CSA forces fathers onto benefits

When I was 18 my girlfriend at the time told me she wanted a baby. At the time I had a good job and we where renting a house together and I was nieve enough to believe it would last forever… Well it didn’t, we split up and I moved out. I lost my job soon after as I didn’t have any where to live and spent a couple of months pulling myself together.

As soon as I had a place to live and was working again I got in contact and offered to pay her some money towards looking after our child. She refused and told me to stay away. She had a new partner and didn’t want anything to do with me.

I fought for months to try and sort out an amicable solution where I could see my son but it all amounted to nothing and then with no word of warning they where gone. She moved house and changed her number.

Five years went by and I hadn’t seen or heard anything from them. I had tried everything, even finding some of her old friends to try and get back in contact. Then out of the blue she added me as a friend on facebook.

I jumped at the chance to see my son again. At this time I was working in Spain and soon got things sorted so I was depositing as much money in her account each month as I could afford. In the five years she had got a very good job and was earning much more than I was but I wanted to pay something towards our child.

After a few months I realised that whilst I was working in Spain I couldn’t find enough time to see our son on a regular basis so I decided it would be best to come back to england and get a job here to be closer.

Last October I quit my job, flew back and got a job. Everything was going well. Then I was laid off in Febuary. It took me a month to get back into work and I explained to my ex that as soon as I was working again I would continue paying her some money for support. No sooner had I got a new job did I get a letter from the CSA. My ex had asked me where I was working and then kindly passed the information onto them.

My wages where 18k (15K after tax) which gives me £1200 p/m. The CSA where demanding 20% (£240) leaving me £960 which doesn’t seem that bad. However, what the CSA don’t take into account is my basic outgoings.

My rent alone is £650 p/m, council tax is £90 p/m and travel to work £169 p/m. This means I have £51 p/m to pay my gas, electric and water and to eat. Not to mention travelling to see our son.

So I rang up the CSA and after half an hour I got nothing from them. I kept asking how can the system be set up so if I claim benefits to cover my rent and council tax instead of working I can be better off?

But the truth of the matter is THEY JUST DON’T CARE.

So I rang up my ex to set up a private agreement. After a long conversation she agreed and I started paying her as much as I could.

A few weeks later she rang and told me that she had received a phone call from a girl called Sharon, checking to see everything was ok. My ex had explain our agreement and that everything was fine and Sharon had told her she should take me for everything she could.

Anyway since then I have continued to pay what I can. But now the letters have started again from the CSA. I’ve had a nasty text message telling me to stay away from my ex and she won’t answer her phone and I haven’t seen my son for a while.

What’s worse is the CSA have convinced her to claim since he was born (7 years). As I have never kept receipts for any money I gave her, none of it counts and guess what. They want it all in one go. I just can’t afford it and any dream I had of being around for my son has long gone.
I am so upset that all I have managed to acomplish by coming back to England is to end up with so much dept I can never return.

So I have quit my job. I will give it a week or two and then I will return to Spain.

Throughout my dealings the CSA has made it quite obvious that there main intention is to destroy family relationships, separate the none resident parent and then take them for every penny they have.

I firmly believe if it wasn’t for the CSA (combined with the greed of my ex girlfriend) I would be happily working, contributing to my son and the British economy and allowing my son the enjoyment of having his father around.