The narcissist resident parent..alienating mother

My partner 'G' has a 10 year old boy 'C' that lives in Birmingham with his dad 'D' and Girlfriend 'K', they have another daughter together 'P'.

G & I both live in Essex - G & D were supposed to be moving from Birmingham to Essex. G moved first & found work and a house, school etc.... D was supposed to follow with C but didn't. He removed their flat in Birmingham from the market and the relationship ended. G suffered physical/mental abuse for years & took the legal route to get residence.

K then moves in and whilst the court process in ongoing falls pregnant. Court initially awarded residence to G but overturned on appeal - citing baby P and 'Status Quo' as reasons. That was 2 years ago... The contact order in place is C to be with mother for 3 weekends in 4 during term time, holidays split etc... this order has been breached multiple times but G promised C (who now shows signs of anxienty) that the court process was over and she wasn't going back to court. She has even promised this to C in front of D&K.

Last week D&K have submitted a request to amend the order to alternate weekends and for G to collect/drop off C from Birmingham (they currently meet half way for handovers). Reasons given are financial & change in circumstance (although don't know what yet). D has been sending messages saying he couldn't afford to bring C and mentioned the wear and tear on the car - BUT (and this is a big BUT... G is currently court ordered to pay D GBP 20 for each trip he makes!!) so he is not even paying for the petrol for the journeys... she is!

G has been excluded from everything that happens in Birmingham. C is dropped off without homework, school letters etc. K has listed herself as a parent on school applications. Non direct contact is problematic with calls interrupted and cut short. The examples and list could go on and on.

Court date is set in November - we need any advise, guidance, help, support... anything at all. We need to remember we are dealing with a cunning liar... someone who has already lied in court and will be prepared to do so again.

Thanks

First thing that comes to mind is...what does the boy want? I would imagine CAFCASS would get involved and might interview him?

Make sure you have a record of any breach of existing court order including the interrupted/cut calls, if the indirect contact was part of that order.

Consider what your ideal arrangement would look like and make sure you're able to describe how it would benefit the child, and how prepared you are to make it work.

If you look at your ideal CAO and his, where can you compromise?

Be as prepared as possible to back up everything you say or offer in court, with the child's best interest at the forefront of everything...

...then hope for some luck. Ultimately, a lot depends on which judge you get on the day. Good luck!

What does the boy want... thats a million dollar question. The boy says and does everything to please his dad... he's witnessed his dad break down in tears and say to him (Aged 8) why are you doing this to me over the original case.... to having him write a letter to the judge begging to stay with his dad (a very well written letter for an 8 year old - spelling and grammatically perfect). If CAFCASS speak to him then this wont end well.

Given the reason given for amending the order is financially driven, we are both hoping there is no need to include the boy in this. Recent development since my original post is that Father has written to the judge requesting for PR to be given to girlfriend. Not only do I find that concept sickening given he has 2 biological parents already with PR but just adds fuel to the whole parental alienation practice in play here. There's also been another missed weekend of direct contact and another instance of missed indirect contact in the last 2 weeks.

Thanks for your message...... you say at the end 'luck' - tell me why something as important as a child's mental wellbeing / relationship with his parents - should come down to luck. This is where the system fails. All the breaches will be discussed next month.... they run well into double figures & I will guarantee one this that will happen out of this.... absolutely no accountability / reprimand / punishment from the courts.