I need to own up straightaway. I stopped paying the CSA 4 years ago after a brief period of unemployment. When back in work I continued not to pay. This week i received a demand from them for £33,331. When I called them I was bluntly told that I must start to pay £616 per month or they would immediately send out a deduction of earnings order to my employer. They were not willing to listen to my personal cirumstances only interested in frightening me into paying any amount either by credit card, loan or remortgage.The case worker I dealt with was in a state of hard nosed detachment whilst she administered this dehumanised process in pursuit of some arbitrary financial target. I made a mistake in not facing my financial responsibilities a mistake for which the CSA seemed determined to make it impossible for me to reach some sensible solution. I am speaking to an Insolvency Practitioner and going into an IVA and switching to an interest only mortgage in order to raise the money. Of course this is disastrous for my current family and no regard is given to the children we brought up over the past 4 years. So I am crucified with guilt for not making the payments and crucified with guilt for the penuary I am forcing on my current family. So here I am an absent "deadbeat dad" who has been "...come down on like a ton of bricks." Or maybe I'm just a human being that made a mistake in a low, unhappy period of their life. The CSA has become an all powerful, crushing and destructive blight on what I suspect are some of our most vulnerable people in society. Its aims are astonishingly punitive to the absent parent who very often is providing care to children in a new family. This is abusive government power gome mad. I am simply left in a situation that I cannot redeem my previous poor behaviour without severe hardship to those loved ones around me who know nothing of my former irresponsible and feckless self. In dealing with the CSA all humanity and sensitivity to ordinary people has been removed and it very well may be creating more child poverty than it alleviates as poeple lead complicated lives and nobody has ever bothered to check.
