What contact can I expect at court hearing?

To re-cap.

First Directions hearing on Dec 15th was adjourned for mediation.Contact given was every other weekend 9am sat -5pm sunday.Also every wed from 12.30-5pm.
Contact previously arranged between my ex and myself had included two nights per week.
Overall contact is around 40% of what it had been and is now what I would consider derisory.

Following Dec15th I made 6 attempts to commence mediation.My ex found excuses not to attend.
Finally after 3 months mediation commenced two weeks ago.

First appointment was just to discuss issues such as communication but not contact.
Second appointment Thursday was for contact.
After 20 mins it was obvious ex partner was not willing to agree extra contact so I said we should abandon mediation.The appointment however continued.After 70 mins and no progress the mediator said the same.
However in the last few mins ex agreed to swap wed afternoon for overnight wed instead as I cannot keep taking wed afternoon off work.
Also I managed to get her to agree that I could still see my son on some wed afternoons plus the wed night which was a small step forward.This was to start next wed.
Today I received a letter from the mediator stating my ex had contacted her and said I could not now have him next wed night as I have him next wed afternoon.This knocked me for six.
For the purpose of my next court hearing due april 23rd this letter is priceless and further shows her utter failure to act in the best interest of our son.
I am hoping she will still stick to wed overnight instead of wed afternoons.

Next mediation is next friday which I am considering cancelling as I see it as pointless.

My question is what contact can I expect to be given at the next hearing?
I am pretty sure the courts will be reasonable and swap wed afternoons for wed overnights anyway.
I may get fri night as well as part of my weekend?

That leaves wed to wed every other week when I would not see my son.
My ex indicated I may be able to have my son some of the saturdays which are her weekend but this would not form part of any contact agreement.I doubt she will give me any saturdays.

Any ideas on what contact I may be given?
I don''t know whether to keep up with the mediation assuming that I may get more contact that way then that what the court may award.I have no faith in them whatsoever.
My son is 2.5 years old.

Thanks.

are you applying for a shared residence order through court?

At this point I am only applying to get the first contact order changed for more contact.
Applying for SR now I believe would just complicate the matter although I will apply for this at a later stage.

Hi Joe

Even if no additional contact can be agreed you can still achieve a lot through mediation. Perhaps focus on talking about contact in general terms and seek to reassure and defuse her concerns. Or, perhaps talk about the future and the hopes you have of providing him with the best childhood possible (wouldn''t hurt to acknowledge the ex''s role in this).

If you walked away with nothing other than a bit of rapport between you, that would be a significant achievment.

As for what a court might order. At a guess I think your starting from a relatively high point and getting full alternate weekends and a mid week overnight seems highly possible.

Your vocabulary in your post comes across as confrontational. Nothing wrong with that on here, many of my own posts have been edited or removed by wiki. However, in the court arena your going to need to use more measured language.

Thanks Zonked.
A little confused about my ''confrontational vocabulary''?

Mediation between us will only have worked if a contact agreement is reached which seems unlikely.After all the whole purpose
of mediation is to reach an agreement and avoid court.

It will def not result in a good report between us and I expect the third meeting to get as heated at times as the other two.
I tried my best to keep calm however she is so unreasonable and unwilling to budge which I believe is why the mediator felt we should give up.

I will have to accept we will need to go to court and hope the Judge improves on my contact order.
It''s interesting and surprising that you consider I''m starting from a ''high point'' but I''ll take that as a positive.

Many thanks.

Joe, the bits in your post that worried me was ''...this proves her utter failure to put the children first'' which I think would sound confrontational in a court setting. Perhaps consider rephrasing to ''...this illustrates her views, sincerely held I''m sure, are not consistent with the child''s best interests....''. Anyway, I have my fingers crossed that one way or the other you''ll get back the additional contact. Good luck.

That sounds alot better.

Many thanks as always zonked.