Hello,
My partner is currently going through the motions of settling family law court matters which also include child protection involvement and an AVO that we took out on behalf of his two sons against their mother. Granted with full admission from her.
Some of the story:
We have my son from prev marriage 100% and we have a younger child together, 2 children from his prev marriage that came every second weekend - no court orders, all her way or the highway - they arrived one weekend looking very tired and unwell. That night older of two broke down - he is 8 - and told us what had been going on at mums house.
The relationship breakdown they had packed the entire house prior to coming to our house, family violence had been occurring for almost a year, repeated exposure to a family member who is a registered sex offender ( overnight stays even though DHS had already warned her not to allow access ) and an incident where their mother and partner at the time were arguing in a vehicle and mother was punching driver in head and then grabbed steering wheel removing the car from the road at high speed.
The 8-year-old also told us her car was unregistered and had been for several months because 'daddy doesn't pay enough'. So we retained the children and advised her that we would be, advising her to use the time to get her life back on track and seek some councelling.
She was obviously irate however on the Monday we contacted child protection and discussed our concerns as they had previously attended her home due to access to RSO.
They started an investigation immediately. They advised us to get police reports which police refused to take and they told us to get a restraining order. By Wednesday it was granted. We asked the judge to include a clause that she could contact by phone to maintain contact with children.
Fast forward 6 weeks to final AVO hearing and no contact from the mother - we were to provide evidence ( we had a lot, including Child protection report substantiating everything that had happened ) she brought nothing. Her duty lawyer discussed this with her and it ended in her hurling abuse and saying fine stuff it! And left the court. The judge granted the full order.
After this court hearing she text asking for us to return the children and we advised that we would be more than happy to cooperate with supervised visits conducted by a 3rd party ( FMC or local organizations). Since then we received family court proceeding documents by registered post ( is that allowed? ) in which she states the children are at risk with us because my partner threatened to break her arm 4 years ago.
The content of the documents are basically that she is the primary carer and she wants her kids back. We received a letter today from a solicitor saying she wants to see them and we are disgusting people for not allowing her access so partner called and explain to the solicitor that we have proof we offered supervised visits and he lost his cool and told us we were in for a rude awakening in court.
We are in the process of trying to juggle how to lodge the response officially - it's a complicated document and we need help - we have been to a few legal services but the issue we find is conflict of interest - she has registered with every service in 200ks of us - each time they don't tell her what she wants to hear so she jumps to the next.
I want to pay someone to help us - can a solicitor / lawyer / family law expert be hired to just do this part?
Every solicitor we have spoken to wants 15k upfront and while we can afford to pay as we go we just don't have the 15k retainer that they ask for. We have 2 weeks to file the response and we are sick with worry. The boys need a stable home - we are even happy to give her supervised access until she has sorted out her person problems ( child protection documented that she is severely unstable, irrational and volatile including the fact she has physically hurt the children ) and once things progress we hope to work to a 50/50 agreement.
It should be noted also that her ex-husband had a child from prev relationship and she has suffered the same at the hands of her. So court proceedings have started for them as well - however she has split from her partner and he is backing us for the safety of the children - he contacted and told us not to give them back as she is unstable and puts a lot of emotional stress on them.
So after this novel of a post ( sorry ) my questions are :
Can anyone recommend a lawyer / legal service to help us ASAP? Are there any that invoice along the way? We both have incomes but don't have savings as such to cough up 15k upfront? Do you think we will be ok representing ourselves? Is it reasonable to think we are doing what's best for the kids ?
We truly feel in her care ( at the moment ) they will become another news story. It's scary and we are totally lost
Thanks for reading
My partner is currently going through the motions of settling family law court matters which also include child protection involvement and an AVO that we took out on behalf of his two sons against their mother. Granted with full admission from her.
Some of the story:
We have my son from prev marriage 100% and we have a younger child together, 2 children from his prev marriage that came every second weekend - no court orders, all her way or the highway - they arrived one weekend looking very tired and unwell. That night older of two broke down - he is 8 - and told us what had been going on at mums house.
The relationship breakdown they had packed the entire house prior to coming to our house, family violence had been occurring for almost a year, repeated exposure to a family member who is a registered sex offender ( overnight stays even though DHS had already warned her not to allow access ) and an incident where their mother and partner at the time were arguing in a vehicle and mother was punching driver in head and then grabbed steering wheel removing the car from the road at high speed.
The 8-year-old also told us her car was unregistered and had been for several months because 'daddy doesn't pay enough'. So we retained the children and advised her that we would be, advising her to use the time to get her life back on track and seek some councelling.
She was obviously irate however on the Monday we contacted child protection and discussed our concerns as they had previously attended her home due to access to RSO.
They started an investigation immediately. They advised us to get police reports which police refused to take and they told us to get a restraining order. By Wednesday it was granted. We asked the judge to include a clause that she could contact by phone to maintain contact with children.
Fast forward 6 weeks to final AVO hearing and no contact from the mother - we were to provide evidence ( we had a lot, including Child protection report substantiating everything that had happened ) she brought nothing. Her duty lawyer discussed this with her and it ended in her hurling abuse and saying fine stuff it! And left the court. The judge granted the full order.
After this court hearing she text asking for us to return the children and we advised that we would be more than happy to cooperate with supervised visits conducted by a 3rd party ( FMC or local organizations). Since then we received family court proceeding documents by registered post ( is that allowed? ) in which she states the children are at risk with us because my partner threatened to break her arm 4 years ago.
The content of the documents are basically that she is the primary carer and she wants her kids back. We received a letter today from a solicitor saying she wants to see them and we are disgusting people for not allowing her access so partner called and explain to the solicitor that we have proof we offered supervised visits and he lost his cool and told us we were in for a rude awakening in court.
We are in the process of trying to juggle how to lodge the response officially - it's a complicated document and we need help - we have been to a few legal services but the issue we find is conflict of interest - she has registered with every service in 200ks of us - each time they don't tell her what she wants to hear so she jumps to the next.
I want to pay someone to help us - can a solicitor / lawyer / family law expert be hired to just do this part?
Every solicitor we have spoken to wants 15k upfront and while we can afford to pay as we go we just don't have the 15k retainer that they ask for. We have 2 weeks to file the response and we are sick with worry. The boys need a stable home - we are even happy to give her supervised access until she has sorted out her person problems ( child protection documented that she is severely unstable, irrational and volatile including the fact she has physically hurt the children ) and once things progress we hope to work to a 50/50 agreement.
It should be noted also that her ex-husband had a child from prev relationship and she has suffered the same at the hands of her. So court proceedings have started for them as well - however she has split from her partner and he is backing us for the safety of the children - he contacted and told us not to give them back as she is unstable and puts a lot of emotional stress on them.
So after this novel of a post ( sorry ) my questions are :
Can anyone recommend a lawyer / legal service to help us ASAP? Are there any that invoice along the way? We both have incomes but don't have savings as such to cough up 15k upfront? Do you think we will be ok representing ourselves? Is it reasonable to think we are doing what's best for the kids ?
We truly feel in her care ( at the moment ) they will become another news story. It's scary and we are totally lost
Thanks for reading