Most Divorced Men Go Through This
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
150.47923
Summary
In this episode, I speak to a man who went to court against his ex-wife after she refused to let him see his son for 6 months. He talks about the process of getting a restraining order and how the court handled the situation.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
And so we have the Magistrates Court involved, we have CAFCAS become involved, CAFCAS.
00:00:11.000
Well it's the kind of, I forget the entire acronym but it's the Court Advisory Service to do with family matters.
00:00:21.000
So early on typically you'll have Magistrates Court involved, Magistrates are lay justices, they're not specialists.
00:00:30.000
They are members of the community and CAFCAS will do some very basic investigations, interview myself, my ex, and give advice to the court on that basis.
00:00:50.000
Now this took six months for them to really pull their finger out and do their job.
00:00:56.000
And I was met with a CAFCAS officer, Andrea Ashanazi, she came from Romania.
00:01:10.000
Really someone who didn't want to listen to a single word I had to say at all.
00:01:15.000
I'd since moved into a very small little terraced house.
00:01:18.000
She came to visit me, I was looking forward to it, I was looking forward.
00:01:22.000
Can we just, I want to make sure I understand, so you get the documents and this is at the six month mark, CAFCAS finally comes?
00:01:29.000
Okay, so you hadn't seen your son in the time period because CAFCAS is supposed to investigate.
00:01:35.000
And so they're supposed to investigate the situation and you had to basically, she wouldn't let you see your son.
00:01:41.000
And you had to wait for six months for CAFCAS to come.
00:01:45.000
And you thought this was going to be good because you thought you were going to get a fair...
00:01:52.000
But then they send this woman and she essentially doesn't care what you have to say.
00:02:07.000
Now, look, I appreciate that there are many families in this situation.
00:02:11.000
Now, I've always thought that maybe they are troubled families.
00:02:15.000
They come from, you know, they're on benefits, they're alcoholics, they're on drugs, whatever.
00:02:25.000
And I dare say these people are used to dealing with families of that kind.
00:02:33.000
Like, you know, the first question, one of the first questions, how much alcohol are you consuming?
00:02:41.000
You know, there was an assumption I must be alcoholic.
00:02:53.000
Just a whole attitude towards me was one of, you're Scarmine.
00:03:05.000
And my instinct was to say, well, no, I'm not that person.
00:03:23.000
She explained to me that children could be made to smile in photographs.
00:03:32.000
So I had a huge book of photographs ready to show her, look, this is me and my son having a good time.
00:03:38.000
This is my son and my mother having a good time.
00:03:52.000
There was clearly kindred spirit there, both Eastern European, both.
00:03:58.000
And she just believed every last allegation she said as fact.
00:04:05.000
So she's coming in, getting the interview from you and it's very biased.
00:04:15.000
I have to essentially accept the non-molestation order for financial reasons.
00:04:32.000
And she did that immediately, like the six months ago.
00:04:46.000
Then CAFCAS has to get involved and make a report.
00:04:51.000
And then after CAFCAS, then it goes back to the court?
00:04:59.000
And then did you ever get an actual day in court?
00:05:02.000
Yes, I was several days in court, but these magistrates court early on.
00:05:20.000
Well, it was like £5,000 just for two or three appearances.
00:05:34.000
Well, you willingly left your home, but she was in the family home.
00:05:47.000
Financially, the financials have always perplexed me because I made an offer.
00:05:59.000
I forget the name of the agency for child maintenance.
00:06:03.000
And I filled in the forms and they gave me a figure for how much I was expected to contribute
00:06:16.000
Oh, so on top of that you're paying child support too?
00:06:18.000
Well, this was the form that suggested how much I should be paying to my ex-wife for child
00:06:27.000
It was something in the region of three or four hundred pounds a month, so not a huge
00:06:41.000
And this is part of the financial control thing, that they repeatedly ignored the truth.
00:06:48.000
That I was happy to pay that, but she clearly didn't...
00:06:53.000
She would rather pretend I didn't do that so that she could accuse me of financial control.
00:07:00.000
So she has never actually accepted any money from me, which is unusual for these cases.
00:07:09.000
And this really reveals her motives to be quite extreme.
00:07:14.000
That it was more a case of, she wants to sever all ties with me, financial, the lot.
00:07:23.000
Because she probably wanted to return to Poland with my son.
00:07:27.000
That was not stated, but that seemed to be pretty obvious to me.
00:07:34.000
So you think her goal was to sever all ties so she could go back to Poland?
00:07:45.000
So in this time period, you're paying the lawyers.
00:07:49.000
You're not on child support, but you're not in your family home.
00:08:23.000
And there was actually very little to say openly in court.
00:08:55.000
The way she'd basically accepted all of my ex-wife's...
00:09:08.000
And I would ask her, What evidence do you have for this?
00:09:25.000
So you kept asking them what evidence they have.
00:09:38.000
I was to be thrown into the dustbin as a father.
00:10:25.000
motions to rape them out and switch as it should be around.