Ex (f) Applied to remove daughter from my primary care

[Ghostrider35]

Hi all,

I have disguised details due to ongoing proceedings.

I am in the rare position as a father who has my daughter for the majority of the time on a shared child arrangements order. This is Mon-Fri with me and weekends with mum.

Mum has had involvement with social services for neglect and domestic abuse in the last 5 years which resulted in initially the interim order being she could only have supervised contact for 1 hour. Then as she made progress on the plan she was allowed greater unsupervised contact resulting in the arrangement today.

She has since had a separate referral to a different Social Services by the police.

Due to financial opportunities I indicated to Mum I would be looking to relocate with daughter to Yorkshire (We currently reside in Southeast).

She has now applied for a prohibitive steps order and an order to vary the child arrangements so daughter is moved into her primary care and with no outline for proposed contact with myself.

I understand she is within her rights to do this and my question is two-fold, what are the chances a judge tells me I can’t relocate with daughter and vary the existing Child Arrangements Order to accommodate that? And am I likely to lose primary care of daughter during these proceedings considering safeguarding issues with Mum?

There are no safeguarding concerns with my care or raised by mother in her application. I am wary family courts may have a natural tendency to favour mothers and I am genuinely concerned for my daughter’s welfare if she were to be moved away from my primary care.

Thanks for reading and appreciate any response, even if it is something I don’t want to hear.

[R0b]

Hi,

I am not a family expert and so have limited knowledge but you would be sensible to seek legal advice and/or representation for those proceedings if you can, even if you get an idea of how to frame or shape your arguments and what to say.

As it stands, there is no current law that prohibits you from moving in or around the country but the courts would expect you to engage with the other parent at least and try to seek consent, being mindful of the fact that a move several hours away could potentially hinder contact to that child due to the distance. For example, if the mum has the child Saturday and Sunday, does the mum drive at all or is her only means of transport public? If access requires her to spend a 6 hour or more round trip to pick her up and return back to you, that is likely going to have a significant impact on current contact arrangements based on the time she is currently allowed to see her. If there is a significant impact on the current arrangement that could be grounds for a judge to vary the current order to something else.

It's really difficult to say whether a judge would prohibit you from making the move but you should expect to be questioned about it. I've listed some questions below that I would expect a judge to ask you about the move.

1. What is the reason for the move? Sometimes one parent moves away with the child in an effort to restrict or prohibit access from the other parent and make it more difficult to disrupt the existing contact arrangements. Equally, a reasonable explanation could be that you are moving for employment reasons.

2. In relation to the age of the child, is the move likely to cause a significant disruption to her education? If so, how do you plan on addressing that? Are there suitable schools that she could slot into straight away? What does the child say about the move? Is she for it or does she not want to leave?

3. Has the mother raised any concerns about the move and fi so, do you have any proposals to address her concerns? For example, would you be willing to meet her at a halfway point to collect the child or perhaps drop her off yourself, allow longer contact rights e.g. Fri-Sun, maybe allow the mother greater access during school holidays. A judge will want to know what you are prepared to give or offer if a move is to be agreed.

I think you have to give the mother some credit for turning her life around somewhat and the ability to stick to the plan (or at least most of of it) with the help of social services. But by the same token, you may want to use whatever you can to ensure that the contact arrangements remain the same, even if that means bringing up her recent activities or reports from police to social services. It sounds really bad but this is what happens in family proceedings and it really depends on how good terms you are with the mother and whether or not you want to use any adverse evidence against her to support your case for moving away.

Given her history and the way the contact arrangements are currently in place, I would be surprised that a judge would completely reverse the order such that you have no contact and that the child is with the mother full time. The courts will usually want to strive to ensure that the child has access to both parents and not just one wherever possible.

If you do raise the social services issue (or not), it may be that the court will ask for any reports by social services to be prepared before making a decision. As a minimum, if you do want to make the move, I think you should expect the current arrangement to change to the extent that the mother may have increased access to the child.

You haven't mentioned that the mother is legally represented but in either case, you may want to reach out to her legal rep or if not speak to her directly to see if there is a way for you both to come to an arrangement without the need to go through the courts and things getting potentially nasty. Find out what she wants and then go from there but be prepared to compromise in some way shape or form.

[Ghostrider35]

Thank you so much for your advice.

Yes, the move is being made due to more financial stability and opportunities and the proposed contact I have made is Mother would have our daughter for the holidays - when calculating total time together this equates to the same amount of days.

Absolutely agree I should give mum credit for completing the Child Protection Plan, but on the same token, another second referral to social services two years later is of course a concern I intend to raise with the court.

I do have legal representation and so does mum. My concern isn’t to reduce or limit contact with mum, it is more this move makes sense for my daughter’s (and mine) future. Mum of course has a different perspective.

It is just a situation that I am unfamiliar with court wise, I went through the original court process with the support of both SS and the local police force who made a recommendation to the court. This time round it seems a different ballpark so it helps to have perspectives like yours to gauge how to prepare myself.

Thank you so much for your reply and detailed response.

[R0b]

Well, if you have legal representation then really your lawyer should be advising you of this and next steps but of course each time they look at your email or pick up the phone they will be charging you for the privilege.

Law firms in their specialist fields will have a resource of articles and other publications on these issues so if you want to brush up your knowledge and understanding, I would suggest you do a little research online so you are familiar with what you might expect and the process.

Here's a couple of useful articles to get you going

Defending a relocation application (Kingsley Napley)

Welfare Checklist When Considering Relocation (Kingsley Napley)

Best practice when advising on a relocation case (farrer.co.uk)

[Ghostrider35]

Thank you for the resources Rob.

My solicitor seems to think in light of our position and the evidence we are putting before the court that it is a fairly straightforward case. The planned relocation is internal and we have legitimate reasons, my daughter wants to move, there will always be some element of safeguarding risk with my ex and we have compiled as part of our bundle a detailed and specific outline of the move including education etc. In terms of the advice I have received it is very encouraging.

I guess I posted on here just to evaluate how things could go wrong and you have certainly highlighted a couple of issues and points in the resources I will ask my solicitor about further.

You have certainly helped me see a wider perspective.

[R0b]

It does sound like it is a straightforward issue and as you are represented, hopefully the process will be less stressful than doing this on your own like a lot of parents do.

The application by the mother to be the primary carer and no contact arrangements for you to see the child is a bit of an odd one given the circumstances and I think her legal rep is probably reaching a bit too far. It would have made more sense for the mother to make an application to either prohibit the move or seek greater access if the move is granted.

As those articles state, the main concern a court has to take into account is the welfare of the child, so as long as you have your evidence together to explain that there is no significant impact or any impact is mitigated, the only issue to be determined will be the contact arrangements and how it should be varied. The reason why I suggested reaching an agreement outside the court is because both of you are effectively leaving it in the hands of a judge who has to do the best they can based on the information and evidence in front of them. Sometimes those decisions don't feel fair or reasonable on one party and they could be much worse off than they were before which then puts a further strain on that relationship and create a sense of bitterness towards the other parent.

Don't think I have anything more to add at this stage other than to say good luck, and feel free to report back the outcome and your experience as it may help someone else in a similar situation in the future.

[MIKE770]

seems social services been involved here?

[Ghostrider35]

Yes Mike. Two different Social Services have been involved with mum due to referrals from Police/NHS

[MIKE770]

Thought so