Denied contact with my children because of Child Support Agency

October 9, 2010

I was denied contact with my children on three occasions all in my oppinion due to the CSA’s negligence. I have applied for numerous variations to keep contact with my children as to see my children is a round trip 240 miles every weekend. I have been refused everytime by the CSA for this variation. I have also been put into unfair arrears because of errors of the CSA and they have in my oppinion stolen from me commited theft under the theft act for a period of time I was ill. So I know where you are coming from. Let me give you a piece of advice I have to say before I give this advice that I am not a fully qualified solicitor yet so you must seek legal advice yourself. All I can give you is my own experiences.

Firstly the CSA have a duty under s2 of the CSA 1991 to act in the welfare of the child when exercising a discretion under the act. You can try this on with them to try and twist their arms into granting you a variation for your cost of contact. However in true CSA style this argument will probably fall on deaf ears. Because the CSA don’t seem to understand their statutory duty and generally breach it in my oppinion.

What I did was to go to the Family Court who do understand about the welfare of the children. I was unemployed like you the CSA would not deduct the cost of contact for my children so I did 2 things.

Firstly I applied for a contact order for my children and there is not a family court in this land that will deny a good father contact with his children because the right of contact is the childs not the mothers not the fathers but the child. And if the child is old enough (Gillick Competent) and expresses the view that he wants to see his father the courts will always listen to the child views. So contact should be no problem at all.

Secondly I applied for a Specific Issues order to make my wife share the transportation of the children with me. The courts view is that the child has the right to know both parents. I proved that my ex wife had the means to drop the children off and the court granted a specific issues order to make her partly responsible for transportation of the children. She still refused to do it but once you breach a specific issue order its a serious matter so she agreed to pay my costs for picking up the children when it was her turn.

You apply for both orders on the same form any Family Law solicitors will be able to advise you. I made this application myself but I do have some legal knowledge. Clearly I’m not a fully qualified solicitor yet so my advice to you would be to seek legal advice before embarking on this.

All you have to argue is that contact is the right of the child and not either parent and that my son who is old enough to express his own views has expressed a view to have regular contact with me it will cause him emotional harm if he does not. Contact has been taking place on a regular basis and disruption of established bonds should be avoided at all costs (Allington v Allington). The court has an overidiing duty to act in the welfare of the child under s1 of the Childrens Act. I can’t afford to maintian contact with him and the CSA will not aid me in doing so. So I request that my ex wife drops the children off or aids me with their transportation. I can’t guarantee that it will work for you but it worked for me and it has helped me maintian contact with my children where I otherwise would have lost it thanks to the CSA.

Clearly things are pretty amicable with your ex wife so that is good. I do not know your circumstances are but if you are the one who is having to pay for the transportation all the time then clearly your ex should be contributing as you both have a responsibility to your children. In my case me ex would not help out she believed that I should pay her csa and pay to pick up the children. Responsibilty for transportation should not fall on fathers as seems to be the case expecially as they have to pay csa as well. Transportation should be the responsibility of both parents.

Comments

>