Justice For Families

Today we went to high court where our application Appeal for Leave To Apply for Contact was dismissed
on the graounds that the district judge was within his remit of discretion to come to the judgement he did Also the high court judge qouted judgement G v G 1988 CAN ANYONE FIND ME THIS JUDGEMENT PLEASE

The high court judge was very smpathetic and said had he heard our case in the first place the outcome that the district judge came to would not have been the one he would have applied
The judge added that we would leave the court knowing that the law is an ass ( his exact words)

I spoke to the judge in the court room and put to him that the judgement of the district judge had been made on the false allegations of the mother which had NEVER been answered I expressed our distress at the diagnosis of our grandson's leukaemia and the devestating effect this had had on us knowing our little grandson had a terminal illness I told the judge that it was the mother who had been hostile but that we offered any support we could I also said we had lived with this horrendous situation for 4 years

One of the court ushers was crying and the judge who initially looked at us bowed his head as I continued The judge thanked me for my contribution I was told I should be very proud of the way we had conducted ourselve's

Our son was successful in that he managed to get more contact time to see his children
The issues relating to us being in our home when he brings the children here to our home during his contact time was not addressed Our son's solicitor whist supporting our application told the judge that they were remaing nuturel in this case and the judge could understand the reasoning for this It has been suggested that our son will be back in court after christmas to have a variation on the court order

Again the mother put in another statement full of false allegations
This statement included a paragraph saying we should not have any Cafcass Reports or New Pathways Report ( supervised contact ) as these were confidential and we were not party to previous proceedings Surely as the subject of supervised contact ordered by the court we were entitled to have those reports
Our Mckensie Friend who was representing us passed comment that mothers solicitor was very hostile

Ok what I want to know is ....is it still possible to ask for a Finding of Fact into the allegations made by the mother against us
Is it still possible for us to be made party to our son's variation of contact order
There were several management issues which have been raised in connection with all of these proceeding
One important one being that the district judge stated in court after the final hearing of our son's contact case in July 2008 that he would not hear of this case being back in the court for either an appeal or an application from us to grandparents to apply for leave within at least a year SO WE WAITED THAT ONE YEAR TO APPLY BIG BIG MISTAKE that had a detrimental effect on our recent application Not knowing the system we did as we were told we did not appeal
( how different the outcome may have been if we had not been so advised by our solicitor )
When that direction came from the judge we as we have always done did as we were told ' we played the game '

Secondly the two cases were never joined

We are devested we feel helpless This is a living bereavement
While there was a chance we could survive Now we feel our world has ended Iactually feel suicidal
I feel unable to carry on It is hard to understand that such an injustice can be done and a high court judge can see the same but as he said he is powerless to do anything to help us
Please don't respond to this message if you want to critasis us cause seriously we cant take it
If you can offer support or constructive advice we want to hear from you

We will not give up on our grandchildren and will again apply for leave for contact in the future
despite mothers attempts to stop us

A very distressed Grandma

Christine,

So very sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, I do not know what to advise you but I did just want to say that I think this is very sad and my heart goes out to you.

Don't give up just yet, there MUST be something to be done. Be glad that your son has more contact but I can understand why he was neutral on your position (he had to be or he may have lost his own case).

As you say you can keep putting in applications for contact and the more the mother makes up stories the more ridiculous she will look. Perhaps when you apply for contact next time you can ask for the application to be heard at the high court as it has already been elevated on this appeal?

This is a sad outcome.

Have you applied to get a transcript of the high court hearing and the Judgment?

If the claims that are false are written in a Judgment, then you could make an application to be exonerated. You would need proof that wasn't avalable to the court which is new evidence which proves that the Judgment is wrong.

If the application at the high court was your application, the other parties are supporting your application, nutural or opposing. Your son's solicitor can't ethically argue or present your case because his duty is to his client and his role is a suportive one, suportive of your application. Your application should be the strong point and the parties suporting give your argument a bit more weight. Sadly a parson without PR has no legal grounds (as a right) to make the application, so the Judge gave more weight to a parent (with PR) and the parent who has care of the child more. I had a similer problem before.

The Judge can only make an order if he has the power to make the order. If the Judge made a contact order and that order was appealed, then the Court of appeal would have little other option but to dismiss the order, because there are no legal grounds.

The good (and strong point) of your case is that your son has more contact. He should be in a position to get videos, photo's which can convey messages. He can also take short videos to the child. A video is a long way off person to person contact, but it's better to see the DVD's or videos than nothing. You might be able to use the indirect (conveyed) contact as a stepping stone to pave the way for direct contact in the future.

Rather than giving up or pulling out, try to find things which you can do to make the best of a bad situation.

When your head isn't thinking clearly, it might be favorable to take a few days away and be completely distracted, then return wiuth a rested mind. A rush decision isn't usually the best decision.

My thoughts are with you.