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Contact Order Breach Or Just Harassment?
Hi, I am a single mother recently seperated from the father of my 16 month old since end of November 2010 after discovery of infidelity. He had a contact order already set up for every weekend, times to be arranged but since we reconciled we was seeing his daughter every weekend anyway at my house. End of November relationship ended, and I was due to go on holiday with my son for xmas for 2 weeks. Father was fine with this all along until relationship was over. Then he started threatening me with court and police action if I took my son on holiday without his permission. Permissions I have in the form of texts. I knew this harassment would continue so I changed my number so he would be forced to email me so I could have evidence of all this harassment. Harassment continued, I asked him to get his lawyer to contact me as I felt I could not speak to him, he was being irrational. He refused.
Finally having had enough of the constant harrassment, I offered contact arrangements before I went away on holiday hoping he would leave me alone after an agreement was reached. I offered Every saturday morning from 9am-12pm i would drop my daughter at a relative's house for him to visit her there. Then there would be no need to speak to him ever again. he promised to leave me alone if we came to an arrangement. Father ignored this arrangement saying it was insufficient instead demanding to pick my daughter up and drive her 2 hours up north to spend time with her and his parents and then drive her back down another 2 hours. My daughter is still breastfed and not used to being around these people. They have a big problem with me and use it to aggrevate situation between father and I. He refused to even consider trying out the arrangement for a time and see how it went before requesting more access.
Throughout my holiday I received threatening emails, abusive emails, bitter hateful and very hurtful things said in these emails, threatening to have me arrested when i got back. Got back and as promised dropped my daughter off at relatives house for him to visit first weekend I returned. he did not pitch up at all, he knew full well the date and time and venue of first visit and consequent visits, so therefore no need to contact me at all. Dropped off my child second weekend of arranged visits and still no contact. sent father email reminding him that i was still keeping to my promise of contact arrangement, but still received threats and abuse via email.
Today received enforcement court order date in 2 weeks. Apparently I have refused contact and changed my phone number and taken my child out of the country without consent. Cannot afford lawyers fees as father does not pay child support. Have had to consult CSA for maintainance and he now owes ??2000 backpayments for CSA. Now have received threatening emails saying if I do not cancel the CSA and allow him to pay what he can he will tell the court I am doing drugs in front of my son and he will do everything he can to make sure they take her away from me. Has threatened to get social services involved making allegations I am doing drugs. I am a professional working full time to support my son, no drugs, not even cigarettes or alcohol. He is the one with a drug problem and I am scared what he will do if allowed unsupervised access to my daughter. Please advise me as I do not have money for a lawyer. I am worried they will take my child away without even checking his allegations first. I am at my wits end with this situation, tried to go to police about harassment but have been waiting for them to pitch and take a statement for a week now. I have been dealing with this type of harassment and intimidation since my child has been 2 months old, I need it to stop now.
Finally having had enough of the constant harrassment, I offered contact arrangements before I went away on holiday hoping he would leave me alone after an agreement was reached. I offered Every saturday morning from 9am-12pm i would drop my daughter at a relative's house for him to visit her there. Then there would be no need to speak to him ever again. he promised to leave me alone if we came to an arrangement. Father ignored this arrangement saying it was insufficient instead demanding to pick my daughter up and drive her 2 hours up north to spend time with her and his parents and then drive her back down another 2 hours. My daughter is still breastfed and not used to being around these people. They have a big problem with me and use it to aggrevate situation between father and I. He refused to even consider trying out the arrangement for a time and see how it went before requesting more access.
Throughout my holiday I received threatening emails, abusive emails, bitter hateful and very hurtful things said in these emails, threatening to have me arrested when i got back. Got back and as promised dropped my daughter off at relatives house for him to visit first weekend I returned. he did not pitch up at all, he knew full well the date and time and venue of first visit and consequent visits, so therefore no need to contact me at all. Dropped off my child second weekend of arranged visits and still no contact. sent father email reminding him that i was still keeping to my promise of contact arrangement, but still received threats and abuse via email.
Today received enforcement court order date in 2 weeks. Apparently I have refused contact and changed my phone number and taken my child out of the country without consent. Cannot afford lawyers fees as father does not pay child support. Have had to consult CSA for maintainance and he now owes ??2000 backpayments for CSA. Now have received threatening emails saying if I do not cancel the CSA and allow him to pay what he can he will tell the court I am doing drugs in front of my son and he will do everything he can to make sure they take her away from me. Has threatened to get social services involved making allegations I am doing drugs. I am a professional working full time to support my son, no drugs, not even cigarettes or alcohol. He is the one with a drug problem and I am scared what he will do if allowed unsupervised access to my daughter. Please advise me as I do not have money for a lawyer. I am worried they will take my child away without even checking his allegations first. I am at my wits end with this situation, tried to go to police about harassment but have been waiting for them to pitch and take a statement for a week now. I have been dealing with this type of harassment and intimidation since my child has been 2 months old, I need it to stop now.
