S7 Report Generally Good

[Fellowshipper]

Okay, so I finally received my S7 Report, and overall the local authority did me fair. If it were not for being poor and under resourced, I could fairly certainly see getting near full readmission in to the lives of my children.

This being said, the other side seems adamant that she does not want to see me and if she isn't able now to get the court to agree to supervised contact (no doubt what her legal aiders will try to do but the S7 won't work in their favour in my case) she will still try to argue to get access to children via third party, for fear of safety and you all know the rest of that recurring script..

But I am adamant I want direct contact especially for exchanges of children, and considering I now have a perfect record of abiding by police bail, NMO (which is now several months expired), got NFA and need for FF waived in court, I want to ask the judge for this at the next hearing soon, so could I ask anyone here who's been through this already how I ought to ask for this, both in my upcoming position statement and also at the actual hearing?

 

[Resolute]

My ex insisted supervision was necessary at three hearings before three different judges. None of them even considered the need for supervision.

My approach was to ask for what I wanted and argue for it. My statements and what I said in court did not address the idea of supervision once. I think it is best to state the positives you mention - nfa, expired nmo - and make a case for what you think is appropriate.

Your ex is perfectly entitled to nominate somebody to do handovers if she does not want to see you. If possible, I consider it best not to be drawn into the arguments your ex wants to make. Talking about supervision takes you off track.

If it comes up in the hearing. You can offer a reciprocal undertaking to govern how you two conduct yourselves at handovers.

 

[Fellowshipper]

Thanks and agreed on the whole. The only thing is she doesn't have anyone to nominate, only I could do that but I do not want to do third party anymore because it's unreliable, people are not bothered to help out much these days even if they happen to be friends and family, unfortunately. I can't have a situation where I keep needing to rely on someone else to pick up and drop my children off for me, because at least 50% of the time I will either be turned down outright, or they will pull out in the last minute because of whatever other needs or commitments of theirs happen to get in the way. I really want to ask the judge to have direct yet perfectly simple handover.

 

[Ash]

How old are your kids? She could just send them out of the house while you wait up the street.

 

[Fellowshipper]

How old are your kids? She could just send them out of the house while you wait up the street.

They're still too young for that. Shall I simply, politely ask the judge to have this facilitated for me accordingly, and without even referencing her own opinion as mentioned along the way in the S7 report?

 

[lunico93x]

They're still too young for that. Shall I simply, politely ask the judge to have this facilitated for me accordingly, and without even referencing her own opinion as mentioned along the way in the S7 report?

Contact centres often have drop-off services for situations like this - it's not prohibitively expensive and provides a track record and CCTV. It might be worth looking into in your case.

 

[bujanin]

Contact centres often have drop-off services for situations like this - it's not prohibitively expensive and provides a track record and CCTV. It might be worth looking into in your case.

I used a family centre staff member to do a Saturday evening handover in town a few months back they charged 60 for that service but I had no other option.

 

[bujanin]

How old are your kids? She could just send them out of the house while you wait up the street.

That's what I do. In court she objected to the fact that I was within the NMO exclusion zone but I measured it out one day when she was out of town and stand 4 metres on the right side. My little one comes bombing up the road.