Challenging SGO

[Yogibear]

I hope I'm posting in the right section if not please move.

I'm in court next Wednesday for my younger daughter representing myself as I no longer get legal aid but don't earn enough to afford a solicitor.

My daughter is currently living with her maternal grandparents who have an SGO, I have PR so no real rights as such.

Essentially there was a long drawn out custody battle and the grandparents won, they had the SS on there side and a 10month head start over me and as I've since found out they were told from the very beginning I wouldn't be getting custody.

The final order made laid out exact contact times and also that over nights and holidays would be reviewed after 6months, this never happened as SS decided they didn't have to comply with court order, this lead to a complete breakdown in communications between myself and the grandparents and contact was stopped, we never got on anyways, spent 2 years fighting in court.

After a year of delays we finally got it back into court and CAFCAS were ordered to do a section 7 then a section 20 report on me and observe contact. There have been 7 contacts which have been described as of excellent quality.

There was a meeting with CAFCAS , the grandparents and myself last Friday where basically I had to agree to there demands so that they would agree to contact being resumed at the level it was 2 years ago. At the same meeting it was agreed that my younger daughter and older daughter will finally be aloud to meet which I've been trying to arrange for the past 2 1/2 years, although I wasn't told until after the meeting that I won't be involved in this at all, the grandparents and mother have been in contact directly , completely leaving me out of the loop.

I had always intending to have the girls at the same time but as it stands all they are agreeing to is the girls meeting once. I desperately don't want my older daughters mother involved, she made life hell for me for a long time with repeated malicious accusations to SS, they only stopped when they threatened her with losing custody because of her behaviour and they had evidence she had lied to them.

CAFCAS have told me I can not challenge the SGO because the wording is that there has to be a significant change in circumstances, however they are saying it must be a significant change in the child's circumstances, ie the grandparents die.

Also there s nothing as to overnight stays and holidays which was on the original order form 2 1/2 years ago.

Not really sure what's going to happen of Wednesday, I agree in part to the proposals but not completely , they want it out of court and decided amongst ourselves but as soon as its out of court what they says goes and my only option is to take it back to court again.

Help would really be appreciated.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Yogibear

Thanks for your post and I'm sorry to hear about your difficult situation.

You currently share parental responsibility for your younger daughter with her grandparents although the SGO gives them the right to overule you and use their PR "to the exclusion of others"

Regarding your older child, you also share PR (with Mum) although, in theory, this is a more equal share.

In reality, this means that, if agreement cannot be reached, the only way to effect a change in contact arrangements etc. is via a court order.

Once contact orders are in place, the grandparents/ mother have no right to breach these orders and could find themselves heavily critised by the court if they do so. Again, however, the only way to address these issues is back in court.

It is possible to revoke a placement order but, as has been suggested to you, this would need to be due to a significant change of circumstances. This would not neccessarily have to be as dramatic as the death of your daughter's grandparents but would have to be a significant change to the circumstances that led to the court's initial decision, coupled with it being in your daughters best interests for the order to be revoked.

You may find our advice sheet about SGOs for parents useful. It may also be helpful for you to speak to the Children's Legal Centre as they specialise in advising about private law matters.

I hope this helps.

Best Wishes

Suzie

[Yogibear]

Hello Suzie,

Thanks for your reply. I have read your SGO advice sheets cover to cover, and many others as well. There is lots of information out there about SGO's but very little information on challenging them and even less on success stories.

The situation changed again today, CAFCAS contacted me to say my older daughters mother has told my younger daughters grandparents the allegations she made against me 12 months ago. This was originally resolved last year and all contact, overnights and hollidays resumed. I did tell CAFCAS 2 weeks ago This was exactly what would happen, not for the first time I've been right.

Now don't know if any contact with my younger daughter is being agreed to by the grandparents.

You said in your reply that to challenge the SGO there would need to be a significant change in the circumstances that led to the courts initial decision. This is the case, I was at the time in my Second year at university at the other end of the country, little experience looking after children, and had the cloud of the original allegations my older daughters mum made against me which were being very slowly investigated.

I graduated from Uni 3 years ago even though I was doing a 600 mile round trip every weekend to see my girls. First thing I did was move back to the city my daughters live in. I have my own child friendly home, 2 bed room, gardens, nice area. Also secure full time employment locally. All of the accusations made have been investigated and completely cleared of and over nights and hollidays have been taking place without further issue for the past 12 months with my older daughter.

There were two professionals who originally did reports for the court, a Semi Independent Social Worker and a Psychologist. The Psychologist supported my application for care but the independent social worker opposed it. I tried to fight the decision in court but was very much fighting a losing battle. I didn't find out until later that he had already done a report on the grandparents and supported there application for care before even meeting me and so would have had to , change his mind/admit he was wrong if he was going to support my application.

In his report he twisted everything I had said to be negative, saying I had told him I didn't want him to contact my parents or brother as I didn't want them to know of the existence of my second daughter. This was rubbish I had asked him to contact my parents as they are both retired head teachers with each over 40 years of working with children. Same with my brother said I told him not to contact him, he's also a senior secondary school teacher.

This is just a snippet , there were dozens of mistakes and inconsistencies, he couldn't even get my daughters name right. When we requested copies of his notes he had made he refused the grounds that there were other people's case notes on the same pages. Which made a lot of sense being that he had gotten everything wrong about me.

Anyway even with all these issues I couldn't get a new report done as the court suddenly took the stance that after 2 1/2 years , delay was not in the best interest of the child.