OnDivorce Messageboard

Went to court last Thursday, the ex looking for more contact and for his new fiancee to be allowed to be present at contact. On the Monday (7th) my solicitor received a lengthy fax from his sol saying fiancee had stolen ex's bankcard, taken his money and done a runner. The ex had been to the police, she had been arrested and was in court that day (Monday). The relationship had broken down, never to be restarted.

Well, the ex and I got to court complete with a barrister and a solicitor each and the social worker was there to be cross examined as well.
Got there 9.30. From 9.30 - 10.30, the legal people (in the foyer of the court) thrashed out how much contact the ex should have with the boys now his fiancee has gone.

From then it descended into farce....

My solicitor saw fiancee outside court! She then challenged the ex and he said in fact they had not split up at all and he HAD phoned the police but had then withdrawn his statement about her. My solicitor phoned the three local courts and she has NOT been in court and she doubts the arrest ever happened. This is one of the many things that now has to be investigated.

We all sat down again and tried to work out what to do now the fiancee was back. The social worker was nearly in hysterics and apologised for beleiving what the ex and fiancee had told her. She realised he really is in trouble with the police (like I said) and how unstable their relationship is, particularly in light of the splitting up/theft/arrest rubbish. The social worker basically withdrew her support from the other side.

We also learned that fiancee is going to try and get child number 3 back. I can't see that working out!

We got the ex's charge sheet so now I know what 20 charges he is in court for next week. 3 charges of forging car tax disks and 17 charges of claiming VAT whilst not a proper company and keeping the "VAT" for himself.

My barrister then said contact should remain the same, fiancee not to be present. He want the FULL POLICE RECORDS (hoorah!!!), a letter from the ambulance service about his suicide threats (hoorah!!!), everything about his court case (including statements), a revised Section 7 report from the social worker now she has seen the light and various other bits that I've forgotten.

We went into the court room, my barrister was carrying nearly his own weight in folders, missed the steps and fell over, falling down the steps into the aisle of the court, landing on his face :-( There was quite a lot of commotion over this as the barrister on the other side and I tried to get him upright again.

Once again, the judge agreed with everything I said. He was not impressed about the on/off relationship and arrest/not really an arrest debacle and REALLY not impressed about the 20 charges of fraud.

Got out of court at 1.30.

So everything is going to remain as it is until we got back to court in early March 2010. At that point, the barrister said I should be able to ask for the contact to be in one or two sizaeble chunks rather than 3 hours here and there.