Changing a CAO less than a year since it was made.

[jtcm0]

At least she is letting you see your daughter but things need to move on. She may guess you’ll apply to court if mediation fails so it can be an idea to have an application prepared ready to go in case mediation halts. A well worded application can avoid any hostility.

I mean theoretically she can't stop me from seeing my daughter as its ordered that i see her weekly although she seems to think that legally she doesn't have to let me see her and then with the apparent lack of enforcement on the mothers side it seems the court wouldn't actually do anything if she did.

Are you saying to complete the court form for a variation now and wait to see how mediation goes so it's ready?

 

[Ash]

Yes. Just in case she decided to put her own application in first, if mediation failed. It helps to have your narrative seen first in my opinion. I take it you had no representation at your last hearing when the consent order was made? And your ex had a solicitor? It was an unfair playing field in that case and if you weren't represented, you didn't have to agree to anything and could have let it go to a final hearing and let the court make the order. However, with your child's age, I can see you maybe wanted to keep things simple and amicable and the court would probably have only ordered a few hours twice a week initially.

What were you thinking of proposing at mediation - it can help to go in with something set out as a progression, rather than vague things. Eg on a piece of paper that can be passed around. I think a normal progression would go to a full day at week-ends once a week, then overnights would start gradually. However with the distance you can't really do a single overnight, so I'd suggest a week-end over the Easter holiday period and another week-end in the summer, progressing to one week-end a month and then every other week-end plus a midweek tea time.

 

[jtcm0]

So hello to all who have posted and advised on this. We finally had our joint mediation session on the 27th of Feb and as things over ran we had to have another one on the 12th of March as well. No agreement was made between us. During the second one my daughter came in to the video on my ex partners end so we had to end the session there. I was asked by the mediator what I wanted to do and as myself and he both agreed that it wasn't going in the right direction I decided to end the process and get the c100 form from him to enable more court action. Now this morning I spoke to a solicitor and they agreed with me that I'm not asking for anything unreasonable but my ex is being very controlling in what she wants and how she wants it. So my next steps are to finally get on the birth certificate for my daughter as my ex partner has finally agreed to do that so that I can have PR. The only reason she is now going to do it next Friday is because I reminded her that in June I can apply to the courts for it and because she wants CSA from me despite the fact I'm off work sick still. Once I'm on the birth certificate and have PR through that I will most likely be instructing the solicitor I spoke to today to send my ex a letter explaining the proposals I have in regards to the time I spend with my daughter, which is still at 5 hours weekly I think at most its extended by 1 hour at most since writing the original post although I'm not too sure. In the letter I believe it will state that I will apply for court if she refuses what's in the letter. The solicitor I spoke to today believes that if my ex gets a letter from them it may make her get her own legal advice who would likely tell her she cant do what she is doing. Also it may make her see that I'm very serious about what I think is best for our daughter and will fight for what is right. Unfortunately the firm I spoke to I don't believe have a legal aid contract for this so it will be very expensive unless anyone has any ideas on how to get the money together for this (can't get credit or ask family)