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Ongoing Costs & Changing Proposals for Contested hearing

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Unknown91

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(I'm new here and I did just do this post already but I think I put it in wrong category so I re post it here , hopefully someone can move the thread I started in other section?)

Hi so just a brief on my situation, managed to get interim order at first hearing to see my little girl so been doing supervised contact every week for last 4 months , costs fully covered by myself as my ex only works 16hours a week . Section 7 came back fully in my favour regarding all my exs allegations been baseless and the fact I had evidence of text messages to support what I had been saying . Despite s7 recommending moving to unsupervised contact just had dra hearing and because my ex wouldn't agree with s7 recommendations it is now going to a contested hearing but means I'm still stuck in supervised centre for another 4 months until the next hearing in August.
Seems the issue with not having proper judge at the hearing meant they wouldn't over rule my ex playing hard ball . She is just delaying the inevitable as she will get picked to pieces at the contested hearing as social worker doing s7 report had already picked holes throughout her story .
What options if any do I have for the time been , can I get an urgent hearing or anything ?

I have self represented up until now but with it going to contested hearing I'll now get legal representative assigned to me.
My issue is as I stated in court its most of all not putting my daughters best interests first just been in a supervised room , especially now she just started walking and running around .
I work full time so will I be entitled to any help from social services to cover costs for the remainder of contact centre ?
I'm also paying child maintenance which is privately agreed between me and ex partner which I pay direct to her bank every month , I know if I make the decision to stop this payment she will go straight down the proper child maintenance support route and possibly cost me more, and I don't want to stop payments for my daughter but I feel something has to give somewhere and I need to decide between reducing the amount of contact we have at contact centre or try and reduce what I'm paying in child maintenance as continuing to do both just isn't financially viable ?

All I have asked for my proposals also was every other weekend Fri to Mon and one overnight during the week and this is what the section 7 agreed to as the recommendations also . What concerns me is how much section 7 reports the concern of parental alienation from my ex towards me that I'm now thinking at the contested hearing I want to increase my proposals to something more like a 60/40 split, 3 days a week for myself 4 days for my ex . Can I now change what I have asked for? I think this will benefit my daughter more as its more time with each parent for her to get fully used to growing up with a second home , will be less direct contact with my ex also . I'm just unsure how I would now go about asking for this proposal , just hoping for some advice and help from anyone please and thank you for taking time to read this.
 
I looked into getting finachial support for contact as it was costing £130 a session, but there wasn’t any. I couldn’t find any charities that offered supervised contact.

Does the court order specify supervised or does it say any “ contact” that can be agreed in the interim. If yes then you could try asking your ex if she would accept supported/ supervised by a relative or friend.

I would be wary of reducing you currently weekly sessions as the court my look badly if you are reducing the amount of time.

I totally get that finachially it’s unsustainable for the next four months. But I think it’s important to keep the weekly as they tend to prefer the status quo. Have you got any relatives who could help with the costs?
 
Hi thanks for your reply.

Yeah unfortunately as the original order at the first hearing was to be supervised contact at a contaxt centre as they were doing the s7 report at the time, but then because at 2nd hearing they have just gone with continuing the original order until the contested hearing I'm stuck with the order stating contact at supervised centre , I thought at the very least even though I new my ex would play difficult I thought the court would of made at least a change to the interim order at 2nd hearing based on the s7 reports recommendations but they just kept saying to me they won't be making changes to the order today.
That is what worried me is if I say I need to reduce the contact from weekly to fortnightly for cost reason it may look bad and its the last thing I want to do , I do have relatives helping but they have helped with so much already I don't like to keep putting on people.
My ex won't allow family to even attend the contact centre out of spite let alone have them be the supervision, my family was all fully involved in my daughters life initially and the only family my daughter has as my ex has nothing to do with her family so her now stopping them having contact is just pure spite, I requested at contact centre for them to ask for family members to attend which they fully supported but my ex said because the court order doesn't specify details about family then she won't agree to it , I also asked court to add that into the interim order at 2nd hearing regarding family coming to contact but again I was just told no changes will be made to the interim order.
 
You can propose 50/50 in your final statement, due to your ex not supporting unsupervised time or valueing the child's time with her Father. However you may not get it if you didn't apply for it in the first place. Did you apply for "lives with both parents" 5 nights a fortnight? Did S7 say "lives with both" or "spends time with" you 5 nights a fortnight?

Yes having a direct access barrister at the final hearing will help a lot and you'll need to ask for time to "progress" to a full order.

As far as I'm aware, there is no help with contact centre costs.
 
I've merged the replies from your other thread and deleted it.
 
Hi thank you for sorting the location of my thread , sorry about that.
What I had gone with is what i thought was fair and least disruption to my daughters life moving forward proposals of every other weekend Fri to Sunday evening/Monday morning and 1 night during the week and so the s7 backed this plan moving forward , plus this plan was what me and my ex had verbally agreed to initially before this whole thing turned so messy.
So I'm now I'm wondering about the possibility of changing my proposals for the final contested hearing , not just because my ex is not agreeing to anything but I do think the more evenly split the caretime is for my daughter the better as I think it will give a more stable upbringing for her , she will have my side family around her , which my ex does not have anything to do with her own family . I think with how favourable the s7 was for me and the way she s7 slated my exs allegations and the concern of parental alienation then had I of asked for a 50/50 split they would of recommended that also . But I'm just hoping I still have the option to do so , well my plan I was thinking would be 3 days for me every week then she has remaining 4 , only requires one set of handover a week not too much back and forth so my daughter won't feel all over the place plus my job is willing to be flexible with my hours to accommodate this . Has anyone else has experience of upping the proposals in a similar situation for the final contested hearing?
 
I did. I didn't know till I switched legal team, that I should have applied for 50/50 so I changed my request to that for final hearing, with good reasons backed up by evidence. There were lengthy negotiations prior to the hearing and I was advised to accept "lives with both" with the lesser time I had applied for. The point was made that I hadn't originally applied for 50/50. I was advised that if I went before the court, I was very likely to get the extra night a week I had originally applied for, but it was uncertain whether I would get "lives with both parents". Hence advised to accept the deal for a consent order. Which I did. However when we went into court the Judge had already decided it should be lives with both, but I will never know whether or not I'd have got the 50/50.

So there's a chance but you might not get it. A good barrister can argue strongly for it.
 
That's good to hear then that you had done the simular in your situation .
I know I might be faced with the same slight obstical that I hadn't applied for a more even split of caretime initially but with the reasons and evidence I have I'm hopeful they will be okay with this moving forward then .
My next hearing unfortunately isn't until beginning of August.
I'm due to be assigned a legal representative by court before end of April as I can't do the cross examination of my ex partner myself , so even though a long time to wait it gives plenty of time me to put together my argument for my new proposals and also the questions for the cross examination of my ex in the final contested hearing .
 
My reasons were some of the outrageous things my ex did during the interim period, so there was good reason to say, under the circumstances I think this is the only solution, to show son that both parents are equally important and to encourage Mrs Ex to see that both parents are equally important as well. I think it's worth trying for and even if you don't get it, it might scare your ex into settling for something slightly lesser but more than you applied for.
 
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