Removed from family home by Police & Children Services

[heartbrokenfather]

Yes, It will be at my local children's centre.

[Dadforjustice]

I went through something similar (still going through it) in 2011 when after 3. Years of being the victim of domestic violence I decided to report an incident where I required medical attention to my throat for tissue damage and cut to my neck.
Upon police arrival, my ex accused me of hitting her and I was subsequently arrested and released on bail with conditions not to return to the family home (a house that was purchased by me 6 years before our relationship and still solely funded by me).
Fortunately, in my case, no accusations were made against me and the children so I was allowed contact with them with arrangement via a third party.

There was a non-molestation order granted against me to stop me disturbing her residence in my house which was attained by submitting pictures of a bruise on her backside that she did to herself slipping in the kitchen while I was at work.

Since this date I have been subjected to multiple accusations of domestic violence and had to constantly record my movements to defend my name. She has a history of depression, suicide attempts, violence and has been prescribed anti psychotic medication and put on alcohol courses.

It turned out that when all this started, she was having an affair with her then employer and would seem that she wanted me out of the picture but I find myself over 2 years on still in and out of court trying to resolve the residence issue for my son.

There have been multiple referrals to social services about her but they are very slow to act, even though one of them was from a doctor saying that he doubted her ability to care for children in her current state and another from the ambulance service after they were called to her residence following a suspected overdose while caring for children.
We took it to court and the judge decided that there was 'no welfare issue'

I feel for you as I know how bad it can be to be accused of something and not know what with no one feeding any information to you. Unfortunately mud sticks and it's very hard once accusations have been made to clear your name.

[Bitter Pill]

Heartbrokenfather - Contact centres are very difficult to get used to, especially when its supervised contact.

What you have to keep in mind is that ss look at these contacts as a way to assess your parenting skills. When I attended contact with my partner to see her son we used that time to make it as enjoyable and fun as possible for her very confused 18 month old little boy and as our contact times didn't clash with his meal times or anything we were free to do so.

After a few months our parenting assessment started and right at the beginning the fsw who assessed us told us that our contact was probably the best contact to observe, very loving and strong bonds between the three of us. "Great" we thought, if ours was so nice to witness then surely we'd pass with flying colours!

As a result of the proceedings me and my partner were forced apart and I was no longer able to attend contact. I since discovered that the parenting assessment went badly and was very negative. WTF????? right?

So make sure from the start you enforce boundaries and act like super nanny off the telly. They will scrutinise anything they can.

Dadforjustice - That is appalling and yet another account of how crooked and corrupt, lazy and greedy the people are who make money from other peoples misery, my heart goes out to you.

[heartbrokenfather]

Thanks again for your replies and support during this trying time.

It has come to my attention that I was right that my wife had nothing to do with the police & children services starting their investigation.
And I was also right about my wife being backed into a dark corner by the police and or children services.
The details are still very vague, but from what limited information I have been told, is that my wife was forced to make a statement against me or the children would be removed by children services.
As said before my wife finds children services and the police very intimidating.

Is there anything I can do regarding this?

Thanks again for your time.

[blueplain]

Thanks again for your replies and support during this trying time.

It has come to my attention that I was right that my wife had nothing to do with the police & children services starting their investigation.
And I was also right about my wife being backed into a dark corner by the police and or children services.
The details are still very vague, but from what limited information I have been told, is that my wife was forced to make a statement against me or the children would be removed by children services.
As said before my wife finds children services and the police very intimidating.

Is there anything I can do regarding this?

Thanks again for your time.

I am glad that your wife was not part of the instigation. I feel that your wife should get a lawyer so that she does not implicate you further or do other things that will empower the children services.

[heartbrokenfather]

blueplain: Thanks again for your support and advice.

As you rightly say, my wife needs to get her own lawyer/solicitor to help her and the matters in hand.
But there we have a problem, as said before I can not contact my wife or children, without the risk of the police and or children services causing more problems, So I have no way of telling my wife that she needs to seek a lawyer/solicitor.
And I also feel even if she was given that information, She would be to scared to act on it due to fear of police & children services repercussions.

[blueplain]

blueplain: Thanks again for your support and advice.

As you rightly say, my wife needs to get her own lawyer/solicitor to help her and the matters in hand.
But there we have a problem, as said before I can not contact my wife or children, without the risk of the police and or children services causing more problems, So I have no way of telling my wife that she needs to seek a lawyer/solicitor.
And I also feel even if she was given that information, She would be to scared to act on it due to fear of police & children services repercussions.

Indeed, I would suggest that you ask another family member of friend to get her to get a lawyer. Tell them not to say you said. Have them pretend they think she should have one and to help her get one.

[Bitter Pill]

Ok, look. Right now there is no legal documentation or court order restricting you from contacting your wife or children.

I'm going to talk to you now as if I was speaking to you in a pub and please bear in mind that I have gone through exceptional levels of care proceedings but yet am not an "expert". I am just some other bloke that's listening to your story and saying my bit.

You have tried contacting your wife before, doing so has resulted in threats from police and social services. You backed down and who could blame you?

If I was you (with what I have learned) I would be round the house talking to my wife with my dicta-phone as protection. If ss or the police should find out (which they shouldn't if your wife truly isn't the one who instigated all this) then you simply say.... "Can you show me a court order for that?"

