What can I do next to fight ‘joke’ CSA?

I was married for 24 years and we had five children. He wasn’t a nice man, verbally and physically abusive to myself and the children, I stayed for the children. Following the death of my brother to cancer at the age of 34, I realised life was too short to continue being in a loveless marriage.

Prior to me consulting solicitors he was paying £2500 in maintenance. We had two successful businesses between us. My solicitor suggested we freeze his affluent accounts but then decided because he was paying, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Over the following months, the payments dropped down to nothing.

Myself and my kiddies were on the breadline, we were bullied into leaving our country estate, animals were killed, the police were called regularly because of harassment, broken windows and general aggressive, intimidating behaviour. I left the family home and moved into rented accommodation for the sanity of my children.

I claimed incapacity benefit for the first time ever and sought assistance from the CSA. I had two children under the age of 16, was on a ridiculously low amount of benefit and was genuinely struggling with everything. My ex husband was earning in excess of £200,000 a year, mostly cash, but instantly declared a change of circumstances, he changed the name of his company, made it a limited company and made his father a director and himself an employee earning less than £5.00 per week!

My daughter aged 14 and struggling to understand my inability to keep up with her peers and provide her the laptop, contract phone, etc, decided to move in with her father, who promised her the world. Within a week of her moving, I had a letter from the CSA stating they would take £5.00 per week from my benefit to assist my ex husband, who was earning less than £5.00 per week, in taking care of my daughter.

I have never received a penny from my ex husband and have given the CSA a file, at least an inch thick, with evidence of his earnings, his 6 houses and his general standard of life. He has just purchased, in cash, a vehicle worth at least £25,000, he has fathered another two children and also has a step daughter of five.

How does this work, I thought it was men who had to dress up and climb big ben for media attention and fairness. To top it all, I had two missed calls from the CSA over the last couple of days. I called them back and asked to speak to my case worker who had left the message…the lovely irish lady stated she couldn’t put me through until I had cleared security. I gave her my name, my NI number, my address, my case reference, my sons name, his date of birth, my ex husbands details, name, address, DOB etc.

Not enough, she wanted the assessment amount, date of the last letter and stupid other stuff which just wasn’t relevant, this has been going on over 4 years and they called me! I requested she just transfer me to my case worker and she stated ‘you haven’t passed security’ and hung up on me!

What a joke, where do I go from here??