The End of a Nightmare

On Thursday a letter arrived from CSA. It is hard to explain the feeling of terror when one of those brown envelopes drops through the door. Robbie always makes his payments on time and in full but we still dread those brown envelopes fearing what they are going to come up with this time. Thursdays envelope could potentially bring an end to our battle to prove that he did not owe the huge amount of arrears (from 15 years ago when he was still with his ex) that they had been demanding, but it could have been a notification that they would deduct the alleged debt from his salary leaving us facing serious financial hardship. It takes a bit of courage to open a CSA letter but it is like removing a sticking plaster, it is more painful if it is done slowly than if you rip it of quickly. I opened the envelope and read the very long and annoying letter it contained, it was good news, they had accepted our evidence at long last, there it was in black and white, Robbie doesn't owe them £17,000 as they originally stated, they owe him £30!! The relief was immense, but now that relief has given way to anger that we have endured months of worry and fear all because his ex committed benefit fraud and CSA didn't do their job properly at the time. I hope very much that she will have to answer for her dishonesty in court!

Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out!

I have written several times about the dark cloud of worry that has been hanging over us since July when completely out of the blue Robbie received a £17,000 bill for child  support for a period almost 15 years ago when he was living with his ex partner and their children! To say that the last few months have been a living hell would be an understatement. Trying to get CSA to listen or respond was an impossibility and even with the help of our MP it has been an uphill struggle dealing with CSA. They seem to take the word of the woman without question while choosing to ignore all our evidence to show that he was living with his ex at that time.


Finally about a week ago we got a letter conceding that he did not owe £17,000 but insisting that he owed around £2000 because they still insist that he was not living with his ex for one of the years in question. This is based only on her word, the have chosen to ignore evidence from the bank that they had a joint bank account, evidence of his address from his employers at the time, tax documents, monthly bills etc. It seemed as if there was very little that we could do to provide further proof but we were determined not to give up. Robbie has always loved and supported his children and the suggestion that he had failed to support his family was as painful as the prospect of having to pay a large sum of money to the government that he didn't owe and could not afford.


Thankfully there was another piece of evidence and we hope very much that it will be accepted as conclusive evidence that he was with his ex for the whole period in question. Thanks to a very conscientious employee at Virgin Trains who kept meticulous records and also thanks to colleagues at Cross Country who went the extra mile and searched back through the files we feel a little more confident. We now have copies of a statutory declaration that was sworn in front of a solicitor and signed by the ex stating that she and Robbie had lived at the same address as a meaningful couple and that Robbie had supported his children for the whole period now in dispute. Surely that will be enough! 


Please keep your fingers crossed for us. I am not usually a vindictive person but I really hope that justice prevails and that she doesn't get away with abusing and defrauding the system! 

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief - Aeschylus

To say that we have had a bad few weeks would be an understatement, I wrote before about the horror of receiving a bill for close on £17,000 dating back fourteen years and finding it practically impossible to provide evidence from that long ago to prove what Robbie was doing then and that he was not liable for the bill. The worry about the alleged debt has been crushing and the work involved to challenge it has not only been exhausting it has taken over our lives. However other shattering events have made us realise that our troubles pale into insignificance compared to the sorrow that others have to face. A young girl known to one of my children killed herself a week ago. I can only begin to imagine the total desolation that her parents must feel; it is such a terrible waste of a young and talented life, it is so totally pointless that words fail me.

It seems wrong to write about the death of a pet in the same post as the tragic loss of a young woman on the brink of adulthood. I mean no disrespect, but to us the loss of Megan was extremely painful. A week ago I came home from work to find that she was unsteady on her feet, she could walk, but not very well and she seemed to be having difficulty eating – a sure sign that something was wrong. Meg and Robbie were great friends and like Robbie Meg not only cleared her own plate in record time, she would clear everyone else’s scraps! Meg was about nine months old when we adopted her from a rehoming centre; she was a failed sheepdog - because she was afraid of sheep! She was afraid of all sorts of things, but she was a very good natured dog with a passion for ball games - she could handle a football far better than most of the England team! She was about fifteen and very much part of our family, we knew that she would not last forever, but we were not ready to lose her. That evening it became clear that she had suffered a stroke and the only kind option was to have her put to sleep rather than allow her to suffer. We miss her very much, even the cats miss her, but she had a good life and she brought a lot of happiness to our lives. 

'Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole'.

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.

The words of the Swedish proverb used in the title are very true, but sadly the worries that have been haunting us and prevent me from keeping up with the blog  in recent days cast a very big shadow indeed because the situation has potentially devastating consequences. Robbie has received a demand from CSA/CMEC for payment of almost £17,000 arrears! The alleged arrears date from a period from 1998 to 2001 when he was still living with his ex partner (they even had a joint bank account!) but despite having an open case with CSA (and paying diligently) since 2002 when he and his partner split up, he had never been made aware of these alleged arrears. It is proving almost impossible to prove where he lived in 1998 since even employment records and bank records do not go back that far. The trouble is that CSA do not need to prove the arrears, he has to prove that he doesn't owe it, in the meantime CSA can use all the considerable powers at their disposal to take the money. It is very very scary, we simply haven't got that sort of money so the future looks very bleak. Our MP is helping us, but it is a very worrying time.