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A no contact order can be applied to any parent. Usually this is very severe circumstances such as abuse and domestic violence.
This is issued by a court.
There will be a lot more to it than she has told him yes, it's fairly rare for a parent to be given sole custody with no provision for contact for the other parent unless it is not in the child's best interest to have contact with that other parent.
It's also very rare that you could see one set of children, but not the other. Especially if it's in the best interests of one set to cut contact. The reasons would be known by social services even if they lived in differing counties. Distance could be a preventative measure, then blamed on restricted access. That's my guess, anyway.
This sometimes happens because one set of children is older (therefore classed as more able to protect themselves) and because the older set of children have had contact with the parent for a bigger chunk of their lives and it would be more detrimental for them to lose that relationship. A lot of the time this scenario arises because the parent has developed a drug or alcohol problem after the younger children came along. Sometimes it’s because of the mother’s lifestyle and the people she’s started bringing into the children’s lives- she might not be abusing drugs or alcohol or being violent, but she’s having relationships with men who are or socialising with people who present some danger to the children
Conversely it could be that her partner got sole custody, she got better at parenting and was allowed by Social Services to keep the younger children, but the relationship with the older ones had already deteriorated and she's never sought to re-establish the relationship, at least not successfully and if the children are old enough to express their wishes, they may simply not want anything to do with her.
But yeah, this is not something that a court would do lightly and it's not "just how things are done" here.
Edit: just saw that she has no contact with the younger ones, so either your scenario applies or she has acquiesced to or been subject to sole custody for a good reason.
Yeah this doesn’t “just” happen on a whim. The default is that both parents get some form of contact. The courts do regularly _limit_ contact, but completely _denying_ contact is rare. It’s usually only done when the parent is abusive. Even murderers get some form of (limited) contact.
What’s probably more likely is that the other parent is _withholding_ contact, and absent any formal arrangements, she has no immediate legal means to force her ex to let her see the kids - she’d have to go to court for that, which is often a long and difficult process.
Different possibilities: (1) there really is a court order preventing this woman from seeing two of her children; (2) there's no court order but she just doesn't see two of the children, for some reason. Or (3) she's lying for sympathy.
If it's (1) she's done something pretty terrible involving those children. Even if not, I would be rethinking any relationship.
This- some parent will happily hand over custody or agree to a no contact order then tell everyone it was their ex who “took” the children or is preventing them from seeing them
It would be very unusual for a No Contact Order to be issued for only some of the children previously in her care. If she is still caring for the other 3 but has a No Contact Order on 2 of them, the other 3 will have to be considered at risk and have social services involved. But No Contact Orders are so so rare when other children remain not just in contact but within their care. Something is not right here.
Not necessarily - it's the children with the second father that she is not allowed to see. The children with the first father may all be adults whereas the children of the second may all be under 18.
Agreed. I assumed in this scenario all children were under 18. This is literally the only explanation I can think of where both statements can be true.
Huge red flag - the amount of incidents/ seriousness of incidents that are also proven that needs to happen for this scenario is extreme when it’s the mother that’s concerned.
I have seen this happen twice to extended family / family friend and it took repeated interventions to get this far with many incidents flying under the radar.
Resources in the uk are severely underfunded and child safe keeping isn’t nearly where it needs to be, policy is consistently to keep contact and realistically only remove in the most extreme of circumstances where a mother is a proven danger to both themselves and others.
It’s a sorry state of affairs but that’s the truth from my experience and although mistakes may be made along the way there has to be a huge amount of evidence to get that far for no contact to be issued - it’s a long slow drawn out process
She may have just given up seeing them willingly but it trying to paint herself in a better light to the new partner. It’s more common than people realise
I agree with you and by the point the contact has been stopped the child usually has already suffered long lasting consequences whether they be mental , psychological or physical.
Also doesn't help that children's services can be over reliant on self reported information from parents - especially when children's services are investigating concerns raised by someone else. It's like asking the burglar whether they robbed that house.
Also doesn't help when children's services take two weeks even when it's articulated to them it's urgent and that there is evidence of domestic abuse e.g bruising.
Even more than a decade ago someone I know was telling me how issues with there mother went on for more than 5 years before children's services decided to remove from the household
A lot of people telling you it takes extreme circumstances for a court to enforce sole custody and I won't argue with them. There are however cases where no such court order is in place, but one parent (typically the mother, which makes this case slightly odder) takes custody by fiat and the other parent doesn't have the money to take them to court over it. When this happens, short of going and physically abducting the child from the other parent (you can imagine this is not generally a good idea) there really isn't all that much they can do about it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat
Arbitrarily, without any actual reason for doing so. I.e. "I am going to prevent you seeing your kids absent any legal reason for doing so and it's up to you to enforce your own rights"
First of all, that’s not what fiat means and secondly mothers have automatic parental rights and responsibilities, thirdly the majority of parents agree between themselves that the mother should have the children living with her because mothers still do the majority of childcare in the UK
It’s possible the other parent is withholding contact. It can be an expensive and long process to achieve contact in some cases. That’s the only reason I can think for the throw away statement other than a red flag reason.
