Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

[t135t0]

Ok i am going to be totally honest now as im looking for honest answers and direction so there will be no point in lying about anything.

I had to fight in court last year to see my daughter, i went 7 times in total and to be fair it all went in my favour as the laws have changed to help fathers alot more. The mother did screw me over many times, she lied in court, got a barrister, made statements that were not true and got child protection involved. I also made many many mistakes. But its so easy for her to move on forget all the mistakes and be happy as she sees our daughter daily, she is involved in everything. All i have is contact in a centre since last nov (something id love to have back right now) im still a stranger to my daughter and make no real decisions or have a true bearing on her life so i get so frustrated. Had zero involvement in any big occasions etc.....She makes remarks that wind me up but i have to walk on egg shells all the time....

Anyways heres what happened and i need advice on.....

2 weeks ago i had a few beers, feeling down and left out and frustration had built up and i just let off steam, msg the mother on fb wanting reassurance, saying i was a scumbag, im not good enough and my daughter is better off without me...needless to say i never got any sympathy. I cancelled my next visit in the centre then took the giving her shit direction, i also messaged her family giving them grief even tho at one point they had been on my side. Now the mother refuses to bring my daughter to the centre for the foreseeable future, i cant ask for an enforcement order as this conflict was caused by myself this time. I have nobody else to blame but me and know my mistakes. She will rake up all the past now, the bickering and fights since i got my order, instigated by us both.

All i can do now is go back to court and ask for a variation on my contact order, im posting the forms next wed when i get paid. My plan now is to apologise to all parties involved and assure the court no more of this will ever happen again, promise to not contact the mother or her family for a long time until the dust settles, but my worry is cos the court have already helped me will they refuse to grant another order if i say this was my doing?

So in past expierence what do the courts usually do in these situations and what direction can i take to ensure the court this wont happen again, i can go to counselling classes and anger management courses, i dont have a drink or drug problem i just got drunk that night and let it all out.

Please guys i know my mistakes and im bitterly gutted, im living in my own prison in my head atm and its killing me, just honest advice please

[judgemental24]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

The court will always decide on the best interest of the child.

If i were you i would send all those involved an apology, say you had bad toothache or something as justification as you were not yourself. But do not leave it to long.

[t135t0]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Thank you, and im in the process of getting back to court, this only happened 10 days ago

[stevemLS]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Oh dear, the perils of Facebook.
[MENTION=70489]judgemental24[/MENTION] gave you good advice.

However, providing your apologies are sincere, abject and prompt and it is plain that this was an isolated incident of a drunken outburst of frustration, in my view it is doubtful whether a judge would see that as making it in the best interests of a child not to have any contact whatever with her father.

Courts tend to bend over backwards to maintain family ties.

What are you proposing to ask the court to do? I wouldn't be too hasty to make any application and would personally wait to see what the result of my grovelling was. Unless there is any legal barrier to doing so (Non-mol Order/Injunction etc) I would try and grovel in person rather by by text or email.

I do sometimes think computers ought to have breathalysers built in to them.:tinysmile_twink_t2:

[MissFM]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

The only thing I'd like to add to the wise words above is that I think your idea of counselling and/or anger management would be well worth pursuing - you must be going through hell with all this and need all the support and TLC you can get, not just for your own sake but also to be strong for your daughter :hug: x

[t135t0]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Hi guys,

thank you for the replies.

There is no way the mother will let me back into my daughters life and the only way is court, i said some pretty rotten things. As i said just through pure frustration but not acceptable, especially since being a father.
When myself and the mother havent been in contact its all fine, visits go ahead etc, so contacting her probs wont be a great idea, i did send a msg through a 3rd party last night to try and resolve things but there was no reply.

What i am gonna ask for is tricky as when i ask for a variation the court will want to know what im gonna vary it to, and atm i have the best possible deal, once every two weeks in a centre, i dearnt ask to leave the centre, my idea was to ask for it to be dropped to once a month so i can build up my trust again. show commitment and let the dust settle, i certainly dont wanna see my daughter less but if that gets me seeing her again then thats fine. I have been advised to not act so quickly and give it time, but then some people are saying not to wait to long, so im gonna file my papers next week and hope the court gives me a hearing, there are no restrictions on making the application so all goes well will be in court by December.

