Time for a Leo update…

Leo came for his 3 hours on Saturday, he was his usual happy bouncy self. he went for a walk around sainsburys to find some free from cakes. He has gluten, soy, dairy and possibly fructose intolerance (we are hoping not though)

He is doing really well at school and enjoying his time there. though he is non verbal at this time he knows how to make himself understood.

We have heard from the council about our complaint, we are complaining about social services and how their continued bad judgement in our case has made our case drag on, meaning Leo is missing out on meaningful time with his family.

Our solicitor has advised us to go for wasted costs against the local authority and we have agreed, because there is no legal aid for family matters any more if we don’t find a way to pay our current fees and our barrister fees we will have to stop our fight.

Our solicitors have decide to go pro bono for us which is an unbelievable miracle but we still have to pay our fees up till the last court hearing.

So that is why we have set up the go fund me page, we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of people, both people we know and ones we don’t.  If anyone from here has donated, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You have no idea what it means to us to have peoples support in fighting for Leo.

We have a new social worker assigned to our case and another new section 7 has been, so there will be at least one more hearing but more likely two, not including the wasted costs hearing against the council.

As you can imagine this is all so stressful for everyone in our family, including grandparents that have still yet to see Leo after 2 and a half years.

But all the heart ache and upset is worth it when we get to see the children and we know the fight for equality for Leo is so important.

Here is our link to our go fund me page.

http://www.gofundme.com/i-am-leos-dad?fb_action_ids=10155483909770008&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_ref=m_d_ty

If you can give it a read and donate that would be amazing, if you can give it a read and share that would be amazing too, the momentum of our campaign has waned slightly and we are looking in to some fundraising events. Any ideas anyone may have would be so helpful xx

So thats it so far, just waiting for our next section 7 report and next court date. fingers crossed they will both be done soon.

Right in with a plug…

On my profile, I talked very briefly about an on going contact battle that we are having with my husbands ex wife.

To say that my husbands relationship with his ex wife is strained would be a massive understatement, but that is what I will say, it is strained.

two and a half years ago my husband started court proceedings against his ex wife for contact. She had stopped contact with all three of the children. So after 2 years in the court system without legal aid, we have been has left emotionally and physically drained, not even mentioning the financial impact it has had on us and our extended family, who have out of kindness and wanting to see justice done have helped fund our fight.

We have had, 3 section 7 reports in this time, all saying there is no reason my husband should not have contact. Occupational therapists giving us the thumbs up and the children’s schools saying it is in the children’s best interest to see their dad regularly. The only person who is not OK about us seeing the children is their mother.

It is such a long story and I have no doubt that I will go in to long and boring detail in other posts but a brief history lesson is;

Contact was stopped and for 3 months Andrew had no contact with any of his children. A court hearing established contact with amber and jasmine for 2 nights a week and every other weekend, this contact has been on going since then. In this order Andrew was also given contact with Leo, but because of the time since he had last seen him, and his additional needs the court decided that it should start out at a day every two weeks and work up from there. This contact never happened, so we have had hearing after hearing and report after report. all in our favour.

Just after Christmas we were finally given a order saying that Leo could come over for 3 hours on a Saturday and his mum could not refuse. we were all so worried he wouldn’t remember us, It had now been 2 years since he had been in our home or seen Honour, silly us

.

it is like they were never apart, even though she was only 6 months old the last time they saw each other, they fell in love with each other almost instantly. He looks for her the minute he arrives and she cries when he leaves. we hope that when the final hearing happens and he is coming to see us the same amount of time as his big sisters, their relationship will just grow and grow.

Social services have unfortunately let us down and our last hearing fell apart because a social worker was not able to do his job properly. He was a nice man and we liked him, but his personal circumstances and his inexperience with court left him unable to give evidence. This is the third social worker who has been unable to give evidence for varying reasons. These constant delays have bled us dry. We now have another social worker, coming to do another report, that we know will be favourable. His ex will still not like it,  and will still seek to delay the final order because even she knows we will get what we are asking for. It is all so horribly sad and draining :(.

so here is the plug, we are out of money, are family is out of money. we have started a crowd funding page to try and get the remaining fees paid so we don’t have to give up our fight.

Here is the link, if you can’t give could you please share it for us.

http://www.gofundme.com/i-am-leos-dad?fb_action_ids=10155483909770008&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_ref=m_d_ty

I will share this link on most posts about Leo and the case, please take a read and feel free to ask me any questions you would like xxx