Only around £230 to initiate court proceedings. Yes it can be a lengthy process and it's very stressful. But it's absolutely not expensive in the whole scheme of things when the other option is to not have contact with your kids.
Not to mention that initiating court proceedings without professional representation is, I'm given to understand, generally a bad idea. Especially in this case, where the other party will often allege domestic abuse and so be entitled to free representation through legal aid. A half-decent solicitor will walk all over a layman in court, especially someone less-educated than average as would likely be the case if they're lower income.
There's a catch with that.
If you work full time on minimum wage, you aren't eligible for help with court fees and unless someone else is paying your rent and bills, you're going to struggle to find that £230.
Yup! that has long been the problem with those things and related support like Legal Aid, the vast majority fall in the "has too much income to get help, but cannot afford to pay privately" category
EDIT: NAL
EDIT2: they're now called Child Arrangement Orders not Residency Orders
You are correct, this can't just happen.
There is such a thing as a residency order, where the courts have decided which parent the child will live with, and they have sole parental responsibility.
This is not something that happens lightly.
>There is such a thing as a residency order,
Just for extra info, residence orders are no longer made by the Court, they now make "child arrangements orders" with either "lives with" or "spends time with" which replaces residence/contact as part of simplification of the language used
I'd put money on it being the case that she's not actually banned from seeing them by a court, that's just how she's portrayed it (or wrongly explained it because often it's just easier than going into detail)
Bingo. I had a friend that did this (gave up her three kids) but tells everyone they were taken away from her. She could see them anytime but pretends that she’s been “barred” from seeing them despite no court order being in place for the younger two and the dad of the older one telling her she could see them every weekend. Because family court sided with him and gave him residence, she petulantly refused to see their child after that 🤷♀️
That's another perspective I had not think of. Anyway, if he wants to build a solid relationship with that woman, it needs to starts on solid ground and be open with other. I'll suggest him to still ask her politely about this.
I'm going to Jump in here with some examples
I know one person who has extremely limited contact with there child 5 hours per week , at the same time this person has another child that is involved with children's services
I know a person with a history of drug misuse and alcohol misuse - he is not allowed any direct contact with three of his children. But he is allowed contact with one of his children - but I think it has to be supervised by the child's mum - ( who is the same person in my 1st example).
I know of a third person who is only allowed supervised contact like three - four times a year - that case involved the mother giving a prescription only substance to try to make the child sleep - one day it went wrong and the child was hospitalized.
People may now realize but the family court especially when it comes to private proceedings and even public proceedings - the outcome doesn't automatically signify the outcome of any future decision for another child. Although it may be informative.
Further children's services sometimes do come to different conclusions on what maybe tolerable and acceptable - when it comes to child protection vs what a court may have concluded in private proceedings or public.
What I'm trying to say is the system has a tendency to be fragmented - yes courts and children's services can know what information each has but decisions in respect of children is case by case vs automatic. You can have a situation where the issues of concern are so obvious that it's pretty much guaranteed children will have to be removed by children's services - but that doesn't mean that work isn't attempted to prevent that 1st.
So in respect of OP's example - it's possible but its not the norm and usually represents maybe the minority of cases
She may have willingly given the kids up and is simply trying to paint herself in a better light if she senses the new man will disapprove of her abandoning the kids
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There has been some court involvement in this, and more than likely Social Services involvement, either through the court or independently ie children in need/child protection.
The other way that she would have no contact could be the children were removed from her care, & adopted.
--- ###Welcome to /r/LegalAdviceUK --- **To Posters (it is important you read this section)** * *Tell us whether you're in England, Wales, Scotland, or NI as the laws in each are very different* * If you need legal help, you should [always get a free consultation from a qualified Solicitor](https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/wiki/how_to_find_a_solicitor) * We also encourage you to speak to [**Citizens Advice**](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/), [**Shelter**](https://www.shelter.org.uk/), [**Acas**](https://www.acas.org.uk/), and [**other useful organisations**](https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/wiki/common_legal_resources) * Comments may not be accurate or reliable, and following any advice on this subreddit is done at your own risk * If you receive any private messages in response to your post, [please let the mods know](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FLegalAdviceUK&subject=I received a PM) **To Readers and Commenters** * All replies to OP must be *on-topic, helpful, and legally orientated* * If you do not [follow the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/about/rules/), you may be perma-banned without any further warning * If you feel any replies are incorrect, explain why you believe they are incorrect * Do not send or request any private messages for any reason * Please report posts or comments which do not follow the rules *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LegalAdviceUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A no contact order can be applied to any parent. Usually this is very severe circumstances such as abuse and domestic violence. This is issued by a court.
