how to a child from her pedophile father?

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PMLB
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 8:58 pm

how to a child from her pedophile father?

Post by PMLB » Tue Jan 23, 2018 9:15 pm

Hello, I would be grateful for any advice about what we can do to protect a child from a sex offender father.

My partner of 4 years has a child, a little girl aged 7, and the father is a man who is currently in prison for downloading the worse possible kind of child pornography. He had hundred of thousands of images and videos. He will be on the sex offenders list for 10 years. He was condemned to 12 months, but he is coming out after 7 months with a suspended sentence.

We have been working with the social workers, who have been very good, and did lots of work with the mother (my partner) and the child to help them. We found out through the social workers that when he comes out he will not be allowed to see any child, including his own, but only until November.

Then, he will have unrestricted access to all children including his daughter.

We are shocked at this news, and we cannot believe that no restrictions will be put in place.

We would like to know what we can do in order to prevent this person from seeing the child, as we believe he could pose a risk to the child.

We fear that because the parole board decided that he will not have restrictions, in a way the law is on his side, so if we decided to bring him to court in order to restrict access, we might end up spending lots of money for nothing.

The social services told us that they cannot keep following our case, as they have done work with the child, and now have to close the case.

We feel we need support.

Should we call "children services" instead? Do children services have the right to limit the access to the father, even if the parole did not put any limits?

Is there anything else we can do?

The father is on the birth certificate. We would like to get him off the birth certificate, but we know it is very difficult to do so.

Thank you very much in advance for any advice

M*y-m*y
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:48 pm

Re: how to a child from her pedophile father?

Post by M*y-m*y » Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:05 am

Hi, sorry to ear you problems to be honest I can’t help you on the biggest part of this but i can give you a bit of advice, if you go to a Solictor that can get a court order for him so stay away from you and your daughter even thou he’s on the birth certificate that shouldn’t make any difference, at the end of the day you’re wanting to protect your daughter from this happening again, wish I praise you for that, well done. I disagree with social services, saying they can’t help it’s that they don’t want to help you, I have had the same problem, and there’s a bigger problem where they lie to children nd tell you to do the same. Which I disagree every child needs to know the truth, as a Mum you want your child to trust and believe in you, please go and get the court order, because if this happens again social services will blame you for not protecting your daughter, which could end up being very serious and you could loose your daughter through neglect and as a mother you want to do the right thing and only you can do this, good luck

DD2SS
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 4:56 pm

Re: how to a child from her pedophile father?

Post by DD2SS » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:47 am

Dear PMLB,

Sorry to hear that your partner's ex has put you in this position. The uncertainty must be very difficult for you all.

Obviously you should seek legal advice if you are worried about lies ahead for you to discuss options. I agree there is very little support for families involved with this crime. However, it might be helpful to understand what the roles of the different agencies are and what the implications are for your partner's daughter, according to my understanding and experience at least. I am sure others can set me straight if I'm not correct about anything.

The criminal justice system is there to punish, rehabilitate, and protect where necessary. In doing so, their regular risk assessments, which are not necessarily specific to sexual crimes, will dictate what public protection is necessary. He may well be at the lower end of risk in terms of those assessments and, depending on whether he did any sexual offending courses in prison, he may have other supportive evidence on risk. This is all from the criminal justice perspective.

On release and for ten years, he will be subject to regular visits from the police as part of being on the sex offenders' register. Part of the role of the police is to refer any relevant information to relevant agencies, so if, for instance, he was seeing children in any capacity that would almost certainly trigger a referral to Children's Services.

However, your situation is different in that your partner and yourself do not intend to let your partner's daughter see him. This means by definition that she is safe form any potential risk that the offender may (or may not) pose. Looked at from that perspective, there is no need for intervention and no need to apply to court to stop him seeing her.

So what if he wants to see her? Of course, he could start knocking the door down and making demands, but as the non-resident parent his options are limited. If he seriously wanted to see the child, he would need to apply to court as a private law child arrangements order application. At this point, Cafcass would become involved and really the onus would then be on him to prove, and to a high standard, that he poses no risk, or at least a level of risk that could be managed, perhaps by supervision. That would be challenging but not impossible. It would require determination and probably quite a lot of money on his part coupled with a real desire to change and not re-offend and to put the child first.

All of the above, however, is from the perspective of the adults involved. At the heart of this is a seven-year old girl who is of an age where they teach internet safety at school and will have some age appropriate understanding of what has happened. Her feelings about all this are likely to change over time and be conflicted by her (positive and negative) feelings towards her father. You don't say what her relationship was like with her father before all this happened, but if they had a good relationship this needs some consideration. It is an extreme move to cut a parent out of child's life altogether, and that may well not be in the child's best interests. You will also need to listen to what she wants, or perhaps find someone she can talk to who perhaps has a more impartial or expert view than you and her mum.

Although I understand your instinctive feelings about your partner's ex, you will also need to be guided a bit by expert assessment, should that happen, since not all individuals who commit online sexual offences - probably a significant majority - would contact abuse, and contact abuse against a family member would again point to perhaps a completely different and probably highly unlikely activity.

In summary, I think that the ball will be in your partner's ex's court on release and, should that happen, the question you might need to ask is what does the child want now and in the future and how can risk be managed?

Best of luck

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: how to a child from her pedophile father?

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:00 pm

Dear PMLB

Welcome to the Parents’ Discussion Board.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group.

I see from your post that you are very worried about the situation relation to your stepdaughter and the possibility of contact with her father, a convicted sex offender. Her father was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment but is due to be released shortly which has brought the issue of contact into focus.

Whilst the parole board may not impose any restrictions it is possible that restrictions were imposed by the trial judge. In most instances where crimes of this nature are committed it is usually the case that the convicted person is not able to have contact with children under 16 the child’s parent agrees and it is supervised. From your post, it appears that your partner would not agree to contact taking place at all.

You have had very good advice from DD2SS.

The probation officer, when a sex offender is released, and there is a child involved will inform children’s services. It would then be for children’s services to give an indication to the resident parent about any concerns they have regarding contact with the child. As the child is not in their care they can only make it clear what their views are and what action they could take if the resident parent does not agree.

Your stepdaughter’s mother, if she does not want to allow contact does not have to but as already advised in the post from DD2SS, he can make an application to the court. It will then be for the court to decide whether it is in the child’s best interests for no contact or for contact supervised or not. The court will look at all the evidence as a report would be requested which will be completed by children’s services or Cafcass with recommendations about contact. When preparing the report the child would be spoken to in an age appropriate way find out her wishes and feelings about contact with her father.

I think it will be a question of simply waiting to see if the father requests contact or not at the moment. There is not very much you can do now. If he decides to make an application to the court you can obtain private law advice from Coram Children’s Legal Centre (Child Law Advice)

To change a child’s surname would need an application to the court as the father has parental responsibility and this cannot be done without his consent. Please see our advice sheet about parental responsibility here

Regarding your question about referring matter to children’s services, this is the new name for social services so they have already had involvement.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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