Court, The Beginnings
- Sonny's Dad
- Jul 24, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 5, 2023
So, whilst I knew from the outset of Sarah becoming pregnant with Sonny would see me in court chasing Sarah for a court order, the reality of it came a bit sooner than I thought it would have done.
Sonny was born in Autumn of 2004 and by early 2005 it was game over. As far as Sarah was concerned Sonny was hers and I’d tried everything to keep her on side but solicitors and courts ts was destined to be,
I made arrangements to see a solicitor in Manchester, to get everything moving – or so I thought. It was emotional day as generally being a private person having to sit with a stranger and explain that my ex-girlfriend was using my son against me was an extremely sensitive and private matter, but it had to be done.
I met with a female lawyer an explained the situation and what Sarah and Margaret had done. I put my case across and explained the history of the relations, the geographical dislocation and how I believed Sarah would have to be forced to allow Sonny to see his paternal family.
It was a grim meeting – whist the Solicitor was nice and completely understood my situation and why I needed to see the involvement of the courts she laid out the difficulties I was likely to face against Sarah who was clearly not interested in listening to reason about Sonny’s welfare.
For anyone that doesn’t understand the court process or hasn’t had to issue court proceedings, I’ll explain. In my situation because I was the person who was having to file the application in court, this made me the claimant or the applicant. For Sarah, because I was forcing her to allow me to see Sonny and as Sarah wasn’t the one seeking the courts assistance she was the defendant or respondent.
The problem with this from my perspective was that the law stipulates that any application against a defendant has to be in the defendant’s local court. So in my case, even though I was the applicant merely seeking to have a relationship with my Sonny, and it was me who had to pay the court application fee to begin the court process, the court hearings had to take place in Sheffield,
This gave Sarah a significant advantage when it came the courts and her choice of representation. My intention was to use a high profile solicitor from Manchester, to show my intent that I was extremely serious about getting this resolved as quickly a possibly.
However I had to immediately rule this out when I established the court proceedings were to take place in Sheffield as not only was I going to be paying a significant amount of money per hour in solicitors fees to attend the courts and represent me I would also have to pay their travel costs. And in the case of the travelling to and from Sheffield it would drastically increase my legal costs. I could end up paining 2 hours in court appearance costs and 3 hours travelling costs. That just was not an option, I just didn’t have to money to cover a long court case that I know Sarah would use as part of her defence, to drag it out and drown me in legal fees.
So, at this stage I didn’t know what to do. My only option now was a to find a Solicitor in Sheffield that could represent me locally that would keep me on and even footing with Sarah when it came to the financial implications of a child welfare case within the family courts.
At this point I was a bit lost and down hearted, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be just to get it into court, all the while I’m not seeing Sonny. I had to subdue the urgency of getting this sorted out as I knew it was going to be a slow drawn out process, and it was – it took what felt like forever.
And then one day, I met someone. And that someone helped me more than she should ever imagine. I owe her immeasurably for the support she gave me and the conviction to keep fighting when everything seemed so stacked against us.
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