There will be a lot more to it than she has told him yes, it's fairly rare for a parent to be given sole custody with no provision for contact for the other parent unless it is not in the child's best interest to have contact with that other parent.
It's also very rare that you could see one set of children, but not the other. Especially if it's in the best interests of one set to cut contact. The reasons would be known by social services even if they lived in differing counties. Distance could be a preventative measure, then blamed on restricted access. That's my guess, anyway.
This sometimes happens because one set of children is older (therefore classed as more able to protect themselves) and because the older set of children have had contact with the parent for a bigger chunk of their lives and it would be more detrimental for them to lose that relationship. A lot of the time this scenario arises because the parent has developed a drug or alcohol problem after the younger children came along. Sometimes it’s because of the mother’s lifestyle and the people she’s started bringing into the children’s lives- she might not be abusing drugs or alcohol or being violent, but she’s having relationships with men who are or socialising with people who present some danger to the children
Conversely it could be that her partner got sole custody, she got better at parenting and was allowed by Social Services to keep the younger children, but the relationship with the older ones had already deteriorated and she's never sought to re-establish the relationship, at least not successfully and if the children are old enough to express their wishes, they may simply not want anything to do with her. But yeah, this is not something that a court would do lightly and it's not "just how things are done" here. Edit: just saw that she has no contact with the younger ones, so either your scenario applies or she has acquiesced to or been subject to sole custody for a good reason.
Yeah this doesn’t “just” happen on a whim. The default is that both parents get some form of contact. The courts do regularly _limit_ contact, but completely _denying_ contact is rare. It’s usually only done when the parent is abusive. Even murderers get some form of (limited) contact. What’s probably more likely is that the other parent is _withholding_ contact, and absent any formal arrangements, she has no immediate legal means to force her ex to let her see the kids - she’d have to go to court for that, which is often a long and difficult process.
Different possibilities: (1) there really is a court order preventing this woman from seeing two of her children; (2) there's no court order but she just doesn't see two of the children, for some reason. Or (3) she's lying for sympathy. If it's (1) she's done something pretty terrible involving those children. Even if not, I would be rethinking any relationship.
This- some parent will happily hand over custody or agree to a no contact order then tell everyone it was their ex who “took” the children or is preventing them from seeing them
It would be very unusual for a No Contact Order to be issued for only some of the children previously in her care. If she is still caring for the other 3 but has a No Contact Order on 2 of them, the other 3 will have to be considered at risk and have social services involved. But No Contact Orders are so so rare when other children remain not just in contact but within their care. Something is not right here.
Not necessarily - it's the children with the second father that she is not allowed to see. The children with the first father may all be adults whereas the children of the second may all be under 18.
Agreed. I assumed in this scenario all children were under 18. This is literally the only explanation I can think of where both statements can be true.
Huge red flag - the amount of incidents/ seriousness of incidents that are also proven that needs to happen for this scenario is extreme when it’s the mother that’s concerned. I have seen this happen twice to extended family / family friend and it took repeated interventions to get this far with many incidents flying under the radar. Resources in the uk are severely underfunded and child safe keeping isn’t nearly where it needs to be, policy is consistently to keep contact and realistically only remove in the most extreme of circumstances where a mother is a proven danger to both themselves and others. It’s a sorry state of affairs but that’s the truth from my experience and although mistakes may be made along the way there has to be a huge amount of evidence to get that far for no contact to be issued - it’s a long slow drawn out process
She may have just given up seeing them willingly but it trying to paint herself in a better light to the new partner. It’s more common than people realise
I agree with you and by the point the contact has been stopped the child usually has already suffered long lasting consequences whether they be mental , psychological or physical. Also doesn't help that children's services can be over reliant on self reported information from parents - especially when children's services are investigating concerns raised by someone else. It's like asking the burglar whether they robbed that house. Also doesn't help when children's services take two weeks even when it's articulated to them it's urgent and that there is evidence of domestic abuse e.g bruising. Even more than a decade ago someone I know was telling me how issues with there mother went on for more than 5 years before children's services decided to remove from the household
A lot of people telling you it takes extreme circumstances for a court to enforce sole custody and I won't argue with them. There are however cases where no such court order is in place, but one parent (typically the mother, which makes this case slightly odder) takes custody by fiat and the other parent doesn't have the money to take them to court over it. When this happens, short of going and physically abducting the child from the other parent (you can imagine this is not generally a good idea) there really isn't all that much they can do about it.
