CSA assumes the man is the NRP

“One rule for women different rules for men”… you have got it right there. We had the same situation with my husband and his children. He had the son and she had the daughter until they were 14 when they both lived with us. We never received a penny from her. Plus, she refused access to his daughter, telling her he never paid maintenance and so that she would grow up to hate him.

She told the CSA she wasn’t working (even though we knew she was) so she wouldn’t have an income and that’s apparently OK because she is a woman.So nil assessments for her every time. If a man is out of work they presume he is doing it deliberately and hound him. No one questions it if a woman says she is not working.

When we had both children CSA were not interested. They lost the paperwork and never botthered to chase her. They even lost some of the payments he had made and wanted him to pay it again…threatening phone calls, threats of legal action etc. We got our MP on the case and after months of haggling we managed to get enough evidence together to prove the money had been paid to them. (apparently pay slips showing the deductions were not proof enough – we had to get his employer to search through their records from 2003 to show they sent they actually sent the payments to the CSA) Even with this they still couldn’t find out where the money had gone at their end so said he had to pay again! They never did find it in their shoddy accounts but at least they finally credited the amount against his account – although I imagine that will come back to haunt us in a few years time and they will come asking for it again.

Their computer system just can’t cope with a situation where children live with different parents or swap between the two. Even when the children had been with us for 5 years, they were still showing up on the computer system as living with her and nothing we could do could get them to change it.

And what made me really mad was that everytime my husband phoned the CSA their first question was what were his bank details and how much did he owe – they just presumed that he was the NRP because he was a man and treated him like a “deadbeat dad”. In the end I had to start phoning on his behalf as it was the only way to get them to speak to us like human beings.

We struggled for years to make ends meet, paying CSA to his ex and bringing up the children. We are now completely broke and totally stressed out by it all.

My advice?

• Keep phoning and writing to get them to chase her. Don’t let the weeks turn into months.
• Keep a note of all calls, and all paperwork – especially proving that you have been paying – you never know when you may need it.
• Get your MP involved – it is the only way you can get anyone to do anything.
• Get a copy of your files from the CSA under the data protection act – they make for very interesting reading.
• Accept that in all probability you are never going to get any money and try to get on with your lives without the CSA ruining it. Do the best by your children with the little money you have left – at the end of the day that’s what really matters.