Unread post
by PerfectlySafeDad » Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:54 pm
My sons are not under any kind of plan and never have been - as far as I know! - and this is precisely what I want to avoid, because of the length of waiting, pitfalls of communication and inevitably stupid, over-cautious and strangulating directives that will come from this. If they're 'asked' to get involved, as it were, then they'll do just that, and they'll feel they have to do it with complete back-covering, box-ticking 'procedure', and they either don't care or don't understand (in which case they must be thick) that these procedures have a life-changing, punitive effect on a parent (if not the children too).
I want to avoid approaching them at all costs, and my hope is they'll gradually just drop away when they hear of the progress I've made (probation, and ultimately getting off the register) and my ex-wife (in the stability and smoothness of our contact meets). Despite the agony of it, I made sure we had a great Xmas (so to speak, as it was on the 28th and I got no rights whatever over Xmas itself) contact session, on top of perfectly good supervised sessions throughout the last year. I don't want to shake up any of this by getting into fights with CS or raising a legal side, ie approaching a solicitor. Yet it is so obviously appalling this has gone on so long, and I feel I might have to take steps soon for my sons' sakes; they are VULNERABLE being now in a one-parent home, my ex working 20 hours a week, reliant on outside support, with one of them disabled.
2 years ago I was told (by my then probation officer - CS never have the decency to communicate personally with me) that the phone call thing was just a 'precaution', as I'd come off a suicide attempt (true, but it was 6 months prior and by then I was discharged from all care not even on anti-depressants anymore, and the court case was done and behind me which was a big factor), that it was only 'temporary, while a bit more work was done with me (I've since done probation's Horizon course with flying colours, the main part of my sentence, plus 2 years worth of one-to-one with my officer, and my risk was lowered months ago to 'medium'). Also they cited the reason for no phone was my laptop was under investigation again therefore added stress and why I shouldn't be allowed unsupervised with my kids even by phone. "I'm going through a lot" they kindly tell me, whilst being completely unable to grasp my stress would be far less if I was not getting ripped further and further from my children. The laptop was in fact because a vigilante made a random complaint I was simply 'using' it in public, which I am allowed to do, but they didn't like the look of this yet what was said exactly or by who is not disclosed by the police, people can finger an ex-offender at will with impunity, and after 14 months - FOURTEEN - it came back crystal clear no questions asked. It was at that point they condescended to put me down to medium risk. Having said that, I was stupid enough to confess I 'might' have deleted a single item of history (an SHPO breach of the smallest possible kind) out of nervousness - not that it was anything illegal, but just a Facebook petition page I had visited against social services. It would be amusing if the consequences of their mere 'precautions' were not so real and soul-destroying. As it turned out, there was no such deletion anyway; but that's the mental state their insane back-covering puts a person in; you just don't know what reasoning they'll come up with next to cry 'risk' next, and they have proven histories of making things 'personal' against people, and this panics a person into evasion and covering tracks that needn't be covered.
Also, from what I gleaned from my ex of the phone conversation she had had with them 2 years ago (it was short), CS claimed that since my SHPO states 'no unsupervised contact' then phone and letters better be ruled out since such things were technically 'unsupervised.' They're even patronizing enough to make out they are protecting ME from accidental breaches of the SHPO. It states that I can have unsupervised contact with her consent, and a solicitor once told me that there's nothing whatsoever in my SHPO to say I can't (for example) have a weekend away with my children, but that the only problem was in the SS's 'interpretation' of my SHPO. In other words, they're idiots.
The trouble is my ex has just put herself in their hands, because she's too scared and doesn't know what else to do. She tells them she'll follow their advice, and their 'advice' was (from that one short phone call) "go with supervised, for now" - two years ago. Ominously and tiresomely we're told, "There'll be a risk assessment", when and if she wants to move things on.
I'm guessing that's when all the 'Plans' will start, and that we simply haven't seen anything yet because they've got a situation they are happy with virtually no effort.
I'm coming to the conclusion, all things considered and from other cases I read on here, that their only policy is to keep me as far out of my sons lives as possible for as long as possible. I think they'd have made conditions even worse if they could, but it would have cost them too much work to be even more draconian; my ex did tick the 'yes' box on their forms to wanting me basically 'in' the kids lives, and even a family court judge would have raised an eyebrow at that being opposed I think.
For 2019, 3rd and final year of my sentence (but not SHPO or register, 2 more minimum for them), I think I have two choices:
1) trust in the continuing thaw in relationship with my ex (she technically has all the strings even if CS may make her feel otherwise) and that she will tell them when she's ready to move it on, and that they'll 'accept' it without complication or disruption.
2) see a solicitor who knows what they're doing, get them to approach CS on my behalf whatever the cost (I'd only go to pieces listening to their front of 'expertise' and draconianism), and get a written statement of where I stand and where it's going, so they can't shift their goalposts in two yet more years or, even more galling, make out I haven't 'tried hard enough' for my kids or some such crap.
Either way, I'm clinging to the hope I can see at least one son whenever he and I like once I'm off the SHPO (he'll be 14), and that physically they can't stop us and will have better things to do (as seriously they do have). Sadly, at this rate my disabled son is lost to me and me to him, aside from 2 hours a fortnight which is not enough by any sane definition, if my ex will never stand up to their 'advice'. He doesn't have the ability to come and find me, whereas my other does and will. It speaks volumes that our relationship is as strong as ever despite nigh on 3 years of severely limited contact, plus the awful implication that I'm some kind of danger to him that the very presence of these conditions must put into his head.
As I see it, this whole business (and everybody else's cases) comes down to how much you see this thing called a 'sex offender' getting all they deserve, or a 'human being' being harassed (and their family who would wish to stand by them).
Somebody on here once said to me, 'nobody owes you anything' - wrong actually. All of us are owed our Human Rights. That's why they exist in law; the question is whether the reasons for taking them away are good enough. The CS, by a mixture of brashness and slipperiness, make out their reasons are good enough and evade accountability for unbelievable levels of disruption.
for replying over the holiday period. Hate that I never get a break from the stress and strains and worries of all this 
