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I'll keep it as brief as possible but could end up being lengthy.
A bit of history / context...
In January 2020, my child's father was arrested for indecent images of children. We were already separated anyway. At the time, our child was 3yrs old. When I got the call from the police, I asked how old the children in the images were and he said some were younger than my own child. My child's father initially told me he had been in possession of the images due to a group chat on a porn site. Over 6 months, his story drastically changed and eventually he said it was because he had a photo of an ex girlfriend on his phone (he says she was 18 but apparently police believed she was 17). I don't trust anything he says. I was told some of the images were Cat A. After a 2yr police investigation, the case resulted in NFA. The investigating officer was very apologetic and informed me it was only due to a technicality rather than him being innocent. My child's father has taken me to court to have unsupervised access to child. I will only allow supervised visits. We currently have a court order in place until end of January 2023 that says visits must be supervised. He will take me back to court when the order ends and I am so worried that the outcome will be unsupervised visits with overnight stays (as was our arrangement before he got arrested). I don't know how to cope or deal with it if it is a bad outcome. I just feel like every service / system is against me when all I want to do is keep my child safe.
How do other people cope with the potential of being forced to send their child with someone who looked at pictures of kids? I'm expected to just trust that my child will be safe but I don't trust my child's father. I don't know what to do or how to cope.
A bit of history / context...
In January 2020, my child's father was arrested for indecent images of children. We were already separated anyway. At the time, our child was 3yrs old. When I got the call from the police, I asked how old the children in the images were and he said some were younger than my own child. My child's father initially told me he had been in possession of the images due to a group chat on a porn site. Over 6 months, his story drastically changed and eventually he said it was because he had a photo of an ex girlfriend on his phone (he says she was 18 but apparently police believed she was 17). I don't trust anything he says. I was told some of the images were Cat A. After a 2yr police investigation, the case resulted in NFA. The investigating officer was very apologetic and informed me it was only due to a technicality rather than him being innocent. My child's father has taken me to court to have unsupervised access to child. I will only allow supervised visits. We currently have a court order in place until end of January 2023 that says visits must be supervised. He will take me back to court when the order ends and I am so worried that the outcome will be unsupervised visits with overnight stays (as was our arrangement before he got arrested). I don't know how to cope or deal with it if it is a bad outcome. I just feel like every service / system is against me when all I want to do is keep my child safe.
How do other people cope with the potential of being forced to send their child with someone who looked at pictures of kids? I'm expected to just trust that my child will be safe but I don't trust my child's father. I don't know what to do or how to cope.
Hi,
Were social services ever involved? How would you feel about requesting an independent risk assessment via the courts? Would you trust the results of it if it said your ex poses no risk to your child or indeed any child? It may also be a good idea to put together a plan for steps you would be comfortable with, perhaps dinner out unsupervised and build up their relationship and your trust slowly rather than going from supervised to unsupervised overnight. Such a change could be detrimental to your child as they are unlikely to remember staying at daddy's house. I think it's important that you approach it from the angle of your child's wellbeing and show that you are not opposed to them continuing to build their relationship but you need reassurance before agreeing to overnight access. Sending love to you, it's a very difficult situation xxx
Were social services ever involved? How would you feel about requesting an independent risk assessment via the courts? Would you trust the results of it if it said your ex poses no risk to your child or indeed any child? It may also be a good idea to put together a plan for steps you would be comfortable with, perhaps dinner out unsupervised and build up their relationship and your trust slowly rather than going from supervised to unsupervised overnight. Such a change could be detrimental to your child as they are unlikely to remember staying at daddy's house. I think it's important that you approach it from the angle of your child's wellbeing and show that you are not opposed to them continuing to build their relationship but you need reassurance before agreeing to overnight access. Sending love to you, it's a very difficult situation xxx
Social services visited us once but signed us off because at the time child had no contact with Dad and SS were happy that child was safe in my care.
I'm happy to request a risk assessment from the court but I don't think I'd be satisfied even if it did say he posed no risk. I think I've been left for so long without answers that I'm so set in my ways and would find it incredibly difficult to change my mindset. I would find it easier if child's father had been honest from the start.
Thankyou for your response x
I'm happy to request a risk assessment from the court but I don't think I'd be satisfied even if it did say he posed no risk. I think I've been left for so long without answers that I'm so set in my ways and would find it incredibly difficult to change my mindset. I would find it easier if child's father had been honest from the start.
Thankyou for your response x