Family Court Advice - Justice for fathers in access and custody disputes from Family Court Advice.

"You See Him When I Decide"
	Jim and Susie never actually lived together and they never discussed having a child. Susie assured Jim she was taking precautions, and while it came as a bit of a shock when she announced she was pregnant, Jim was, deep down, delighted and looked forward to seeing his son or daughter. He suggested living together, but she refused and continued to live with her parents who, he felt, never really accepted him. Jim was present at the birth – as was her mother, which rang warning bells. He was delighted and proud to be the father of Adam. He became aware afterwards that because Adam was born before the law changed, he did not have parental responsibility, but as he didn’t know what that was he didn’t worry too much. At first he was allowed to see Adam for a couple of hours once a week at the parents’ house – he was desperate for more time but her father told him that it was not convenient. He had to come when they told him, and each time he requested a change he was told it was not possible. He quite freely paid an agreed maintenance figure and bought food, clothes, nappies and toys but the two hours did not change, and at times he was not even allowed that. He never had Adam to himself, there were always other family members around. Susie went back to work and her mother took over the full time care of the child. Jim did wonder if he had been singled out as a suitable sperm donor to provide a child for the grandmother to look after. Jim approached a solicitor but was told he would be looking at about £5000 minimum to take the case to court and a friend put him in touch with me. For a set fee which represented a tiny fraction of what the solicitor proposed to charge, I travelled to see him, went through what had happened, prepared an application for the court, prepared him for court, prepared statements and letters and helped him right to the final hearing. Jim kept in touch with me on a very regular basis with all developments. The result was that Jim started off with 4 hours twice a week to start with, this progressed to 8 hours, then, after 6 months, to overnight stay once a fortnight initially and eventually a full weekend once a fortnight from Friday to Sunday evening and one evening during the week. He also has regular phone contact. Adam and Jim have regular holidays in which he takes him abroad, they have alternate Christmas Days together and have a wonderful relationship. Susie’s parents (not short of a bob or two) spent a large amount of money trying to cut him out of Adam’s life but failed totally.

“Dave and Joanne”
	When Dave married Joanne it was the happiest day of his life and he really meant it when he said “till death us do part”. Eleven years later, when he found out that it was her parents who were still the centre of her life, when they had had practically no physical relationship for about three years, when she was negative and carping about everything he did, he realised that his dreams would never be fulfilled. They had two children, Samantha and Jack who wanted nothing more than for their parents to stop arguing. When Dave on one occasion tried to defend himself against one of Joanne’s many physical attacks on him (he had never complained because he thought no one would accept a woman being violent), pushed her, and caused her to bang her head on the door, she called the police and had him arrested and evicted. After three months he met and moved in with Evelyn, who had a son, Dale, from a previous relationship and it seemed that life somehow re-started. Joanne accepted in principle that the children wanted to see their dad, and allowed them to go to his parents house when he lived there more or less when they wanted to, but when he met Evelyn this stopped. “You are not introducing the kids to that whore” was translated into posh legal jargon that had the same effect when she went to a solicitor. Dave accepted this for a year because the solicitor he contacted seemed interested only in how much it would cost – approximately £3000 to £5000 – to take the matter to court - and he simply did not have that sort of money. Evelyn found my site on the internet, contacted me, explained the situation, Dave followed this up with a discussion and they engaged my services. It was clear that Joanne thought she owned Samantha and Jack, and they were hers to use to control, punish, and occasionally reward Dave. She put the blame for the break up of the marriage 100% onto him, and whilst it was fine for her to have a new boyfriend and bring him back home to meet the children, it was not acceptable for him to introduce them to Evelyn. We made an application for a clearly defined contact order, Joanne was legally aided and started to make up a whole range of accusations against Dave. He was, she said, aggressive, moody, violent and drank too much. CAFCASS was involved, I prepared statements that basically asked why, if he was all these things, she had ever trusted him with the children in the first place. In the end, he obtained a clear cut contact order that gave him regular contact with alternate weekends, holidays and all special family occasions. On the first weekend of the court ordered contact mother phoned to say they had flu, the second they were away and on the third they had a birthday party. The excuse for the fourth weekend was pre-empted by Dave returning to court and the judge told Joanne that if there were any further interruptions to contact without a clear doctor’s note, then she would be summonsed to court with a view to a penal notice being imposed. There have been no subsequent problems and the children love having contact and are even speaking (on the last occasion he was in touch) of wanting to come and live with him permanently.