CSA sent letters somewhere else and ex refused DNA test

November 8, 2012

It started in Jan 2009 –

The CSA removed approx £1000 from my salary. I had not been contacted. After contacting the CSA myself they stated it was for a child that I had not been paying for and the mother had insisted I was the father.

I questioned the lack of communication and had no knowledge of this child. I found out they had sent 3 letters but not to the current address I lived at with my wife. They had sent the letters to a rental property I had vacant in Birmingham.

This created the first issue, because the letters had not been responded too the CSA stated that I am presumed to be the father until proved otherwise.

At this point I immediately asked for a DNA test and asked a further 3 times over the next 12 months each time the mother refused. This has caused lots of stress and strain on my marriage and on my wife who found out she was pregnant with our daughter 3 weeks prior to the CSA taking the first payment.

In the beginning of 2010 I was informed by the CSA that because the mother has consistently refused my request for a DNA test I would have to pay for a court order to be written up making the DNA test a legal requirement. Each month since Jan 2009 I have been paying an average of £185 to the mother of this child.

I then had to find the correct court form as the CSA couldn’t recommend the one to be used and spent the next 12 months trying to get in front of a district Judge or magistrates to hear the case. It took a little over a year because Coventry combined court took payment for the hearing but lost the papers on 2 occasions.

Finally in November 2011 I had my first hearing. The magistrates draw up an order to ask for mother to be contacted and asked about doing a DNA test.

I went to court a further 4 times every 5 weeks but the CSA hadn’t responded to any of the court requests.

On the 5th hearing a district judge got involved and a court order was written up for the CSA manager to attend the court to explain the lack of communication to the court. This order again was ignored.

At the next hearing a CSA repersentative did appear to explain that the CSA under data protection did not have to provide the court with the mothers address details and that if I wanted a DNA test done I would have to pay them to do mine the mothers and the childs and that they had to do it through their own DNA company.

This took us through to June 2012. I agreed at this hearing to pay the CSA for the test and waited for the results.

I went back to court on the 5th September 2012 to be told that the mother had again refused to do a test and because of this I am deamed not to be the father. So on the 5th of September 2012 I was legallery said not the be a father to this child.

I was then told in court and I have recorded the conversation that the CSA would now refund me all money they have taken incorrectly from me.
I was told this would take a few weeks.

I spoke to the CSA 8 weeks later and they informed me that after looking into it they didn’t deam it fair to refund me. They said they would pay me for all payments recieved after November 2011 rather then all payments taken since January 2009.

I feel like I have been treated like a criminal at every point by the CSA. I have been given no chance to deny an allegation of parentage.

This whole experience has nearly cost me my marriage, my daugther was nearly terminated in Jan 2009 after the experience started.

I am in no doubt that as a father we have a responsibility to provide for our families and are accountable for any children we father. I also agree with the calculation system run by the CSA.

My big issue is with the process where by the CSA do not have to guarantee contact with an aledged father prior to presuming guilt.

I was registered at Coventry when they sent letters to Birmingham and have never had any opportunity to ask for a DNA test prior to the payments starting. I have received no appologies from the CSA and have no recourse to take the mother to court as apparently she has done nothing illegal. I paid out approx £9- £10,00 in payments to a child that is not mine and have been given £1888 back.

What can I do to recover my court costs and all payments??

Comments

  • Jo says:

    You need to write down exactly what has happened with your case, do it in bullet format to the reasons why you are entitled toyour refund and ccompensation to the stress caused. Make two copies, mark complaint and send recorded to csa, put in the letter you will be seeking legal advise and seeing your mp. Then make an appointment to see your mp to act on your behalf. As far as I was aware as soon as the pwc refuses a dna test then the case should have closed, its in their booklet, so dont understand why they ignored their own literature. Keep fighting you’re not alone. Good luck

  • chall says:

    Quote Tim; I went back to court on the 5th September 2012 to be told that the mother had again refused to do a test and because of this I am deamed not to be the father.

    Were you in a relationship/living with the mother at the time the child was conceived OR was it a casual encounter?
    Are you named on the child’s birth certificate?
    Is there a possibility the child is yours?

    The CSA have to send correspondence to a confident address. A confident address is one that is not the same as the PWC’s and there is no information to indicate that the ANRP is not living at the address shown.

    A presumption of parentage can be made in some cases, inc where an ANRP is aware of basic details of the case and has not made a declaration to either accept or dispute parentage an assumption can be made.

    Was the form you completed for the court a C100 to ‘ascertain parentage’?
    If so, CSA would not be involved in this process and it would be up to the court to rule that a DNA test is necessary (would cost extra).

    chall ~ afairercsaforall

  • Alice says:

    The CSA will make every attempt to verify a ANRP’s address using various govt databases and credit files.
    If a Maintenance Enquiry Form is sent to an address that the CSA consider to be confident and it is not returned to the agency then the Agency can presume parentage and the case can proceed.
    If parentage is presumed and later questioned it is then the responsibility of the NRP to provide the CSA with a Declaration of Non-parentage.

  • Tim Mayer says:

    Alice, The point is they sent to an incorrect address. I owed the house the correspondence went to as a rental property. this was managed by a property management company and not my registered home address. It took 3 years to sort the declaration out.
    My issue is that after paying out over £10,000 in payments to a women who has lied about the fact I am this child’s father I receive no apology from the CSA and to add insult to injury they have paid back just £1888. This is apparently acceptable.
    My view is that these public sector workers should be held accountable and something in this biased set-up should change.
    I was not in a relationship with this women, I was not named on the birth certificate and I have no idea where the woman is based.
    This in effect is benefit fraud by a desperate women that nearly cost me my marriage and the termination of my 3 year old daughter. The CSA have stolen £8,000 from me based on a statement with no contact with me and without apology. To top it of the HRMC wrote to my wife and I to remove our child benefit based on my earnings.

    How is any of this process legal and fair.

  • Alice says:

    Tim – can I ask, when the letters were sent to the house that you owned by did not live in were the letters returned to the CSA marked as you not living at that address? Did the tenant forward them to the property management company and if so did they forward them on to you?
    If the letter was returned to the CSA as DLO they would investigate further to try to establish if that address could be considered confident. At the time the case was opened did you apply for anything that would show as a credit application using that address at the time – things such as buildings insurance etc? Were you registered as being liable for council tax for that address?

    If the mail was forwarded to the property management company and they failed to forward it on to you then they failed in their duty to you and as such you may be able to claim against them.

    I understand that the whole process has been very stressful for you and your family and I am sorry that it took so long for you to be able to obtain the declaration of non-parentage. Unfortunately the woman who made the claim cannot be held liable for benefit fraud as child maintenance is not a benefit

  • Lisa says:

    Alice^^^^ you claimwork for the CSA on lots of groups on facebook, giving lots of advise to people, why would you do that under a fake name, when the csa are reknowned for lying and untrustworthy the department you work for take money from him without giving him a chance to work out why? You ever thought to offer dna testing to women who dont have a fathers name on the birth cert, Maybe then it will stop dirty little bitches accusing men of being fathers to get money and suicide rates the the CSA are blamed for might come down, Oh and wouldt it be better for the maintainance to be one set amount per child like child benefit, it works abroad why not here, I forgot the csa like raping men of there wages for there own satisfaction

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