Continued Contact
- Sonny's Dad
- Apr 29, 2024
- 5 min read
After the my first contact with Sonny for such a long time I was keen to see him more and more and more – any parent who isn’t actively practicing parental alienation would understand this.
The contact I was allowed was 2 hrs every other weekend, it wasn’t enough but it was a start. I would always get over there in plenty of time, sit at the bottom of Stonelow Road and then slowly drive down to their house for the exact time I was expected, not a second too soon or a second too late.
I knew that Sarah and Margaret would use anything they could against me, they showed this purely by stopping us see Sonny and my having to force her into court so I didn’t want any complaints about being late or being early by a minute.
Every time I went over it was exciting! I always wanted to ask him what he’d been doing, everything at that age for a child is virtually a new experience or an adventure – I wanted to ask him about his adventures! Unfortunately as he was still a little toddler he obviously couldn’t tell me anything so I had to engage with Margaret and Ken on that subject.
I would always take him a present, he had plenty of things to play with but what kid doesn’t want more, what kid doesn’t get excited about a present!
Sonny was the prince of our family, he was my first child, he was his Auntie Jo’s first nephew, he was his nana & Grandads first grandchild – money was never gonna be a problem for us when it came to anything for Sonny, he could literally have anything that the wanted, and over the years he did.
As Cafcass had advised me “Chris just don’t give then any excuses, they said you don’t care about him – just don’t give the any anything”. I was never going to do that, I was always going to be exemplary when it came to this contact arrangement, because why wouldn’t I? It was me that was bankrolling at huge financial cost a court application to see him, Sarah wasn’t – she’d resisted it all along.
The weeks went by and I was there on time for every visit, I clearly wasn’t unreliable and was clearly intent to force forward contact – Sarah and Margaret knew this, they would have realized as contact progressed they were going to lose in the court room.
After what seemed like an eternity of contact at Margaret’s house there had been some communication with Cafcass who suggested that I could take Sonny out. Wow! Me and Sonny together on our own, out and about like father and son!
I couldn’t believe it, whilst I knew at some point it would happen, me and Sonny would be together in our own space, talking and playing it came as a shock when I was initially told by Cafcass that Margaret and Sarah had agreed to it.
Obviously I was only allowed to take him for a short time, I think if I remember it was for half of the contact so about an hour but it was enough, that was fine – he was still little and he obviously had no idea he was at the centre of a court battle due to parental alienation.
Where would we go, what would we do – the world was our oyster! We could have a walk through the woods on adventure, go to the football fields, maybe even the garden center - Too many decisions! That said, they were the only options really as that was what was going on in an around Stonelow Road in Dronfield in 2006 – it didn’t matter though, it was gonna be me and Sonny out and about, him in his little buggy and me driving him forward on our own in our own world for an hour or so – I couldn’t wait.
The first time I took him out we literally just walked around the street. He was happy being pushed about and I was conscious of the fact that he really still didn’t know who I was. We obviously never gone chance to bond due to the parental alienation Sarah & Margaret had activated so early on in Sonny’s life so my priority was to just make sure he was ok to be out with me.
What I released about parental alienation at this point was how much control the alienators have over the child. Sonny was happy to come out of the house that day with me because Margaret was encouraging it. She was telling him how much of a nice time he would have and he naturally believed her and he was content enough to come out with me.
That really is an incredible amount of control because they could easily at any time turn that control into the opposite direction and I’d have been fucked. If they had told Cafcass “Sonny isn’t comfortable being with his Dad, yadda yadda yadda” there would have been little I could have done.
There is no Cafcass office or court judge would have risked me being with him if they’d have said that so I was very lucky that stage they didn’t try and pull any strokes because the more time and contact you can have with your child the more you can build that relationship and Cafcass want to see that.
Sarah & Margaret would have known that allowing me out with him was always going to be one step closer to them having to allow Sonny to come to Manchester with me. For all their devious tactics they’d employed upto this point it would appear to me then that they were conceding defeat with the court process. I think the reality of it was that with Cafcass involved and that fact they did seem to be leaning in my favor to put an end to the parental alienation Sarah and Margaret were preparing themselves for a future where Sonny was going to be able see to his Dad and his paternal family on a regular basis.
In the future Sarah did effectively manage to use these tactics successfully to make things difficult for us with Sonny, she really pulled out all the tricks in the second court application I made against her using Sonny very successfully in the process as well but that was some years later and will be explained in full when the story gets to that point– but for now, victory was swinging towards Sonny’s Dad!
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