NSW Custody help/ breach or orders

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shae123

Member
24 September 2018
1
0
1
Posting on behalf of my fiance..

He currently has orders in place (last 5 years). He finally got orders after paying $$$ through lawyers. He gets just half school holidays and every second weekend, but now wants to go for more time as its been far too long on minimal time.
To give a little background on his ex - His ex refused him seeing his children. He tried calling ( she wouldn't answer his calls), he tried turning up at their sports games ( she would lie about the venue they were playing at so he missed the games and weren't there when he turned up).
Over the last 5 years, the mother has breached orders such as always coming up with an excuse why the children cannot talk to their dad ( eating dinner, in the shower, on the toilet, at sports - this happens EVERY night until this day) We provided the eldest with a phone so he has better contact(court ordered). The mother insists he keeps the phone in the fruit bowl most of the time. The orders specify, the children can contact their dad as much as they want but she is still controlling it.
Another term of the orders is that a parent nor a third party can speak ill of the other parent. We know she is doing this as the children tell us, and just recently, the eldest told us that the Grandparents (the mothers parents) had visited and were speaking ill of their father and that " he does nothing for them", " hes a dead beat dad", " make the right decisions who you want to spend time with" etc etc. This is a breach and we want to know how to deal with this? We make it a rule not to talk about family members in front of them because we don't want the kids involved.

Currently the eldest child is 14.5 years old and has started talking about wanting to live with his Dad. What steps does he need to go through to do this? His mother would 100% not want/or let him do this so we know it will be a battle. But because of the childs age, does he have any rights to choose?
His home life with his mum is fine ( although he doesnt really like his stepdad too much).
We live 1 and a half hrs away, which isnt too far, however its far enough that he would need to change schools and start a new school life with us.
We think its time he spent more time with his father as hes growing up and needs that father figure to guide him.
We have a secure home, secure jobs, a great family community, and the children already have made friends in the area.

I'd also like to note that the youngest is 10 years old. He also loves spending time at Dads and always wants to stay longer with us, so not sure if he would be granted full time with Dad also...

Any help would be much appreciated!
 

sammy01

Well-Known Member
27 September 2015
5,152
720
2,894
Ok, so you could try mediation. It will probably fail.
You can't exactly go back to court because there is no substantial change in circumstances.
BTW how many kids are you talking here?

If a kid was to pack up and come and refuse to leave... Well, things get interesting as SHE would have to apply to court for a contravention because dad has breached the orders and mum might find the courts are happy to let a 15 yr old choose for themselves.

As for the other stuff.. Get better at it. Set up a facebook page and do messenger through that rather than phone calls. Get on the internet, or get the coaches number and find out the venue of sports stuff yourself. Don't need to ask her.

So what happens if the kid comes and lives with dad, then changes his mind and decides he wants to go back to mum? Teenagers are like that... So maybe just sticking with the alternate weekends / half holidays isn't a bad idea?
 

Hummingbird

Well-Known Member
1 August 2018
32
7
149
You could try breaching mum on the phone contact issue, but I don't think that or the rest will get you enough to change orders at this point in time. Same with the badmouthing, unless you get some recordings or video of extensive alienation level stuff. Older kids do have more say in where they live and who with, but as sammy said, teenagers can change their mind. Also younger siblings can be influenced by parents and older siblings, and the court probably won't see enough in what you've described to order a change. There needs to be significant change such as relocation or mum losing her job and her situation becoming unstable to get the court involved.

As for the activities, get the information form somewhere else, now you know she can't be relied on, find out from school, kids, sports website, whatever you need to not get it from her anymore.