I made a cross undertaking last week at an NMO, part of which included an undertaking that I could arrange to see my child via the solicitor acting for my ex. So I've emailed twice since, with no response at all. Can I return to court and ask for this to be enforced or reviewed?
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contempt of court
- Thread starter NewcastleBrownAle
- Start date
I've emailed the ex's solicitor twice to arrange to have my son this weekend , but no reply or response. As part of the undertaking I made, all arrangements to spend time with my son was to be through the ex's solicitor, the judge was quite clear on this obligation, even insisted that the solicitor gave me details to contact before leaving the court room.
so,, at last technically, the other side have broken the undertaking, by not responding as obligated.
The undertaking, I think - is for you and ex not to contact each other. I don't think it would include making a solicitor reply to you. Solicitors are good at ignoring you. You need to get a C100 in asap. You could try getting a solicitor's letter sent to her solicitor - they sometimes respond if they hear from another solicitor, out of protocol. The downside to that is it ends up with solicitors letters arguing back and forth and running up bills. But you could try - and get your c100 in asap.
My C100 is in, and in fact, I've received a big document folder from them this morning, to say that it is going through the gatekeeping process. The cross undertaking does stipulate that the solicitor has to communicate to arrange for me to see my son.
Before that I would try sending another email to the Solicitor - and when emailing them make sure you never let anger or frustration show or they'll try and use that against you. Keep it polite and formal - if firm. How about
"Dear Sirs
At the hearing on x date, the Judge required that child arrangements be made via yourselves, in view of the fact there is a cross undertaking in place for Mrs Ex and myself not to contact each other. I have had no response to my emails of x date and x date, regarding arranging time for my son to be here this week-end. This is not in my son's best interests as he will be distressed at not seeing me as usual and confused as to if or when he will see me. As it is now Friday night and there are no arrangements for this week-end, please confirm that I will be able to collect my son from school on Wednesday to spend the night here and return him to school Thursday morning, then again collect him next Friday for the week-end, in lieu of his missed time with me this week-end.
If there continues to be no communication I will need to request an urgent directions hearing to resolve this matter.
Yours sincerely"
"Dear Sirs
At the hearing on x date, the Judge required that child arrangements be made via yourselves, in view of the fact there is a cross undertaking in place for Mrs Ex and myself not to contact each other. I have had no response to my emails of x date and x date, regarding arranging time for my son to be here this week-end. This is not in my son's best interests as he will be distressed at not seeing me as usual and confused as to if or when he will see me. As it is now Friday night and there are no arrangements for this week-end, please confirm that I will be able to collect my son from school on Wednesday to spend the night here and return him to school Thursday morning, then again collect him next Friday for the week-end, in lieu of his missed time with me this week-end.
If there continues to be no communication I will need to request an urgent directions hearing to resolve this matter.
Yours sincerely"
well , I will have to write this off as another week not seeing him. In the mean time, I don't have a copy of the cross undertaking, it hasn't been sent to me yet.
It can be slow coming from the court. I'm not sure about cross undertakings, but with other orders, they are not enforceable until a sealed copy has been received and often they get breached before the sealed copy arrives - simply because they're not enforceable. But it is possible to ask for an urgent directions hearing if this continues. However if your Child Arrangements application is underway, they're not going to order Child Arrangements at an urgent directions hearing. They might give the solicitor a telling off though.
If the solicitor has in fact given an undertaking to do that and they haven't, they could get into a lot of trouble with the SRA for breach of undertaking.
SRA Guidance para 1.3:
You perform all undertakings given by you, and do so within an agreed timescale or if no timescale has been agreed then within a reasonable amount of time.
SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs
The standards that we, the SRA, and the public expect of individuals (solicitors, registered European lawyers and registered foreign lawyers).
www.sra.org.uk
Raise it at court re possible breach of undertaking and refer the judge to the SRA guidance, see what court says and if necessary request a transcript. Depending on what the court says, it may focus their minds to be more child focussed in future.
The only fly in the ointment is that I don't have a copy of the cross undertaking yet, the legal assessor said it was unusually complex and would take a little time, it's been just over a week. So technically, it isn't in force yet, as it hasn't been served. But I will keep making weekly requests to see my son, and make not of any response. If they don't respond, I either need to return to court or a position statement. At the end of the day I just want to see my son, he must be distraught and confused as to why he suddenly doesn't see me and I want to reassure him that none, absolutely none of this is his fault.If the solicitor has in fact given an undertaking to do that and they haven't, they could get into a lot of trouble with the SRA for breach of undertaking.
SRA Guidance para 1.3:
You perform all undertakings given by you, and do so within an agreed timescale or if no timescale has been agreed then within a reasonable amount of time.
SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs
The standards that we, the SRA, and the public expect of individuals (solicitors, registered European lawyers and registered foreign lawyers).www.sra.org.uk
Raise it at court re possible breach of undertaking and refer the judge to the SRA guidance, see what court says and if necessary request a transcript. Depending on what the court says, it may focus their minds to be more child focussed in future.