You are then playing them at their own game. You see, applying for anything in court takes a lot of time, time that you and your wife could be spending formulating a great defence together. SS will bs you as if they have power of the law, which they don't, they have f**k all power! and they know you will be terrified of losing your children and they will use that as a weapon to their advantage which, lets be real here, has worked so far and as a result you are alienated from your family and living in a CAR FOR F**K SAKE!!!

Arrange to meet your wife or call her some how. Buy a couple of cheap phones and post one through her letterbox at 2am so no one sees you then text/call her. If the police or ss contact you after this then at least you'l know for sure that she has in fact made allegations against you.

Bottom line, a Judge will not be impressed if there is proof of ss not following protocol. I have seen with my own eyes solicitors for the LA have their arse kicked in front of everyone because they cannot keep to schedules. A very satisfying thing let me assure you.

Have you secured a family solicitor yet?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Heartbrokenfather,

Firstly, I want to deal with the issue you raised regarding your bail. I’d like to point out that we are not experts in criminal law here but I was concerned about the anomaly you raised between you being granted unconditional bail and the DC recommending you not to have any contact with your wife and children.

I can see you have a criminal solicitor, use them! It’s their job to give you advice and deal with the issues surrounding your bail. I would recommend you contact them to clarify this issue before you take any further action regarding contacting your wife.

There is obviously a big difference between a court order or bail conditions and a recommendation that’s been given by either the police or Children’s Services, in the sense that an order or bail condition is legally enforceable and breaching them is an offence with serious consequences. A recommendation or agreement is simply that. They are not legally enforceable but complying with them or not, shows to the professionals whether you intend to work with them (which is not the same as agreeing with them) but there could still be consequences if you choose to go against the recommendations for example, Children’s Services increasing their involvement, more on this below.

I can see that BitterPill is giving you lots of support and advice and I’m pleased that you can find support on our forum. However, I must really urge you not to sneak around behind the backs of the police and Children’s Services. The reasons for this:

1. Irrespective of how you feel about Children’s Services and the Police being involved, they aren’t just going to go away. You therefore need to build as much of a working relationship with them as you can. As I said earlier, this is not the same as agreeing with everything they say and you should not accept bad practice, but you do need to show your priority is what is best for the children and that they can believe you to be honest and truthful in their dealings with you. If you lie about contact with your wife and children and they later find out, which is very possible, it’ll be harder for you to get them to believe that you are telling the truth about the actual allegations.

2. Your wife is expected to be the protective figure with respect to the children. Irrespective of whether your relationship with her is good or bad, and whether or not she made the allegations, she will be expected to demonstrate that they are her priority above all else and it is possible that she has signed a written agreement or verbally agreed with Children’s Services that she will not have contact with you or allow the children to have unsupervised contact outside of the contact centre. If she then fails in any of this, Children’s Services will think very carefully about whether they can trust her to be a protective figure and will take further action if they need to which could be applying for a Interim Care Order (ICO) or if they think they need to act urgently, an Emergency Protection Order (EPO) or ask the police if they will exercise their powers of police protection. These terms are all defined in our A-Z
and there is more information in our child protection and care proceedings advice sheets.

Finally, have you found a family law solicitor yet? If not there are details on The Law Society website (http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/find-a-solicitor/) and you search by location and type of law (children). Those with a green tick next to them means that they are member of an accredited panel so have a guaranteed level of experience and expertise and should look for those who are Adult Representatives on the Children Panel. Again just to clarify, Children’s Services would not set up an appointment with a solicitor, they would only give contact details of solicitors in your area and solicitors who are in private practice do not do work for the Local Authority (Children’s Services), they have their own in-house lawyers.

I hope this answers your questions. If you have more, or if I have missed something from one of your earlier posts, please get back in touch.

Best wishes

Suzie.

[heartbrokenfather]

Once again, I would like to thank everyone for there time and support.

1st let me just make it very clear that I don't want to do anything that will risk me being able to return home to my family at some point, or risk of the children being removed from my wife by children services. There has already been way to my pain and heartache for my wife and children and the last thing I want is the family being torn apart any more then it already is.

I have not done any updates here mainly because things have been too painful for me, I am having a very hard time coping over christmas as it's meant to be a time for families to be together.

Anyway here's where I am up to.

It’s now been 32 Days (768 Hours) since I was removed from my family.
I have yet to received a single piece of paper work from children services, But have had contact over the phone.
Also as said in one of my earlier posts that I was due to have contact with my children at a contact center a few days before christmas.
So I was able to see all five of the children for one and a half hours. I was able to give them there christmas gifts.
The youngest two of the children broken down into tears when it was time to leave, and I have been informed by friends of the family that after I had left that all of the children where very upset.

Children services have told me that they will be holding a conference on the 6th Jan.
Two days later on the 8th Jan I am due to return to the police station as stated in my bail.

As said before I have criminal solicitor, Being so close to christmas and my mind being all over the place I was unable to find a children / family solicitor.
But the firm dealing with the criminal law side of things also has children / family law department so we are in the middle of trying to find out if I am suitable to receive legal aid.

I think that's about where I am up to with things.