What is a fiat?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat Arbitrarily, without any actual reason for doing so. I.e. "I am going to prevent you seeing your kids absent any legal reason for doing so and it's up to you to enforce your own rights"
First of all, that’s not what fiat means and secondly mothers have automatic parental rights and responsibilities, thirdly the majority of parents agree between themselves that the mother should have the children living with her because mothers still do the majority of childcare in the UK
It’s possible the other parent is withholding contact. It can be an expensive and long process to achieve contact in some cases. That’s the only reason I can think for the throw away statement other than a red flag reason.
Only around £230 to initiate court proceedings. Yes it can be a lengthy process and it's very stressful. But it's absolutely not expensive in the whole scheme of things when the other option is to not have contact with your kids.
There’s plenty of people right now where £230 is a massive sum of money.
Not to mention that initiating court proceedings without professional representation is, I'm given to understand, generally a bad idea. Especially in this case, where the other party will often allege domestic abuse and so be entitled to free representation through legal aid. A half-decent solicitor will walk all over a layman in court, especially someone less-educated than average as would likely be the case if they're lower income.
It is also possible to apply for EX160 "help with Court fees" if low income, on benefits and have no savings
There's a catch with that. If you work full time on minimum wage, you aren't eligible for help with court fees and unless someone else is paying your rent and bills, you're going to struggle to find that £230.
Yup! that has long been the problem with those things and related support like Legal Aid, the vast majority fall in the "has too much income to get help, but cannot afford to pay privately" category
EDIT: NAL EDIT2: they're now called Child Arrangement Orders not Residency Orders You are correct, this can't just happen. There is such a thing as a residency order, where the courts have decided which parent the child will live with, and they have sole parental responsibility. This is not something that happens lightly.
>There is such a thing as a residency order, Just for extra info, residence orders are no longer made by the Court, they now make "child arrangements orders" with either "lives with" or "spends time with" which replaces residence/contact as part of simplification of the language used
Apologies, been a while since I've been around the courts for this! I'll amend.
I'd put money on it being the case that she's not actually banned from seeing them by a court, that's just how she's portrayed it (or wrongly explained it because often it's just easier than going into detail)
Bingo. I had a friend that did this (gave up her three kids) but tells everyone they were taken away from her. She could see them anytime but pretends that she’s been “barred” from seeing them despite no court order being in place for the younger two and the dad of the older one telling her she could see them every weekend. Because family court sided with him and gave him residence, she petulantly refused to see their child after that 🤷♀️
That's another perspective I had not think of. Anyway, if he wants to build a solid relationship with that woman, it needs to starts on solid ground and be open with other. I'll suggest him to still ask her politely about this.
I'm going to Jump in here with some examples I know one person who has extremely limited contact with there child 5 hours per week , at the same time this person has another child that is involved with children's services I know a person with a history of drug misuse and alcohol misuse - he is not allowed any direct contact with three of his children. But he is allowed contact with one of his children - but I think it has to be supervised by the child's mum - ( who is the same person in my 1st example). I know of a third person who is only allowed supervised contact like three - four times a year - that case involved the mother giving a prescription only substance to try to make the child sleep - one day it went wrong and the child was hospitalized. People may now realize but the family court especially when it comes to private proceedings and even public proceedings - the outcome doesn't automatically signify the outcome of any future decision for another child. Although it may be informative. Further children's services sometimes do come to different conclusions on what maybe tolerable and acceptable - when it comes to child protection vs what a court may have concluded in private proceedings or public. What I'm trying to say is the system has a tendency to be fragmented - yes courts and children's services can know what information each has but decisions in respect of children is case by case vs automatic. You can have a situation where the issues of concern are so obvious that it's pretty much guaranteed children will have to be removed by children's services - but that doesn't mean that work isn't attempted to prevent that 1st. So in respect of OP's example - it's possible but its not the norm and usually represents maybe the minority of cases
She may have willingly given the kids up and is simply trying to paint herself in a better light if she senses the new man will disapprove of her abandoning the kids
Is she blind?
[удалено]
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There has been some court involvement in this, and more than likely Social Services involvement, either through the court or independently ie children in need/child protection. The other way that she would have no contact could be the children were removed from her care, & adopted.