Leonie de la Fosse has received no payments for her 10-year-old daughter since May, and believes the girl’s father has moved to the UK.
‘Her father has never been involved in her life, but we put a court order in place back when she was born for him to pay maintenance,’ she said.
‘He paid monthly by bank transfer, not standing order, so I was never sure when it was going to come, but he always paid it.’
Four years ago she contacted him because the payments had not risen with the cost of living as the order required, and heard then that he was thinking of leaving the island.
When the money stopped, she assumed he had forgotten. Three months later, still with nothing received, she began trying to find him.
Mutual contacts had lost touch with him, his mother had moved address, and at his mother’s former workplace she was told she too had left the island.
‘I just had that feeling in my stomach – he’d left the island and his mum had left the island, they’d both gone,’ said Ms de la Fosse.
She tracked down his employer but they refused to pass on his details on data protection grounds.
‘I went to Citizens Advice and spoke to someone on the phone who was quite good – they said I needed to find out his location and said to come in and speak to one of them,’ said Ms de la Fosse.
‘I went in person but the lady I spoke to said they couldn’t advise because they had nothing to advise on.
‘The only thing would be to reach out to the agency in the UK but they likely wouldn’t be able to help me because he’s over there and I’m over here.’
She then visited the Greffe and explained that the man was breaking his court order by not paying the child maintenance costs.
Ms de la Fosse also asked for police help, but was told they could not provide assistance because it was a civil matter.
She is now owed a significant amount of money by her daughter’s father, and the arrears continue to increase with each month that passes without payment.
‘I thought I’d go public just to raise awareness and find anyone else in this situation, because there must be other people going through this, and nobody seems to know what to do and how to go about it,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do and no one else seems to either.
‘I want to highlight the issue that there is no support for people in my situation, and if there is anyone out there, maybe we can group together and find some way of doing something.’
She said that hiring a lawyer was expensive, particularly now she is a single parent, without the child maintenance payments coming in.
‘At the moment we’re okay, but I decided to find a job that was more suitable and less stressful for me and because of that I took a pay cut, knowing that I had this money coming in to care for my daughter,’ said Ms de la Fosse.
‘I’ve got some savings so it’s okay at the moment, but as soon as that’s gone I’m going to be really struggling, and I have a mortgage to pay.’
His Majesty’s Greffier Antonia Read said the Greffe could not give legal advice or comment on individual cases, but strongly encouraged anyone in difficulty to seek advice from a member of the Family Bar, adding that legal aid may be available where cost was a concern.
‘One process that can apply in these situations is the Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders,’ she said.
‘Whether it applies in any given case depends on the particular circumstances and on the specific agreement in place between the jurisdictions involved, and so this is why we would recommend taking legal advice first.’