I have already made steps and contacted Councillors and anger management people so fingers crossed.

[MissFM]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Have you thought of grovelling by letter?

Hand-written (no computer involvement) - just an unreserved apology - an expression of your extreme regret and commitment to start anew?

Maybe ask what action, on your part, would change her mind? x

[PAWS]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

When it comes to your legal position I know ‘jack s’ but I do agree with the smart beagles above. Even if her Mom doesn’t accept a grovelling apology at least you were big enough to offer one.
I have known many parents and I honestly know very few who think they were perfect and always did and said the right thing. I have also known many who did far worse than you and not only, after time, were they forgiven, they actually learned to forgive themselves.
Your daughter will only have one Dad. You are a dad but you are also a real and fallible human being. As mentioned above it is always best to try and sort things out yourselves and only use the court as last resort. You have nothing to lose by offering an apology and just be patient. Very, very patient.

[t135t0]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

she wont budge, trust me. I missed the first yr of my daughters life for alot less and the only reason ive met her now is cos of court, if she had it her way my daughter would have had to come and found me when she was old enough as i would have never have known as she kept the pregnancy secret, i only found out cos one of her mates told me behind her back..so trust me there will be no joy in asking her, as i was quite ruthless in the things i said.

I am annoyed big time as we had made huge progress, we were talking fine and she was even considering talking it out of the centre after xmas, but i let my frustration take control of me, as i said earlier, its easy for her to move on and forget i just found it a whole lot harder.

Thank you everybody tho as i have a new feel of hope, everybody ive asked who was supportive and hopeful through my previous court dealings are now very doubtful i will get another chance and i feel down about it.

The fact of the matter is it all comes down to the judge on the day, each case is unique so fingers and toes crossed. Nobody seems to know of a situation like mine so if any of you know of anything like this and what the outcome was please tell

[MissFM]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

What a beautiful child!

As has been said above, the courts will focus on what, in their perception, is in her best interests.

Current views favour a genuine relationship with both parents - so it's not so much a matter of whether her mother "allows" you to have contact, as to what the courts consider meaningful, constructive contact to be. With such a young child, little and often in a supervised situation would seem appropriate. If the mother is unwilling to have any contact with you herself, then it will be necessary to find a suitable third party to facilitate your time with your daughter. In my opinion, one parent's hostility towards the other shouldn't dictate contact arrangements.

If there is a court order in place and she has gone against it (albeit with, as you describe, an understandable reason) then strictly speaking it is she, not you, that is in contempt.

Have you been in contact with the Cafcass officer involved?

You might also find some useful resources here: www.fnf.org.uk/ (Families need fathers) xx

[t135t0]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Thank you for the compliment she is a very beautiful little girl.

Yes there is a court order in place but i am afraid i cant enforce it and she also not in breach of the order either.

I have read up about it as much as i can this past 10 days since contact broke down, i came across the official HMRC website and it clearly states if the mother has reason to not come to the centre then she will not be in breach of the order. I did get some legal advice and he said if i went to court to enforce it then it looks quite aggressive and its a case of who blames who, but if you go back in and make a fresh contact order then its a softer approach and looks like your putting the child first before your gonna start pushing or passing the blame.

I have not yet spoken to a cafcass officer as i have not filed the papers yet so nobody knows except me that its hopefully going back to court. The first is now closed and the court never requested a cafcass report either as there was no safeguarding concerns...i mean a cafcass report not needed, this is how petty this saga has become as nobody has hurt anybody, its just two parents who dislike eachother.

[MissFM]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Any relationship breakdown where there are children and there is a dispute over residence or contact tends to involve Cafcass - there doesn't have to have been abuse or violence. They prepare evidence for the courts on behalf of the child's "best interests" and their opinions tend to carry a great deal of weight.

