Family Court Proceedings - Ex Has Vanished with Child

[Dave78]

Good afternoon, I have an ex that has vanished with our 4 year old son. It has been 88 days since I have had any contact and 374 days since I have been able to see him through no fault of my own. I have attempted mediation to no avail, first lawyer I spoke to said unless I have 50k then I have no hope, legal aid approved for a conference between my ex and myself then told me for four months to wait a week and call back due to an internal delay (with no description what that was).

I filed interim, final orders with an affidavit myself and finally got to court 18 months after this began. I was approved for a location order via the judge through Centrelink however it has been 3 weeks since it was all go and was sent a letter stating they had found her and paid the court registrar for a bailiff to serve my ex however after contacting the court was told that the bailiff has not given any paperwork back to them.

Question that I am curious about is, if they can't serve her or find her will that delay my case even longer and push me back getting contact with my son or someone has told me they may just issue a recovery order and even if the fault is hers in not being able to be found, does she still need a set amount of time to be served documents or can she use that as an excuse to delay proceedings?

Thanks in advance

 

[rebeccag]

G'day Dave,
You said that you were "sent a letter stating they had found her and paid the court registrar for a bailiff to serve my ex" - so that would mean she's been served as is the process for your approved location order and it shouldn't delay things. Have you forwarded a copy to the court? Or requested that the bailiff urgently file the paperwork relating to the letter they sent you confirming service?
With recovery orders, my understanding is that they don't need a set amount of time to be served with any documents. Have a look at the Family Law Court "Recovery orders" page and this Legal Aid NSW "Seeking urgent recovery orders in the Family Court" resource kit for information.

 

[Dave78]

G'day Dave,
You said that you were "sent a letter stating they had found her and paid the court registrar for a bailiff to serve my ex" - so that would mean she's been served as is the process for your approved location order and it shouldn't delay things. Have you forwarded a copy to the court? Or requested that the bailiff urgently file the paperwork relating to the letter they sent you confirming service?
With recovery orders, my understanding is that they don't need a set amount of time to be served with any documents. Have a look at the Family Law Court "Recovery orders" page and this Legal Aid NSW "Seeking urgent recovery orders in the Family Court" resource kit for information.

Hi rebeccag, thanks for your response. My ex was served however the bailiff hasn't produced the paperwork yet which is why I wrote the original post and I contacted the courts yesterday who advised me that we will both "have to" appear next week regardless and that she was definitely served. As it stands at the moment I haven't been able to apply for a Recovery order however I have filed interim and final orders which state they are to return back immediately or at the least, my son (I was advised that is the safest way to go about this). I was told though that my ex could milk it stating that she hasn't had enough time to prepare a response although under the circumstances will prove not likely in her favour. With 7 days until court I may receive a response from the ex as late as the day before court. Still curious as to how Legal aid was all go and then had an "internal delay" for four months, even a lady I spoke to yesterday said she had never heard of that one before.