Family Court, The Beginnings – For the 2nd Time

So, here I was again staring at the having to take Sarah to court to force her to support Sonny to have his Dad in his life.

When I first took Sarah to court after Sonny was born I knew that it was highly likely that when she became pregnant with Sonny it would end in a court room – what I didn’t expect though was that I’d have to do it twice.

Having looked back and having experienced parental alienation in the manner that we did it was naïve to think that over the course of a child’s life it’s highly likely your going to experience more than one court application.

When people don’t want you to see your child and you’ve got the weight of the family court system against you, it’s very easy for people like Sarah to renege on any agreements, tell lies and before you know it all contact has been severed again.

Your only option at this stage is the court room, and its lengthy, its costly and it’s generally ineffective.

When I was left with no option but to force Sarah through the courts again, the process had changed. It’s wasn’t just a straight forward case on me paying a court application fee and Sarah is dragged into court, this time we had to do what was called mediation – in essence before I could make an application, I had to pay for a professional mediation company to liaise with Sarah to see if we could resolve this matter before judge had to decide.

The reason behind this is that courts are overloaded with parental alienation cases, because it’s so easy for people like Sarah to alienate kids from their Dads and the Dads are left with no other option than to look to the courts. So they brought mediation in to try and slow down the applications Dad’s were taking to try and see their children.

What this did was slow the process down even further and also increase the costs. However either party had to right to refuse mediation but as I was putting the application in I had to attempt it as I was advised if we ended up in a court room having put an application in the judge will tell us to go an mediate first before they would be willing to listen to the case – so I understood this was a key part of the process.

So, I began the process – I contacted a mediation company in Sheffield, paid the fees and advised them off the case. They in turn were to then contact Sarah about the process and garner her willingness to participate for the benefit of Sonny.

To my surprise, Sarah actually rejected mediation to begin with. The reason I say I was surprised is that any family lawyer would had advised Sarah that it would not be a good look in a court room to refuse mediation. For me it was fine, I was doing what was right and Sarah was showing to a court that she wasn’t willing to assist.

So, as the mediation company had confirmed Sarah was unwilling to mediate and provided me with the relevant document to confirm the same, I was then able to put a court application in and move the process forward.

All this was put into place and we attended court to open proceedings. I had to instruct a different solicitor this time as Dronfield fell into Chesterfield so I had to make an application into the Chesterfield court so my solicitor was based in Chesterfield. Sarah instructed quite a big firm of solicitors in Sheffield so she would have been incurring travel costs and the day of the first hearing she actually attended with a barrister so it was clear from the opening that Sarah was going to throw as much money as she could at her defence to stop Sonny from his  parental family – parental alienation was at the core of her whole argument but this time she had an young child who she was able to blame – Sonny.

When the proceedings began we were relatively confident we were going to get off to a good start.

Sarah had refused mediation and it was a terrible look for her. My solicitor had advised the judge will not take kindly at all to her refusing any initial attempt to resolve matters before my applying to the court for an application to be heard.

Sarah’s solicitor was  – nasty and no interest  in what was best for Sonny just in dong everything she could to grant Sarah her wish, to stop me seeing Sonny.

After all, that was what Sarah was paying her for. The irony is always the case though, should I have instructed that solicitor she would have stood up in court and tore strips off Sarah and her character because she would have being going all out in trying to force Sarah to allow me to see Sonny and support the process.

She was the classic legal mercenary, as long as she was getting the money she’d do the work she was being paid to do – no matter how dirty it was.

The proceedings opened and our representatives gave their opening statements. My lawyer was respectful and kept to the point in hand that I was trying to rebuild my contact with Sonny.

Sarah’s paid tyrant on the other hand!.......Wow, she went after me! Christ knows what Sarah had told her but basically I was painted as the worst Dad in the world who could not care one single jot about Sonny! And here I was, making my second application into a court to force Sarah to allow me to see Sonny!

I had to laugh.,,,

Finally we got to the point about mediation – The judge asked had we attempted it, we said we had and that I’d paid the fees and we had the document from the mediation company to advise Sarah had refused.

Immediately her lawyer jumped up and said that Sarah was ready to mediate – I thought too late now love!

However, to our amazement the judge didn’t seem to care less whether we had or we hadn’t upto that point, all he said was that we needed to go away and mediate before the case would be heard before court.

We left the court room, me and my lawyer stood to one side and he said to me “I can’t believe he’s let her get away with that”! In essence my lawyer was expecting judge to give Sarah a serious dressing down for not mediating. That was what we were told we had to, that was now part of the new process of trying to see your children. I had done what I was told to do. I wasn’t able to make an application until I’d attempted this and got the relevant document to prove it.

Sarah completely dismissed it, she’d clearly showed no interest in resolving matters – everything the courts are supposed to be opposed too but here she was again walking away without any accountability.

It was at this point I realised, things had changed – the process was going to be harder and longer.

Sarah had gone in very heavy with her legal appointment this time, I could see she was intent on not losing for the 2nd time but she had the trump card anyway. She had Sonny this time saying he didn’t want to see me, so she was just sitting back saying this had nothing to do with her this this time, this was all on Sonny.

So we left that court that day knowing that this was going to a be a struggle but I had to do it – I had to do it for Sonny and for me  -  I wanted to see him, and I wanted us to be together again.

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