Guest viewing is limited

Cafcass changing interim contact?

B

Brs1177

New member
Member
Hi,

Very shortened version of events:

After separation, wife accused by husband of child abuse, as well as all forms of domestic abuse. All are either entirely false allegations or huge exaggerations of rows at the end of a marriage.
Husband has a year long log of ‘incidents’ that he took to a nursery who did a MASH referral. MASH have closed now saying no further action. Police also sent to do a welfare check on children and found no concerns.

Husband applied for emergency C100 (despite being offered regular contact out of court) and judge agreed 50/50 in the interim.

Since, both husband and wife have had Cafcass phone call for safeguarding letter - again, husband making a lot of allegations about wife. Wife refutes these and mentions things about husband (whilst also talking about what is best for children).

Waiting to see outcome of safeguarding letter before a Zoom hearing on next steps where position statements have to be submitted etc.

My question is: all allegations were listed on the original C100 form that judge had seen and still granted 50/50 interim contact at the emergency hearing. Is it likely that because of unproven allegations, Cafcass would recommend supervised contact for wife at this hearing despite 50/50 going well while waiting for Fact Finding or S7? No concerns for children from social services, police, GP or schools (apart from the mash referral entirely based on husband allegations).

It seems the judge did not see the allegations on the C100 as being a welfare risk (they are not as they are spurious).

Thanks for thoughts.
 
Ok, I think you need to take a step back here... Who is now taking care of the children and what is (has been) the pattern of contact between the parents until now? Who is the resident parent (i.e. the parent that the children spends most of their time? By your post, it seems that you share the time equally which is good.

The resident parent has the upper hand in court proceedings....

It is not clear the nature of allegations you have against your ex. A good way to test their strength is to add the following sentence at the end of each allegation: 'therefore she should not have contact (or have limited contact) with the children'. If you're allegations against your ex are serious by all means you want this sorted through the courts, but this is going to be a lengthy process.

Courts are full to bursting, so if the allegations are against the way your ex treated you chances are they are not interested because you no longer live together.

As you stated, a number of agencies have checked the welfare of the children and found nothing untoward ....

If you can you wish to avoid court proceedings at all cost, they are costly, unpredictable, adversarial and can turn sour at any moment. It is really easy for things to escalate and then go horribly wrong.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ash
Sorry - I should clarify that I’m writing this as a close family member and am not either party involved.
The husband has been very keen to progress through the courts and is refusing to communicate with the wife directly at all other than through solicitors, even in respect to the children.

The children lived with both. The mother then took the children when she left (father had reported her after she initiated the separation). They lived with mother for two weeks before the emergency c100 and have been 50/50 since. Father has accused mother of all types of domestic abuse against him. He has also accused mother of physical and verbal abuse of the oldest child - but no objective evidence of this, just his records.

Mother would be happy to organise shared care out of court but father continues with allegations and is nowhere near any form of calming or compromise.

Mother left father after having affair and accusations of abuse only surfaced after father’s knowledge of affair and then the separation.
 
Ok, that makes more sense.

What are then the father's proposal in relation to contact? Presumably he wishes the children to live with him the majority of time and have limited contact with the mother?

If the allegations in relation to the mother's abuse of the children are serious, the court may order a fact-finding hearing. The court may or may not be interested in hearing allegations of domestic abuse by the mother against the father, just because of the current workload. The argument is that the parties no longer live together and hence there is little point in proving them either way as they won't have an impact on the child arrangements order.

Alternatively the court may order that a section 7, welfare report is produced first and ask Cafcass to make a recommendation as to whether a fact finding hearing is necessary or not.

In terms of evidence, civil courts work on the balance of probabilities, unlike the criminal court which is beyond reasonable doubt. The family court is known to have made findings of rape based solely on oral evidence of the parties for example.

Even if the court makes findings of abuse against the mother, depending on their nature it is possible that she will still be allowed to have a great amount of contact with the children.

It is good that the father is legally advised because in theory his solicitor will ensure the application and process is child focussed.

The other thing one needs to consider in terms of determining the child arrangements order is that for Cafcass the bar for parenting is pretty low. As long as the children are being fed, clothed, attending school and seeing the GP the parent is seen as safe. Thus chances are that if the allegations are not proven it is possible that the court may recommend 50/50 shared care anyway.

So, yes by all means if the allegations are serious, the children are in risk that's what the family court is for... many fathers in this forum, myself included have had their lives turned upside down by false allegations. I myself did not see my children for six months and then had to spend 2 months in a contact centre....
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ash
Ok - thanks, that’s helpful. In the initial c100, the father requested residency with the mother having supervised contact by a family member.
This was contested by the mother’s barrister and judge awarded interim 50/50.
It seems like the fact finding hearing will be important if it is ordered, presumably this would centre on the alleged abuse of the child.
 
Also - what kind of allegations are ‘serious’ in relation to abuse of children? Anything physical? Or is the severity/frequency more important? Thanks.
 
