child contact problems

[druskininkai]

The father of my 2 year old son abandoned my in labour about to give birth in the night with no money or phone and went to his mother with whom he has an unhealthy obsession. He is still there but is now applying for a contact order claiming I have refused him contact. This is untrue as I have never even dreamt of it let alone said anything remotely similar. The true reason is so that he can take the child to his mother and leave him there. I will not allow this as this family chain smokes and refuse to stop when child is there. His mother has never been to visit my son or made any contact at all as she says she hates me and won't come to meet me. I'm worried the court will not see the truth. Help !�!!!!

[dot.hawkes]

If you have not heard from him in two years then i suppose he did not attend the registration of the bith of your child, assuming you were not married, thereore his name will not be inclused on the registration as he did not sign the registration, therefore he has no legal right to anything as he is not legally the childs father

[druskininkai]

He has parental responsibility and has been in touch off and on. Court date is end October and he now visits regularly (to look good in court I presume). He refuses to help financially or any other way and is fraudulently claiming a benefit so as not to have to pay. The benefit people say there is nothing they can do due to lack of resources

[VillageVicar]

Something is amiss here. If Social Security are saying they cannot act on actual benefit fraud, then this needs to be brought to the attention of your local MP and the papers. No excuses!

And whilst I think the largest number of them are fumbling, inept and unprofessional, you will need to ask your solicitor to request through the courts, prior to adjudication, a review from a CAFCASS officer.

It's always difficult to set aside the emotion, but in this instance, only deal with the facts. The courts will be able to make an informed decision which, hopefully, is in the children's best interest.

I wish you every success

Fr Bill

[Annlinda]

The court will want to hear the fathers side of this story. The truth as you see it may be very different from his version. In family court the welfare of the child is paramount, so what you or the childs father want is not as important as to the rights of a child . One of these being to know its father.
Hope everything works out well

[VillageVicar]

AnnL: Too right! Hence my suggestion about the CAFCASS officer. There needs to be a balance in the child's interest. Sadly, in our country, the scales still remain tipped rather unfairly. However, there has been a large investment in helping CAFCASS officers to write less subjective reports. I'm not too confident considering that some of the officers haven't really had the fundamental training first...so I question how they could possibly conduct more comprehensive evaluations.

But indeed, I agree. In the child's best interest, there needs to be a balance, providing it's always a safe one.

I wish druski every success

Fr Bill

[druskininkai]

It frightens me to think that the future of my son rests with one possibly untrained, knowledge deficient CAFCASS officer.