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Hi, I hope someone on here can give some advice please for myself and my partner, with relation to the contact order that she has in place with her ex husband.
A contact order was put in place in July 2011 due to both parents being unable to agree.
This is currently that my partner has residency and is the main carer for the 2 girls, 11 and 14, and the father sees them every other weekend , from Friday evening to Sunday Evening.
At the time he was living in Guildford, we live in Fareham, so it was agreed that my partner would drop the children to Guildford at 5.30pm on the Friday and he would drop them to their home at 5.30pm on the Sunday.
There are also arrangements in place for Holidays and Chirstmas, which he was particularly vocal about in court.
Whilst I realise this is and cannot be connected however it is relevant, there was also a maintenance order put in place in July 2011 to which he agreed to in court for child and spousal maintenance, he has never paid the spousal and had to be pursued by the CSA for the child, and has since moved to Switzerland (outside the EU so hard to enforce, we have tried a REMO but it was rejected as they want it all translated into Italian and we don't have the money) a year ago and has paid nothing for the last year.
He has made an "offer" of £2000 a month, ( he earns £100k+ per annum) however he added conditions which included that my partner would drop the children to Heathrow and pick up every other weekend, that's probably 2 hours each way, that he would deduct £500 for each thing if he became aware that my partner and I had been talking about him ( we never bad mouth him to the children), and that he wanted additional contact mid week whenever he could fly into the country. There are a lot more conditions attached to this offer, which made the offer ridiculous and with him holding the purse strings. My partner and I agreed that she was better off with nothing rather than him deciding whether he would pay and how much, if he cant be trusted to live by the court order how can he be trusted to make the payments each month.
The main issue we are having at the moment is three fold;
Firstly my partner simply cannot afford the 80 mile round trip every other Friday, and he has repeatedly held the children to ransom after bringing them back from holidays, and we have had to travel to Croydon and Heathrow to get the children as he refuses to return them, despite the court order saying he should, thus us incurring extra fuel costs and the children being anxious and upset.
Secondly, when he does return them on a Sunday, it can be anytime between 2pm and 7pm, no consistency for the children and they are always anxious when they return home due to not knowing from him when they are coming home.
Thirdly and most importantly, he will not communicate with my partner directly, instead he asks the eldest girl to text my partner when they are coming home and informs the eldest where he will be on the Friday, normally a hotel near Guildford, this puts stress and anxiety on the eldest. We have tried to ask him to not communicate through her but he ignores this, I even approached him directly via email and explained how upset the eldest was getting, and he emailed the eldest to say I was being horrible to him. (I realise I should not come between a parent and their child, however she has been crying in my arms on many occasions after a stressful weekend of her being piggy in the middle for two parents).
Any requests from my partner to him on this matter are met with a barrage of verbal abuse on email ( his work email in which he swears and makes threats) or text, in which he never acknowledges what has been asked but instead threatens the Police should she not do as he wants!!!
We are looking to return to court to seek an amendment to the court order, stating that contact is kept to reasonable and consistent times ( we have had to pick them at a midnight before as he held them ransom at Heathrow, on a Saturday with them having school on the Monday, he has also kept them out of the country for longer than he stated he would, as they both missed two days from school that was not authorised by anyone)and that Guildford is no longer the destination as he no longer lives there, and that if he cannot keep to this then contact will be suspended until we can return to court again to make another amendment.
The reason for returning to court is that the eldest is not sleeping, is stressed and anxious because she is used by him to communicate and never knows what time she is coming home, and is often the go between when there is a stand off.
When it suits him he will text my partner saying she can pick them up from wherever, he normally leaves it till late Sunday so we have no choice.
In the meantime before we return to court, my partner has said to him some weeks ago that she does not have the money for fuel for these additional journeys and will have to borrow the money to make these journeys, she will also tell him she cannot afford the journey and will contact me to see if I am a free to give her a lift. The aim of this is to break his behaviour as we often flies out on a Sunday night and insists we pick them up at say 7pm, so if I have to make the journey I will get their at 7.30p for example.
I dont believe in playing games however we have tried everything else we can think of, he ignores the courts, my partners pleas to not involve the eldest in communication, he has been cautioned about his verbal abuse as i insisted my partner inform the Police as he was making physical threats.
We have a folder 3 inches thick of emails from his work email account, in which he was sworn, made threats and been verbally abusive countless times, the bastard in me says send them to his place of work, but I know that's not the answer.