Brs1177 said:
Ok - thanks, that’s helpful. In the initial c100, the father requested residency with the mother having supervised contact by a family member.
This was contested by the mother’s barrister and judge awarded interim 50/50.
It seems like the fact finding hearing will be important if it is ordered, presumably this would centre on the alleged abuse of the child.
Click to expand...
Yes, but the judge may order Cafcass to speak with the children and other professionals first and go through the welfare checklist

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/the-welfare-checklist/

I say this because there has been a number of agencies involved with the children and no concerns raised so far thus the judge may be wary of ordering a fact finding hearing straight away because it requires a phenomenal amount of court time.

The court will pay a lot of weight in the children's wishes, in light of their age of course.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ash
Brs1177 said:
Also - what kind of allegations are ‘serious’ in relation to abuse of children? Anything physical? Or is the severity/frequency more important? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Well, this is the million dollar question... The court is looking at the allegations from the point of view of the final child arrangements order and the terms of that order. If there is no fact finding hearing, then it will proceed as if the domestic abuse did not occur.

A good way to test the strength of the allegation is to add the following phrase (therefore the child should have limited contact with that parent) and see if it sounds plausible or not. For example:

  • The mother smacked the children once, therefore the child should have limited contact with her.
  • The mother verbally abused the father in front of the child, therefore the child should have limited contact with her
  • The mother regularly abuses the child physically, therefore the child should have limited contact with her
Does that make sense?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ash
Your title was querying if Cafcass could change an interim order and the answer is - possibly.

After Cafcass phone interviews they produce a letter/report and sometimes at the end of this they make recommendations. If it goes to a section 7 report they will almost certainly recommend a schedule and 99% of the time the court will order what Cafcass recommend.

The Judge has ordered 50/50 in the interim which is unusual. The Father needs to go with that. If at any time during the interim he feels the children are at serious risk of harm or have been harmed he needs to go to social services. Having said that - as blindex said - the bar is high. I was once told social services won’t do anything unless the child is hospitalised. I don’t entirely agree with that but it’s true social services often find no issues and close the case. However if a child reported to school they were being beaten or regularly hit by a parent then the school would involve social services and there is then evidence of the report to school. Social services take things more seriously if the school makes the report. But they can still find no issues and close the case. Unless you have hard evidence to show them - eg a cctv video of child being whacked over the head by the other parent (as Scotay on here will confirm I think!).

I think the Father needs to calm down or he could end up being seen as vexatious and creating conflict.

Cafcass are generally biased towards Mothers. They are trained to believe that the Mother is the most important thing in a child’s life and short of arrest for dangerous behaviour involving drugs or alcohol they will probably not recommend supervised for the Mother. Even social services tend to offer “support” to the Mother. Even in cases where social services recommend the children stay with the Father while the Mother has therapy, this is usually temporary and they then want to reintroduce things to more like 50/50.

It doesn’t work like that if it’s a Dad. If a Dad is shown to have done something similar that’s it - he’s an abuser and he’s out - supervised only.

The equality that we have in life is not there in family court.

So - Cafcass don’t like parents making allegations - they think if there were serious issues, social services or the Police would already have been involved. If both parents make allegations they can class it as “conflict between parents” and to remove the kids from that conflict they can recommend giving them to one parent (usually the Mother) and minimal time for the other parent. That os the danger of making allegations to court without hard evidence of abuse.

If it’s emotional or psychological abuse - that is very hard to prove / it usual takes reports from a higher authority than Cafcass - eg psychologists reports. This are usually only ordered if parental alienation is suspected strongly- they need to be ordered by the court and are very expensive - the parent has to pay.

In cases like that the Mother is usually withholding the children entirely. In your case there is already a 50/50 order so no real grounds to claim parental alienation and it’s also strongly advised to not accuse that. The reason being is - that it is the kind of allegation an alienator makes (projection) so the accuser os immediately suspect.

What Cafcass want to see is parents attempting to co parent amicably in the best interests of the kids and not accusing each other.

So yes Cafcass could get the interim order changed to something else. Barristers also play a part at hearings though so it’s possible a Cafcsss recommendation could be overturned but it’s another mountain to climb.

Is the interim order being followed ?

This is a time of high emotion and the Father must be very distressed. Some Dads actually have some counselling while going through the court process to help deal with all that and so the emotions don’t all come out in the court process and undermine their case.

Bizarre as it might sound - any expression of emotion during court processes doesn’t go down well. They like to see parents being calm, polite, child focused and positive about co parenting - for Dads that is how to get a 50/50 order.

It is very unusual for a sole residency order to be given to a Dad except after years of high level proceedings with hard evidence.

The Judge did a good job with the 50/50 interim order. Otherwise the Dad could have been waiting months to see the kids. So what he doesn’t want to do is blow it.

