Overturning a Residence Order

I have a residence order for my two daughters after they were placed on the child protection register because their mother was in a relationship with a sex offender. They have been living me myself and my partner for nearly 4 years. Their mother married the sex offender and he has since been convicted of further sex offences and is now in prison. She is currently in the process of divorcing him.

She is now in a new relationship and my youngest daughter... now age 13... wants desperately to be back with her mum. I have fears about her mum''s ability to keep her safe given her past choices, however, I want to know my legal position. If I agree to my daughter going back to live with her mother, (which I''m feeling very conflicted about at the moment), what needs to happen regarding the residence order? Is it a decision we can just make ourselves if we agree and my daughter wants to be with her mum? Or do we need to address this legally?

Any advice on this would be really appreciated.

I would assume it would need to be addressed legally and perhaps ss involved to determine whether your daughter would be at risk with her mother. Your ex has made some very poor choices which she continued to make after she lost residence of her children. I dont think that could be just dismissed without outside agencies involvement.

Thank you jslgb for replying so quickly. I think your reply mirrors my gut feel for this. It''s hard to tell my daughter that we have to go through the whole ss route (again) when she feels there is no longer a threat now that her mum''s ex to be is out of the picture. She doesn''t see her mum as having put her at risk and directs all blame at her mum''s ex to be... she needs to believe her mum isn''t bad and it''s heartbreaking that at some stage she won''t (and I guess shouldn''t) be able to deny it.

But I think you''re right... this needs to be done properly with ss awareness.

Have much anger towards ex.

The sad reality here is that her mum prioritised her own wishes over the needs of her daughter. That is not a good decision by any standard. However, for you to try to explain this to your daughter risks accusations of you bad mouthing her mum. Not easy. That''s why someone independent needs to be involved. Perhaps her mum should make an application for an order, not in a hostile way, but to enable a reevaluation by CAFCASS? I advance the idea with some hesitation as this is unquestionably a very unusual situation.