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Replies
Don't worry about his empty threats. The courts see a lot of cases where untrue allegations are made and they're not naive or stupid. They will see through this and it may well rebound in your favour.
But get help from professionals who are experienced in this. WIth the best will in the world, we are better placed to offer support than cast iron legal advice!
Good luck with this, sounds like a complete nightmare.
My dad took my Mum to court when I was 18 months and lied to the court. He told them that my mum was unstable and unfit to look after me. He even managed to trick my mum into signing a confession type thing which made her look really bad.
Sadly the courts see these horrible types of people far too often and should be able to see through the rubbish.
Definitely talk to CAB and see if you can get some sort of legal representation. It might be worth keeping a diary of his behaviour and getting anyone else involved in the childcare arrangements to also keep a diary to prove what you are saying is correct.
I hope you manage to get this sorted.
The court saw through it and gave him cast iron access that is much more than he would have accepted if she'd been reasonable from the start, plus every time she starts to play silly buggers he can threaten to take it back to court for breach of the order and she quickly becomes reasonable again. So chin up - this is horrible now but might well work in your favour in the long term.
xxx
With regards to your original phone with the texts etc. Contact the service provider and ask them to download the text messages as this is all evidence. If they won't do this, you can hand the phone over to the Police and they can download the data from the phone. This will all help along with the emails received. Even if you have deleted the messages, there is a high chance that the internal memory has saved them on either the phone or the sim. You will have to download all of your emails and texts sent to him as well.
Speak to the Police again to see what action they are taking. Depending on what information has been reported to them, it may be treated with giving him a warning so just check what is happening and advise them of the court hearing.
I do know they wnt take ur child away from you though!
Can I ask you something though? The CSA... do you get the money even if he's not paying? or do you have 2 wait until he's paid them to receive any money? xxx
I do know they wnt take ur child away from you though!
Can I ask you something though? The CSA... do you get the money even if he's not paying? or do you have 2 wait until he's paid them to receive any money? xxx
Hubby contact a contact order on me to see our son as everytime he came to the house he started an argument. Sometimes not showing up for 5 months then the odd week here and there. He did not like the access arrangements that wwere drawn up so stoped attending, then told the court a pack of lies. He even barged his way into house on christmas eve and was being threatening I slapped his arm and he pushed me over, ended up at police station then a few days later broke his key in lock trying to get in.
Once back in court he still get not get the access he wanted, son does not know his Dad and would not cope within for 6 hours, does not know anything about him or his routine. I still bf as well but until last month it was during the day as well like every 5 mins. Contact cab they are great tell you want he,lp you can get and will find you a solicitor that lets you have 30 mins free advice and if you have less than ??6000 in savings then you should get legal aid. Be where it can be a long slow drawn out process. We both have been order by the court to attand a pip course which deals with how to avoild conflict in front of a child,Dont think it will help but have no choice, it may stop him from starting things but still getting comments and digs each week when I take little man to see him at an activitity centre so I have finally bit my tounge and ignore him now.
It takes a while but hang in there where theres a will theres away hang in there, I definately know what your going through, ive had it all as well.
Hubby contact a contact order on me to see our son as everytime he came to the house he started an argument. Sometimes not showing up for 5 months then the odd week here and there. He did not like the access arrangements that wwere drawn up so stoped attending, then told the court a pack of lies. He even barged his way into house on christmas eve and was being threatening I slapped his arm and he pushed me over, ended up at police station then a few days later broke his key in lock trying to get in.
Once back in court he still get not get the access he wanted, son does not know his Dad and would not cope within for 6 hours, does not know anything about him or his routine. I still bf as well but until last month it was during the day as well like every 5 mins. Contact cab they are great tell you want he,lp you can get and will find you a solicitor that lets you have 30 mins free advice and if you have less than ??6000 in savings then you should get legal aid. Be where it can be a long slow drawn out process. We both have been order by the court to attand a pip course which deals with how to avoild conflict in front of a child,Dont think it will help but have no choice, it may stop him from starting things but still getting comments and digs each week when I take little man to see him at an activitity centre so I have finally bit my tounge and ignore him now.
It takes a while but hang in there where theres a will theres away hang in there, I definately know what your going through, ive had it all as well.
With reference to csa he was making payments on his own back but then stopped paying so i got csa involved he paid one or two payments but had nothing for nearly 4 months now and finally his employers pay it now via his wages so got some much needed backpay hopefully this will continue. Hang in there csa are very slow lack of staff I had to keep chasing him but finally I have got somewhere.