If he is seeing the kids regularly he needs to

A) Never say anything negative about the Mother (or it will screw up the kids and he’ll be accused of parental alienation)

B) Let the kids know that if they ever feel unsafe or anything bad happens, there are people at school they can talk to who will help sort things out - to go to the headteacher (who is usually designated as one of the safeguarding teachers).

Other than that he needs to show he is following the order.

I can tell you now the courts are really not interested in adult abuse. Only if the kids are safe. Unless it is the Mother claiming abuse because of the strong publicity surrounding domestic abuse of women. Even if he could prove she abused him - he would still be expected to co parent and put that behind and focus on the kids . There doesn’t need to be much communication for co parenting snd it can be done at a distance by email. Very little needed with a 50/50 order.

If the Father doesn’t calm down he could stab himself in the foot and Cafcsss class him as aggressive.
 
Last edited:
Posted at the same time. Are either of the children at school?
 
In the long run I think the Fsther needs to accept a 50/50 order is best and he has a good chance of getting that if he doesn’t create too much havoc. From there he is in a much stronger position in the future and if there ever were any serious issues in the future, he’d have a much better chance of sole residency.

What allegations are they both making?
 
One of the children is at school yes. They’ve just started Year 1. The other attends nursery part time.

The mother would have been happy to grant 50/50 without need for court proceedings (as long as this could have been worked out in the best way for the children) but the father is quite insistent in his allegations against her, both abusing him and one of the children.

She would not consent to contact before the court order as he said he would not return the children to the mother because they were in such danger - this really isn’t the case.

There are a lot of solicitor’s letters from the father’s side that are either aggressive, inaccurate or incredibly petty. Father has also been caught in several lies thus far.

The order is being adhered to. The mother has made a couple of attempts via email to contact the father to inform about the children but these have been ignored and his solicitor wrote to say that the mother should not contact him directly.
 
So because wife offered time to Dad before he applied to court the Judge probably saw her allegations as false. Mothers get free lawyers and legal aid if they make allegations- it’s almost par for the course. The Father has been very lucky getting 50/50 in the interim and a good Judge because interim orders aren’t being made much at the moment. So the Judge has averted immediate crisis.

Now it’s a case of jumping through hoops to get to a final hearing - and getting Cafcass onside.
 
Ash said:
In the long run I think the Fsther needs to accept a 50/50 order is best and he has a good chance of getting that if he doesn’t create too much havoc. From there he is in a much stronger position in the future and if there ever were any serious issues in the future, he’d have a much better chance of sole residency.

What allegations are they both making?
Click to expand...
His allegations are of a dirty house (when they lived together) which was unsafe for children.
A log of incidents where mother was allegedly verbally abusive to child.
Some incidents where mother was allegedly physical with child and the father had to ‘step in’. Most of these seem to be exaggerated from restraining a child or preventing them from hurting themselves/sibling. No allegations of blatant violence (like hitting with a belt or something??)
Allegations of all sorts of abuse from the mother to the father, including sexual and physical which has baffled the mother somewhat. The emotional/psychological presumably means the arguments before the breakdown of the marriage. The father used to video the mother when they had arguments in the house and I believe intends to use them as evidence.
 
Ash said:
So because wife offered time to Dad before he applied to court the Judge probably saw her allegations as false. Mothers get free lawyers and legal aid if they make allegations- it’s almost par for the course. The Father has been very lucky getting 50/50 in the interim and a good Judge because interim orders aren’t being made much at the moment. So the Judge has averted immediate crisis.

Now it’s a case of jumping through hoops to get to a final hearing - and getting Cafcass onside.
Click to expand...
Sorry - mother hasn’t made abuse allegations against father. All allegations are from father against mother.
 
Not surprised he is angry if he was accused of sexual abuse of his children but those allegations have been dismissed by the Judge. However once Cafcass get involved it can start up again as they are the safeguarding team and they err on the side of caution if there is a chance children are at risk. As Blindex says this can mean a fact find or section 7. For a fact find evidence needs to be produced to prove allegations and to defend those against him. It could be a mess.

Cafcass will often recommend the court “considers “ a fact find and it will go to a gatekeeping hearing (Cafcass and a Judge or legal adviser only) to decide what is ordered next. If they both make allegations to Cafcass it will probably go to a section 7 report at least. This can take a few months.

The danger of proceedings dragging on with multiple hearings is if the interim order is not followed along the way. It’s quicker to go to final hearing and get a final order. Cafcass might recommend mediation is ordered if they think it’s just post separation conflict.
 
I get the impression you’re a relative of the Mother? It sounds like he is retaliating after the horrific allegation of sexual abuse of the kids.
 
I get the impression you’re a relative of the Mother? It sounds like he is retaliating after the horrific allegation of abuse of the kids. Sorry edited that - you said child abuse not child sexual abuse.

Thing is - as blindex said the bar is low and “reasonable chastisement “ by parents is legal (in my view the law needs updating to no physical punishment ).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top