I would welcome any thoughts, suggestions for ways forward.
Regards
Martin
A contact order was put in place in July 2011 due to both parents being unable to agree.
This is currently that my partner has residency and is the main carer for the 2 girls, 11 and 14, and the father sees them every other weekend , from Friday evening to Sunday Evening.
At the time he was living in Guildford, we live in Fareham, so it was agreed that my partner would drop the children to Guildford at 5.30pm on the Friday and he would drop them to their home at 5.30pm on the Sunday.
There are also arrangements in place for Holidays and Chirstmas, which he was particularly vocal about in court.
Whilst I realise this is and cannot be connected however it is relevant, there was also a maintenance order put in place in July 2011 to which he agreed to in court for child and spousal maintenance, he has never paid the spousal and had to be pursued by the CSA for the child, and has since moved to Switzerland (outside the EU so hard to enforce, we have tried a REMO but it was rejected as they want it all translated into Italian and we don't have the money) a year ago and has paid nothing for the last year.
He has made an "offer" of £2000 a month, ( he earns £100k+ per annum) however he added conditions which included that my partner would drop the children to Heathrow and pick up every other weekend, that's probably 2 hours each way, that he would deduct £500 for each thing if he became aware that my partner and I had been talking about him ( we never bad mouth him to the children), and that he wanted additional contact mid week whenever he could fly into the country. There are a lot more conditions attached to this offer, which made the offer ridiculous and with him holding the purse strings. My partner and I agreed that she was better off with nothing rather than him deciding whether he would pay and how much, if he cant be trusted to live by the court order how can he be trusted to make the payments each month.
The main issue we are having at the moment is three fold;
Firstly my partner simply cannot afford the 80 mile round trip every other Friday, and he has repeatedly held the children to ransom after bringing them back from holidays, and we have had to travel to Croydon and Heathrow to get the children as he refuses to return them, despite the court order saying he should, thus us incurring extra fuel costs and the children being anxious and upset.
Secondly, when he does return them on a Sunday, it can be anytime between 2pm and 7pm, no consistency for the children and they are always anxious when they return home due to not knowing from him when they are coming home.
Thirdly and most importantly, he will not communicate with my partner directly, instead he asks the eldest girl to text my partner when they are coming home and informs the eldest where he will be on the Friday, normally a hotel near Guildford, this puts stress and anxiety on the eldest. We have tried to ask him to not communicate through her but he ignores this, I even approached him directly via email and explained how upset the eldest was getting, and he emailed the eldest to say I was being horrible to him. (I realise I should not come between a parent and their child, however she has been crying in my arms on many occasions after a stressful weekend of her being piggy in the middle for two parents).
Any requests from my partner to him on this matter are met with a barrage of verbal abuse on email ( his work email in which he swears and makes threats) or text, in which he never acknowledges what has been asked but instead threatens the Police should she not do as he wants!!!
We are looking to return to court to seek an amendment to the court order, stating that contact is kept to reasonable and consistent times ( we have had to pick them at a midnight before as he held them ransom at Heathrow, on a Saturday with them having school on the Monday, he has also kept them out of the country for longer than he stated he would, as they both missed two days from school that was not authorised by anyone)and that Guildford is no longer the destination as he no longer lives there, and that if he cannot keep to this then contact will be suspended until we can return to court again to make another amendment.
The reason for returning to court is that the eldest is not sleeping, is stressed and anxious because she is used by him to communicate and never knows what time she is coming home, and is often the go between when there is a stand off.
When it suits him he will text my partner saying she can pick them up from wherever, he normally leaves it till late Sunday so we have no choice.
In the meantime before we return to court, my partner has said to him some weeks ago that she does not have the money for fuel for these additional journeys and will have to borrow the money to make these journeys, she will also tell him she cannot afford the journey and will contact me to see if I am a free to give her a lift. The aim of this is to break his behaviour as we often flies out on a Sunday night and insists we pick them up at say 7pm, so if I have to make the journey I will get their at 7.30p for example.
I dont believe in playing games however we have tried everything else we can think of, he ignores the courts, my partners pleas to not involve the eldest in communication, he has been cautioned about his verbal abuse as i insisted my partner inform the Police as he was making physical threats.
We have a folder 3 inches thick of emails from his work email account, in which he was sworn, made threats and been verbally abusive countless times, the bastard in me says send them to his place of work, but I know that's not the answer.
I would welcome any thoughts, suggestions for ways forward.
Regards
Martin
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