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Welcome back for another intriguing vlog, where in this Family court carnage scenario I will be looking at a Father's big mistake. 

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I am Philip Kedge, the Director of the brilliant McKenzie Friend UK Network where all my views and opinions are entirely my own and where nothing I say constitutes Legal advice. 

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So a father refuses to leave the family home on the break up of his 14 year marriage. They have 2 young children of the marriage. Now, on the face of it, the father is arguably protecting himself in not leaving the family home by not giving up the keys being the children and the castle being the family home. Now this potentially places him in a very strong position, however, he makes a strategic blunder in what happens next.

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The father reports that the environment in the house becomes increasingly toxic with his ex becoming increasingly frustrated that he is not leaving the home, which he reports turns to domestic abuse against him and the children. On one occasion he alleges that she 'loses it' and hits the oldest child when they misbehave causing a bruise on the child's leg. He secures the evidence by photographing the bruise, which is the correct thing to do. As the hostile environment continues to deteriorate, he decides, while still living in the house together to apply for a Non-molestation Order against the mother to stop the abuse she was reportedly displaying and the coercive control that she was allegedly exerting. No on the face of it, that seems like a positive and even desirable next move, but it ends up backfiring.

The court awards an interim Non-Molestation Order without notice which gets served on the mother, but that same day, the mother takes the children and simply leaves the family home with the children and stays with her parents, until relocating into emergency local authority accommodation. She then applies to the family court for a child arrangements order citing every category of domestic abuse that you can think off, physical, emotional, psychological, financial, sexual and of course coercive control. The father denies it all, maintaining that he is the victim. The mother then further responds by applying for an occupation order to remove the father from the matrimonial home allowing her and the children to return to it, so that she can take full control of both the keys, the children and the castle, being the family home. In the meantime, she completely stops all contact between the father and the children.

So to cut a long story short. It was over a year of drawn out court proceedings based on total hostility and hate before the father got to see his children again in the flesh, and that only started off in a contact centre. The non-molestation order taken out by the father was quickly dropped by the court after the mother moved out and and took primary residence of the children in the local authority accommodation. 

So where did the father potentially go wrong? and remember, these are only my personal thoughts and not legal advice     

Taking out the non-molestation order became a declaration of war. He threw the first grenade and the mother responded with a full scale nuclear attack by fleeing with the children and responding with a list as long oas your arm of domestic abuse against her. The reality was, that once she had left with the children, it was all over for the father. His journey through the family court, faced with all her counter allegations became a nightmare journey through hell. You see, I would suggest, and this is not legal advice, is that what the father had strategically failed to do was to firstly secure the children. Rather than applying for only a non-molestation order, perhaps he should not have submitted an application submitted an emergency, without notice C100 child arrangements application with a C1a risk of harm form and for that application to include both a non molestation order but crucially also a prohibited steps order to prevent the removal of the children from the family home and his care. 

Now this is a three pronged position. Firstly, the C100 to ask the court to determine with whom the children should live and spend the with the other parent, secondly the C1a risk of harm form outlining the abuse of the mother and the harm to the children, and within that to request a non-molestation order, and then most importantly the prohibited steps order preventing the mother from removing the children from the family home. Now if that had been granted, the father, would in my submission have been in a very strong position threoughout subsequent family court proceedings. If the mother wanted to leave, she could, but not with the children, leaving the father in control of the keys and the castle, reversing the position that the vastly majority of fathers find themselves in, becoming the non-resident parent without a solid roof over their heads. 

You see, in this scenario the father went off half cocked, and the mother then responded with a full scale counter attack, and that in my experience is very often the difference between mummies and fathers in the family court. The mummies are all too often brutal and merciless, they have learnt how to manipulate the system by just going all out at the start and in doing so, are able to easily throw the fathers under the family court bus. On the other hand, the fathers are the ones trying to be nice, they want to play fair and play by the rules, they want to hold back so that they can be seen to be reasonable, but unfortunately, that playbook tends to all too often work against them. 

So in conclusion, I am not telling you what to do or how to behave, it is a matter for you to take what you want from this scenario and to consider if I am right or wrong. However, either way, what I do believe is important is that it is time for fathers to wake up and to smell the coffee and to understand and educate themselves as to the tactics and strategies being used in the family court, because if the don't when the hefty hammer of hate, wielded mostly by the mummies. falls, they may very well regret not having been prepared. 

That's me done folks, for all of your family court needs, contact me today at contactphil.co.uk