Hi, this is my first post in this forum, I am basically looking for some
experienced or expert advice on a
residence order that I
initiated a while ago, I will try to keep the story as brief as possible,
but in reality there is 11 years worth of story to get through.
August 2000, I have a daughter at 19, I had only known the mother for
about 12 months at the time she was born, we then got married a couple of
months after her birth.
6 months later we were separating
because of my wife's unstable behavior of staying around her sisters until
sometimes 3am, not doing simple tasks like cleaning nappies off the floor
and constant unbelievable lies regarding her own family and history.
I went to live at my parents, she turns up at 2am because she said
she was having issues with her parents and wanted to give us another go.
She moved into my parents with us. Whilst there she would not get up to the
baby and would do hardly anything for her.. I was working all the time so
did not think it right I should have to do it all the time. during the
period I even employed my wife whilst my mum looked after our daughter but
due to unreliability, timekeeping issues and poor work, I was ordered to
sack my own wife.
During this time she was going back and forth
living with my parents and her own she would be with us for about 2 weeks
and then just not come back. During this time she come back once and said
that she tried to get our daughter off her parents and they refused to give
her back, so I called the police to recover our daughter. A few weeks later
she disappeared for the last time.
I was seeing a solicitor and
managed to see my daughter for a couple of hours on a Sunday by
solicitors agreement ( although she come out
with some story that my daughter could not be away from her mum too long ),
after a few months it suddenly stopped because when I went to collect my
daughter she did not turn up and I had no more money for a solicitor.
For several years I was in and out of solicitors offices and
contacting social services due to concerns about her unstable behavior and
I knew that after she left me she had started smoking cannabis, but she had
disappeared.
I later received a letter from a guy I had never
met. He had just separated from my ex and was concerned about my daughter
and his own children. we met up and found the same lies she had told me but
they are a little different.. for example my ex had told me she was raped
and lost a child named Nadeen, she had told basically the same story to the
other ex but with a different child's name.
Social services were
already involved with my ex again due to unstable behavior and the big
issue of not telling the truth - they kept catching her out, these were all
reported by my daughters
school and by my wife's ex boyfriend. -
at this time I started another relationship.. it was around 2007.
My ex disappeared off to Scotland with her children intending on living
up there but come back after a couple of months because the boyfriend she
was seeing at the time had an ex of his own and had punched my ex.
One of the things my ex would tell social services included - I was
hiding upstairs whilst her other ex was abusing her - she wanted me to tell
social services that was true.. but I refused.
Soon after my ex
met another guy - besides the half dozen between - ( lets call him guy 2 ),
guy 2 was with her for about 2 years, during the period my ex
could no longer handle my daughters behavior or attitude towards her,
including slamming doors, swearing at her, throwing things at her etc etc.
so between the three of us we agreed that I should take my daughter for 6
months to correct her behavior.
During the 6 months I found out
that my ex had told my daughters school that my daughter was lactose
intolerant and allergic to penicillin, this was amongst her inability to
even make simple appointments to doctors and was generally a recuse.
When the 6 months was over I pushed for a social services meeting
and we all signed an agreement that my daughter should live with me to get
my daughters life stable as she had kept on being moved and having
different schools.. 4 primary schools and 3 houses in 2 years.
Although this agreement was suppose to settle my daughters life, my ex
kept telling my daughter that she could go back to live with her whenever
she wanted.. I strongly objected because this confused my
daughter and my ex history told me to fight all the way.
Later
that same year her other children were put on the child protection register
due to accusations of my ex being physically abused by guy 2, she later had
a broken arm and took guy 2 to court.. guy 2 was found innocent as the
break could not possibly have happened the way my ex had described it and
there were lots of discrepancies. - it did however come out to say that my
ex had accused someone else of raping her 1 year before I met her but she
had refused to do a rape kit and as she had no marks it was dropped before
it even went to court, - also another interesting thing was that the social
worker ( who had been trying to help my ex but never really helped the kids
) had tried to commit suicide after guy 2 was accused.
During
these times my daughter was still living with me with my ex on the phone
trying to blackmail her into choosing one or the other of us.
Soon after a new social worker was issued the case and put my ex's mental
instability and issues down to 'the abuse she had suffered in the hands of
guy 2' and closed the social services case file ( even though not 7 months
earlier guy 2's daughter had slipped under the water in the bath ). That
letter promptly went onto facebook by my ex to 'prove the case is closed'
for whatever reason.
About this time I started recording
telephone conversations from my ex to our daughter and one of the things I
caught on
tape is my ex saying ( after I had applied for residence )
'if you decide to live with your dad I cannot guarantee I will be able to
see you that often if at all ' and ' you do realize that you will have to
stand up in court and pick your dad or me'. Previous to this conversation
its on record by social services that my daughter could not make up her
mind who she wanted to live with - I transcribed this conversation down
onto paper
We went to our first court date ( I had no solicitor
with me - she did ) and it was ordered on
cafcass recommendations that she has a psychiatric
assessment, 1 hour of phone calls a day, a section 7 report to be done by
social services and supervised
contact to be arranged
between us, my only order was to find a solicitor..
When I met
with the social worker that is suppose to be going the section 7 order she
mentioned that within the social services reports I smack my daughter, and
yes on the odd occasion I do, but its very very rare and its an
absolute last resort, plus I never break the smacking
laws.. not anywhere close. Anyway, the social worker seemed transfixed on
this one thing, she believed it was illegal and I pointed out that is was
not under the children's act 2004, then she had the gall to ask me 'how
often do you smack your partner?', of course I dont, but she had already
made the presumption that just because I parent that was I was
automatically violent as she did not ask me if I did smack my partner, she
just assumed I did, so I am now worried that the social worker is going to
submit a bad report just because she does not personally agree with me.
there are a few things I also have to say
1) there are
4 of us in a 1 bed flat and although we are trying to move, its not going
to be until near the end of the year
2) my daughter is 11 and
has made a wish to back to her mums ( I think because of the threat.. and I
can prove it was said )
3) I still have no representation in
court, although I do have solicitors advice.
Would anyone be
able to give me an idea on the outlook.. I know I have rambled on a bit but
the whole story is important to know.. what are the chances of me being
able to carry on protecting my daughter by having her stay with me from a
residence order.. thank you
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