The judge in most cases from what I was told will generally take on board the reccomendations in the Single Appointed Expert report and the ICL's proposed Minute Of Orders to form a starting point for the Final Orders. By aligning his orders fairly closely with each of theirs, his decision is backed up and supported by the opinions of two independent parties who are seen to be representing the best interests of the child in their roles.
That's not to say he must or will always stick as close to them as he can. In my case for instance, the recommendations of the independent expert, the orders sought by the ICL and my own proposed final orders were closely aligned - whilst there were minor differences between the three of us in the timeline for the step ups of increasing time with me, we all ended up at 50/50 shared parenting time as the final custody orders.
The judge however really took some personal dislike toward some of the details of my personal history it appears - and he decided that these were reason enough to limit me to 5 out of 9 nights per fortnight during school term and 50/50 of a school holidays. I am needless to say a little bit pissed off and frustrated that he has used issues that he and I seem to have personal differences in opinion on, which are totally irrelevant to my ability to raise my daughter, as grounds to take those 2 nights from me during the school term... It doesn't seem fair, but that's what I have to work with now.
My final orders sought were intentionally copied word for word in as many sections as possible from the ICLs final proposed orders. Keeping a commonality between our orders with only minor differences in parenting time schedules meant that of the three parties standing before the judge, two of us were pretty much on common ground. The theory being that this might hopefully give the judge somthing easy to start working with.
Depends on the Judge I would say, but the one on my trial made it pretty clear that he was happy to allow all parties to maintain a dynamic attitude toward the final orders we sought (basically we could change them as we saw fit throughout the trial and he would accept the final versions at the closing day). So there were some changes to the original ICL orders during the trial, but it wasn't drastically different.
But as far as calling the shots right now goes on somthing like this recording issue you have, the ICL has no power to stop you from doing it - they are simply another lawyer acting for another party in the case and just like your ex wife's lawyer, they can request anything they like - it doesn't mean you have to listen.
That said though, do you want to get the ICL off side? Probably not, but as long as you are able to show that the child was in no way affected by your decision to maintain the recordings and you can demonstrate that you have at all times kept your cool and maintained a calm, rational demeanor that has your childs best interests in mind, even if your ex is behaving like a shaved baboon - you should stand up to scrutiny on that if its brought up in cross examination.
So if it were me, I'd keep recording. But Keep it discreet, keep it hidden. You're barrister will advise how/if/or/when it should be produced as evidence, but I am almost certain he will keep them in the back pocket to be thrown in right at the last possible moment if the right circumstances present themselves.
Damn wall of text I've typed on a phone, gonna post this now, sorry if there's any grammar or wording errors, I'm not even going to bother trying to proof read all that haha
Hey Been2Trial - Thanks for your post! It feels as though it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type situation. My experiences are very similar, i.e the Mother and her family using dirty tactics at changeover in order to get a rise out of me. Common sense says that I want the court to see her behaviour for what it is in proving this with audio recordings. Mostly, I don’t let their games get to me and over time I’ve been better at adapting to their crap by not responding at all. I question I pose is... With four allegations of abuse that have been proved wrong each and every time with my recordings... Do I include these in my Trial Affidavit? The exact words from the ICL were to cease this immediately (without any mention of the Mother’s allegations) in which I respectfully declined.
In your experience how much “say” did the ICL have at trial? I know for fact that he will not support my request of residency BUT the Family Report Writer’s & court appointed psychologist have stated that if her behaviour doesn’t change (it hasn’t, has actually got worse during interim orders) then the court must consider having the child live with me.
Not only this, as the Mother is refusing to pay her bills to the psychologist, I’m concerned the trial will be adjourned from hearing as he will not produce his final report until payment is made. His report is ordered and I’m certain this is a strategy to delays matters. Thoughts?
