

I've been divorced for around 1.5 years, my ex husband applied for the divorce using an online agency of some kind, decree absolute done despite neither finances nor child arrangements having been formally sorted - tbh I'm not sure I'm even legally divorced or if it was some scam done on a home printer :eek: :rotfl:

Anyway, I applied for a child arrangements order to formalise child arrangements and stop the ex messing about just to control me, as it was detrimental to the kids. Fast forward less than a year I had to stop unsupervised contact as his behaviour was erratic and he was emotionally abusing them (basically badmouthing me, they were coming out with all sorts at school) culminating in him showing them a picture of a naked lady from an adult website asking if it was me, as he'd convinced himself it was. . . . . social care not interested as I had stopped him having them so they were safe. I arranged for a family member to supervise contact 2 weekends out of 5, according to his shift patterns. He is free to phone or text them whenever he wants, but rarely bothers (he will go weeks without contact and usually they contact him first). The eldest 2 have ASD and learning difficulties and he is not particulary understanding of their needs (e.g. insisting on having the lights off at bedtime, despite them being terrified of the dark, taking them to a graveyard at 7pm in winter when I was running 20 minutes late for drop off as my train was cancelled - I'd offered to send him money so he could take them to MacDonalds).


5 months later, following pressure from his family, he applied to court to enforce the order, and following my damning statement of truth, he fabricated lots of allegations about me to CAFCASS I guess to try and make him look like a good dad by making me look like a bad mum? (e.g. apparentl I'm an alcoholic and on drugs :rotfl: - he didn't seem to realise that if he genuinely suspected I was those things he shouldn't have left them with me at all but hey) and Court ordered a Section 7 report be done by local Social Services.


All fine, they did home visits to both, spoke to the kids and did a supervised contact. The social worker definitely got the measure of the kind of person he is and from the little she said to me, she was satisfied they were safe with me. A few weeks before the filing date, Court issued a letter changing it to CAFCASS doing the Section 7 report. CAFCASS never contacted me, when I phoned them I was told the case looked closed on their system, there was nobody on duty to talk to me but someone would call me. They didn't. The filing date was yesterday.


I've emailed Court asking that the date be postponed until a Section 7 report is submitted and requesting it be done by the original social worker (she was a safeguarding social worker and wasted 2 days of frontline work on this for it to amount to nothing :mad: ).

I've just had a reply from the court saying the judge has directed the hearing may only be vacated if both parties agree.

I'm worried my ex will happily have a hearing with no section 7 report if it shows what he is like, so won't agree to vacate. What happens if we go to Court with no report? Will they reinstate unsupervised access? The Social Worker said that she would include in her recommendations that before any phased access, he needs to work on his place i.e. get appropriate furniture and put the heating on when the kids are there. Or will it be a short hearing with no real actions, and another hearing convened to do it properly? I've always striven to enable a good relationship between him and the children (even having to facilitate it when he was here) but it can't be to the detriment of their welfare, and I feel current arrangements are working well, and school agree they all seem happier now they are not having unsupervised access.

TBagpuss

It is unusual for the court to have changed who is to d o the report, but when you attend court next you can explain what has happened, and ask the court to either (i ) reinstate the social services report or (ii) direct that the original letter instructing Cafcass to report is sent to them and chased up - if cafcass do the report they would probably ask to review any social services reports or records, so they would likely speak to the original social worker.

What is the hearing which is listed? IS it a final hearing, or something else, ? How long is it listed for?

Ms_Chocaholic

Social Services would normally do the S7 report if they had previously been involved so unsure why this was passed to CAFCASS.

As CAFCASS haven't done the report then the matter will be heard again at Court but I guess that nothing will be done and the DJ will just extend the date by which the S7 has to be done. As the information regarding the change in the agency completing the report was in a letter rather than an Order of the Court, it could well be that that has not made it's way to CAFCASS so they are unaware that the S7 is now their responsibility.

If the DJ has ordered a S7 to be completed then he/she will not make a decision without it as that helps with the decision-making and he will 99.9% of the time following the recommendations of the S7 in the final order.

HTH.

Shortypie1

TBagpuss wrote: »

It is unusual for the court to have changed who is to d o the report, but when you attend court next you can explain what has happened, and ask the court to either (i ) reinstate the social services report or (ii) direct that the original letter instructing Cafcass to report is sent to them and chased up - if cafcass do the report they would probably ask to review any social services reports or records, so they would likely speak to the original social worker.

What is the hearing which is listed? IS it a final hearing, or something else, ? How long is it listed for?

I don't have the paperwork with me, but I would guess it's not a final hearing - we've only had one hearing since he applied to enforce the order, during which we were provided with the CAFCASS report (it was witheld before due to the nature of the allegations made by my ridiculous ex) and instructions were made for a Section 7 report to be undertaken, and letters provided by GP regarding mental health and substance abuse.

The Social Worker never actaully finished the Section 7 report, since the direction for it to be done by CAFCASS was received a few weeks before the filing date, so there is none to reinstate at present. But these responses have somewhat reassured me that no final directions would be made without a report.

Shortypie1

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

Social Services would normally do the S7 report if they had previously been involved so unsure why this was passed to CAFCASS.

As CAFCASS haven't done the report then the matter will be heard again at Court but I guess that nothing will be done and the DJ will just extend the date by which the S7 has to be done. As the information regarding the change in the agency completing the report was in a letter rather than an Order of the Court, it could well be that that has not made it's way to CAFCASS so they are unaware that the S7 is now their responsibility.

If the DJ has ordered a S7 to be completed then he/she will not make a decision without it as that helps with the decision-making and he will 99.9% of the time following the recommendations of the S7 in the final order.

HTH.

Technically Social Services hadn't been previously involved with my family, other than historically the elder two had been open to the Disabled Children's Team for Direct Payments/Short Breaks. When I telephoned Duty SW after the naked lady photo incident, as I was aware I was in breach of a Court Order and wanted to cover all my bases, it was flagged for the Disabled Children's Social Worker who telephoned me the following week but only provided advice. I can't fathom why they changed it to CAFCASS, particularly so late in proceedings.

Sorry, I suppose it was in a Court Order, as it was the original Court Order, amended, but sent by post. Yes maybe it didn't get to them. Still seems daft only leaving it a matter of weeks.

Thanks so much for your response, I do feel reassured

squirrelchops

Did you get sent an assessment from the Social Worker who visited?

If they didn't complete a S7 report then at least they would have completed a single assessment ie Initial Assessment that you should receive a copy of. This would contain their assessment and conclusion which may be of help.

It sounds like the Court ordered SS to do the S7 as thought your child was an open case to them. SS have now said they're not hence it would go back to CAFCASS to do. Sadly passing the buck between the two agencies when it comes to S7 is very common.