It might be worth contacting them and asking for their input.

Obviously, if you have a solicitor you should heed their advice.

I don't really understand what you mean here:

Yes there is a court order in place but i am afraid i cant enforce it and she also not in breach of the order either.

x

[stevemLS]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

Despite your misgivings, and of course you know her best, I can't recommend the apology approach strongly enough and Miss FM made a very good suggestion of a handwritten letter, in the post.

Give it lots of thought, say how much your contact with your daughter has meant and means to you as well as apologising for your behaviour. Tell her what you have done to address the behaviour in terms of counselling and anger management.

Offer to have contact only every four weeks for a period.

If need be say how much it pleased you that your relationship with her had improved to the point of civility.

(Keep a copy, if need be it will be evidence that you have since acted reasonably and done all that you can).

You DON'T need a variation to reduce frequency of contact, you would only need one to increase it. Judges aren't stupid, any fresh application will have the judge saying, hang on a minute, there is already a contact order in place.

She IS in breach (and therefore contempt), not sure what this site is that you have read your advice (HMRC? I thought they did income tax?) If she had GOOD reason not to attend a particular session that would be a technical breach but not one that the court would be particularly worried about. It would have to be a bloody good reason, though, e.g. someone ill in hospital, domestic emergency etc. It would have to be exceptional circumstances.

What she has done is say, bugger the court order, you are never seeing her again. That is simply not acceptable. If that is what she wanted, the correct thing to do would be for HER to apply to vary or discharge the current order. (It would be helpful if you could post a copy of the order, after of course removing all your personal details.)

Try the letter, if you don't hear anything after say 2 weeks, write again and say how disappointed you are not to have heard from her and say as gently as you can that the contact means so much to you that you will feel you have no alternative but to make an application to enforce the order but how much you don't want to have to do that. That should remove any suggestion of aggression in you making an application to enforce.

It is in all your interests to stay the hell away from courts if at all possible.

- - - Updated - - -

Some CAFCASS officers are also mediators, a skilful mediator can sometimes resolve even the most entrenched of parties.

[t135t0]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

MissFM, what i meant by ..."yes there is a court order in place but im afraid i cant enforce it and she is also not in breach of the order" is i have read up about this, and if the mother has a reason to not attend the centre then i cant enforce the order in court and technically there is no breach. I was going to go in softly with a new c100 form and approach it that way.

Hi stevemLS thank you for the input, i do not have an address for the mother so writing her a letter is not possible, when i file my forms next week ill be putting in a C4 disclosure form so they can find her. Last time i did this the court coudnt locate her but luckily her family stepped in 18 months ago and persuaded her to ring the court to disclose her address, she has since moved and now is claiming housing benefit and with the CSA so fingers crossed they will find her this time. I do understand staying well away from the courts is good but as i have said perviously in this thread, the mother will 100% not let me see my daughter, not now and not for a long long time.

Cafcass will not get involved with a case unless it has been instructed to by the court, so cafcass can not help mediate or anything else

i have a link here, if you go to page 3 second paragraph it tells you what i have been saying about her not being in breach and she is within her rights to do what shes doing, and yes your right it was HMCS not HMRC.

http://www.familylaw.co.uk/system/up...0/2082/cb5.pdf

[stevemLS]

Re: Will it be years until i see my daughter again?

i have a link here, if you go to page 3 second paragraph it tells you what i have been saying about her not being in breach and she is within her rights to do what shes doing, and yes your right it was HMCS not HMRC.

http://www.familylaw.co.uk/system/up...0/2082/cb5.pdf

OK, thanks, it is a shame you don't have her address. Do you have a relative's address where you could write to her c/o.

Thank you for your link - it really confirms what I said in post #13, it is not "reasonable", in my view, to use a what I described as a isolated drunken outburst of frustration to entirely terminate an arrangement. You could perhaps understand it if she refused to attend the following one or two sessions as she was angry about it, but not to terminate it.