I am currently involved in family court due to false historical allegations made against me. I was in a relationship with Mum from 2011 to 2014, and we maintained a close “friendship” until 2022, during which we were close enough to have had several sexual encounters. However, in 2022, Mum began dating a man who was already in a relationship with a woman who was 3-4 months pregnant and had an older son. Shortly after, Mum became pregnant by him, complicating both relationships with these potential mothers and their family lives. Despite these challenges, Mum and her new boyfriend arranged for him to move into her home with our three children, creating an obviously unstable and difficult environment.
Unexpectedly, I received a message from Mum “that I had forgotten about,” which led to a phone call where she revealed that her boyfriend had been physically abusive toward her and was highly insecure—keeping her awake multiple nights with his insecurities, punching her in the back of the head, and dragging her up the stairs in front of friends and possibly our children, but certainly in their presence during her pregnancy with their first child. Then, shortly after the birth of their first child, as things began to unexpectedly deteriorate between Mum and me, I was denied contact with my children for 11 months, the longest period ever, and all communication ceased when she changed her phone number and blocked me on all social media platforms. Eventually, I received a friend request from Mum on Facebook and asked to see the children, but my request was denied. I expressed my intention to go to her property to call out to the kids to let them know I love, miss, and think about them, without entering her home or property grounds, observing them at a distance. I was exercising my parental responsibility to protect our children’s rights to contact with both parents and to ensure their safety and well-being.
However, when I arrived at the property, her neighbors confronted me with a plank of wood and an XL bully dog (photo evidence), threatening my safety, while Mum's partner returned from nearby work wielding three garden tools (a shovel, garden hoe, and garden rake) and again threatening and intensifying the fear for my own safety. I was subsequently arrested, charged 11 days later, and eventually convicted. Notably, half of the witness statements were missing, a vital witness didn’t attend court, and the third person with the plank of wood was never even summoned to court. My defense evidence was never presented, and a broader neighbor investigation that was supposed to occur never happened. I raised the domestic violence concerns between Mum and her boyfriend in a prior family court hearing, but Mum denied the domestic violence, and it appears that “no further investigation” was carried out.
As we approach the fact-finding hearing, I have been urgently searching for any evidence to support my defense. I retrieved an old mobile phone containing text messages between Mum and me. In these messages, I found clear “direct evidence” of Mum discussing her current partner's abusive behavior toward her during her pregnancy and in front of our children and friends. In my view, this exchange of messages clearly reveals her perjury throughout these court proceedings and demonstrates the lengths she is willing to go to alienate my three beautiful children from their father by denying their contact with me, while knowingly exposing them to the same safeguarding issues of domestic violence that she has falsely accused me of.
These text messages suggest that Mum is either lying about the domestic violence I allegedly perpetrated and using the court system to stop my contact with our children to avoid them raising serious concerns about their home environment, or she has a repeated habit of entering into abusive relationships. Either way, it’s a serious safeguarding concern and poses a potential risk of future harm to all children in the household, as well as to Mum’s own safety.
I would like to emphasise that I am a full-time single father to my oldest daughter from a previous relationship (under similar circumstances but without the allegations against me), and we have undergone a Cafcass safeguarding report, which raised no concerns regarding either my daughter or myself.
Phil, What were you charged and convicted of? why was the boyfriend not arrested for threatening behaviour, why were the neighbours not arrested for threatening behaviour and what legal support did you have - sounds terrible to me.