getting permission from absent fathers
Jan 12th 2004, 7:31 pm
#1
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Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2003
Location: ferndown dorset
Posts: 55
getting permission from absent fathers
Went to court last Friday to start process of asking court for permission to take children to Aus. Father refuses to give permission, although the kids have refused to see him for six months and he doesnt pay any maintenance. He has also been denied parental responsibility in the past by the court and has no legal rights over them. The judge took a dim view of the fact that we have not been to Aus before so we are now having to organise a trip in April to support our case. Has anybody been in this situation and can you give me some advice on how you approached it, and if you had any major hic cups along the way?
Jan 12th 2004, 7:58 pm
#2
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 454
Re: getting permission from absent fathers
Hi
We have been in this position, about 7 years ago now. Only we were the opposing parents. My husbands ex, met and got engaged to an Australian. Within a month of meeting him she told us of her intention to take their daughter with her to Aus.
Naturally we were totally against this, and ultimately fought our case in court. I must stress that my husband did have a good relationship with his daughter and paid maintenance, but from the moment she decided to migrate, she started playing very nasty games with us. She told her daughter that she wasn't allowed to call her dad 'daddy' anymore (she was only just 3 at this point) and then tried to claim it was her daughters idea(?!).
She changed her telephone number so he couldn't call and tried to make out he was abusive over the phone and didn't want him calling her. She claimed that when she called for contact, we were never there, she made arrangements, then cancelled and blamed us.
She lied to the courts saying she was about to lose her job and she would be homeless as her parents were moving to a smaller property (none of which happened).
Sadly, she got her own way. And when she got over to Aus she played by the books until she was married then started messing around with the little phone contact we had managed to arrange.
it ended up in court, she tried to claim that her daughter had been abused in our presence (absolutely not true) and her new husband wanted to adopt her.
The poor kid has been dragged through psychological assessments and interviews, her mum and husband were described as immature in the psychologists report and thankfully, we won the court case in Australia (even though we did not have to attend). She has not been adopted by her stepdad and we have now got much better contact with her, thanks to the Aussie courts.
In saying all this, we now believe that she has a much better life in Australia (despite her mother) than she ever would have had here, even thoughwe are not near her, I'm fairly certain, the ex would have made our lives hell if she hadn't gone to Aus.
The court didn't think it was a problem that the ex had never been to Aus, she had to provide statements from all parties involved, her fiance, his family members, her parents, all showing they supported the move and believed it would be in the best interest of the children.
I would recommend, you do all you can to suggest a good contact agreement and stick to it, if he fails to comply, it will be his problem. Offer to get the kids to call him at least once a month and offer to send photographs bi-annually, make sure you encourage their contact with him and keep him informed of changes and send things like school reports.
We find it much easier to handle with all that in place and at least you know you've done what you can to maintain contact, when they are old enough it's up to them.
Obviously a big reason for migrating to us is the fact that my stepdaughter is already there, they don't know about this decision yet, they won't like it, but it's tough, they'll have to get used to the idea, just as we have had to get used to not seeing our daughter regularly over the last 7 years.
hope you find this useful, coming from the other side of the argument!
sandy
We have been in this position, about 7 years ago now. Only we were the opposing parents. My husbands ex, met and got engaged to an Australian. Within a month of meeting him she told us of her intention to take their daughter with her to Aus.
Naturally we were totally against this, and ultimately fought our case in court. I must stress that my husband did have a good relationship with his daughter and paid maintenance, but from the moment she decided to migrate, she started playing very nasty games with us. She told her daughter that she wasn't allowed to call her dad 'daddy' anymore (she was only just 3 at this point) and then tried to claim it was her daughters idea(?!).
She changed her telephone number so he couldn't call and tried to make out he was abusive over the phone and didn't want him calling her. She claimed that when she called for contact, we were never there, she made arrangements, then cancelled and blamed us.
She lied to the courts saying she was about to lose her job and she would be homeless as her parents were moving to a smaller property (none of which happened).
Sadly, she got her own way. And when she got over to Aus she played by the books until she was married then started messing around with the little phone contact we had managed to arrange.
it ended up in court, she tried to claim that her daughter had been abused in our presence (absolutely not true) and her new husband wanted to adopt her.
The poor kid has been dragged through psychological assessments and interviews, her mum and husband were described as immature in the psychologists report and thankfully, we won the court case in Australia (even though we did not have to attend). She has not been adopted by her stepdad and we have now got much better contact with her, thanks to the Aussie courts.
In saying all this, we now believe that she has a much better life in Australia (despite her mother) than she ever would have had here, even thoughwe are not near her, I'm fairly certain, the ex would have made our lives hell if she hadn't gone to Aus.
The court didn't think it was a problem that the ex had never been to Aus, she had to provide statements from all parties involved, her fiance, his family members, her parents, all showing they supported the move and believed it would be in the best interest of the children.
I would recommend, you do all you can to suggest a good contact agreement and stick to it, if he fails to comply, it will be his problem. Offer to get the kids to call him at least once a month and offer to send photographs bi-annually, make sure you encourage their contact with him and keep him informed of changes and send things like school reports.
We find it much easier to handle with all that in place and at least you know you've done what you can to maintain contact, when they are old enough it's up to them.
Obviously a big reason for migrating to us is the fact that my stepdaughter is already there, they don't know about this decision yet, they won't like it, but it's tough, they'll have to get used to the idea, just as we have had to get used to not seeing our daughter regularly over the last 7 years.
hope you find this useful, coming from the other side of the argument!
sandy
