Hi there,
My ex partner and I have two children together and split up almost 18 months ago after he got a young girl pregnant. He has never paid me a penny for the children but was initially seing them weekly. Once the other child was born, he refused all contact with my children, and has not even given them a phone call since September 2009, despite no longer being in a relationship with the girl he got pregnant. I have no idea what contact/payment arrangements are going on there and don't feel that it's any of my business.
I have exhausted all avenues of trying to get support from him, ranging from suggesting a lower payment arrangement to asking him to pay directly for after school activities, clothes etc if he was uncomfortable about giving me cash. To cut a long story short, he has refused to pay anything in any shapre or form and has decided that he no longer wants anything to do with the children. He seems to think it is acceptable to just change his mind about them and walk away.
Anyway, I have had no option but to involve the CSA. However, my ex is self-employed and so they cannot take money from his employer. He has cottoned on to them looking at tax etc and now has invoices and payments made out to his father who then gives him the cash, so there is no direct proof that he is earning. So far, the CSA have written to him and left him answerphone messages (he refuses to answer his phone to them) but he has never once responded. There was a court date for the liability order yesterday but at present the CSA do not have the result of this.
I must stress that my ex is not short of cash, he rents a very nice flat and drives an expensive car, and is out socialising most evenings. If he was short of money I would completely understand, but he is simply refusing to pay for the children because he'd rather keep his money for himself.
My question, I suppose, is that if he keeps avoiding the CSA, what can/will they realistically do? They have given me the speech about bailiffs/prison etc, but I've never actually heard of this happening. Will they eventually get maintenance from him or can he just keep refusing to acknowledge them?