You may be feeling many emotions if your ex-spouse is disobeying your custody order and ultimately keeping your child from you. Let’s say that you were supposed to pick your child up for their weekly visitation and, when you tried to, your ex-spouse didn’t allow him to leave the house. There was absolutely no reason for this other than the fact that your spouse didn’t want it. You may wonder what steps you can take in a very serious situation like this where your child is being withheld from you.
Violation of Custody Orders
Informing the police and pressing charges may not need to happen and may be too drastic for the situation, so there are other remedies. Unfortunately, the attitude of the local law enforcement can dictate what happens with these matters too often – and the outcome might not work in your favor. You may find that, in many cases, police officers might be unwilling to actually become involved in family law matters unless a criminal infraction such as kidnapping across state lines has occurred. The police may instead refer you to the court, where your next steps will ensue.
Reporting Custodial Interference to the Courts
Custodial interference occurs for many reasons, and one of the biggest reasons is when a parent refuses to release the child to the other parent for a scheduled visit. This can some as a threat to your parenting and gives you entitlement to report custodial interference to the court. You may find that reporting this activity brings you remedies such as new orders for visitation to prevent violations, make-up visitation time, and even family therapy. In the strictest of cases where huge crimes occurred, there may be restrictions on custody or even fines and fees assessed to the ex-spouse. Custodial interference is seen as a crime because you have the right to parent.
The first step that you should take is speaking to an attorney that you can trust in regards to your custody matters. Call us today for more information on how we can assist you in your case. We take your case very seriously and your custody matters are important to us.
