Legal Question in Family Law in United Kingdom
visitation rights
My sister and I have fallen out again, for one reason or another. She has 2 teenage daughters that are both in separate foster care homes. She has minimal contact with them which always results in the three of them falling out. My husband and I have tried to maintain contact with them if only to give them a sense of 'family'. We have a young son who idolises the girls (my nieces). My sister, for whatever reason, has decided to contact the foster parents of my eldest niece and tell them that she does not want my niece to have contact with us and she is getting an injuction against us.
I have spoke to my nieces social worker and as my sister still has parental responsibily, what my sister says goes.
It is tearing our hearts apart as I can see that my sister just wants to get at me and my husband, but all she is doing is upsetting the children and driving an ever increasing wedge between the family.
We need to see where we stand, as I beleive after speaking to the social worker, i cant see my neice until she retracts he previous wishes.
I feel for the foster parent also as they are obliged to follow through with my sisters wishes, wether they agree or not.
We so want to see the girls.
Please help.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: visitation rights
Hello. This must indeed be very distressing for you and your family. More relevantly however from a family court's viewpoint, it must be very distressing and against the best interest of your nieces for them to be prevented from seeing you and your family. This is something which the court would be most likely to remedy by making an order that you will have contact with the girls
What the social worker has told you is quite correct although clearly most unsatisfactory.Your sister has parental responsibility which is not affected by the girls being in foster care.As such she has the right to prevent you from seeing the. children. However clearly she is not exercising her parental responsibility to the best advantage of her daughters. It is well-established that it is in the best interest of children to be in regular touch with relatives. A court would have little difficulty in deciding this and making a contact order in your favour. I can see little alternative to such an application.
Applying for a contact order need not be difficult nor expensive. We would be pleased to assist you in this application if so required. Please let us know if we can help further.
Andrew Dutton
Legal-Zone
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
