Unfortunately after all this time, my partner's ex has not responded to the consent order in the timeframes we have given her. We even gave her multiple extensions on the request for a response in the hopes she would finally just agree so we could see my partner's daughter, but sadly it was not to be.
She even admitted she isn't eligible for legal aid, so I have no idea why she would leave the situation like this knowing full well our intentions are to go to court.
I think - actually no, I know she thinks - my partner isn't "gutsy" enough to go to court and she will just get away with this, but she's mistaken. It's just a matter of when we can afford to get the proceedings underway.
After out lawyer sent her a letter a month or so ago saying if she didn't respond then they would wait for our instructions to go to court, she basically got scared and texted my partner saying "call me now" and said to him to get his lawyers to "back off" and she'd already been to court for her partner's kids. She even said she wanted their daughter to see my partner (only after him saying he's tired of this all going on too long and he only wants to see her, so it was almost like a knee jerk reaction for her to say that like she knew it would be the right thing to say after seeing what can happen in court). My partner has been completely civil the entire way through all of this as well (via text) and so at least any of the texts she has sent him being less than nice are evidence.
Anyway, it's been over a year now seen we've seen my partner's daughter and we are no closer but at least we know where we stand now and it will have to go through court.
We are going back to Queensland for Christmas to see our families so we will still text his ex and ask if we could see his daughter as we need to try. We don't want to appear as if we've thrown it all in the too hard basket just because his ex says no but we also just are sick of the ramifications of pissing her off.
Now to just somehow get the money together for court next year and hope to God if we ask for an interim order we can speak to her and see her!