Please help me to help my son

The photo is of my son and me at a supervised visitation centre where we met for 3 years after I applied for custody of my son. She had abducted him to Portugal because social services were pressuring her to feed him properly.

I have now run out of money and

I am appealing for help to pay for a lawyer. I currently have no legal representation my custody case. Last month I won an appeal in the Porto appeal court which allows me to take my son home for weekends and holidays, but then, as I didn't have any money to pay him, my lawyer resigned. His mother has a lawyer.

I applied for custody in Portugal in 2020 because my mother's son wasn't feeding him and wasn't letting me take him to his speech therapist appointments. I have been stuck in Portugal since my son's mother brought him here from the UK in 2020. Shortly after we arrived, she changed the locks and locked me out, and limited my contact with him, preventing me from playing with him, feeding him and taking him to his speech therapy appointments, so I applied for custody. Initially the court ordered that I spend alternate weekends with Alexander and Wednesday nights, which was less than I wanted, but still an improvement, and I insisted on seeing him on those times. His mother refused to follow the court order, and I had to call the police multiple times to record this.

But rather than helping me, the authorities here accused me of "creating conflict", and for 3 years they limited my contact with him to 2 or 3 hours of weekly supervised visits, which meant we weren't allowed to go for a walk in the park, or take him to the shops to buy a toy, or any of the 101 things that fathers normally do with their sons.

My son's mother is staying one of the apartments I bought after I sold my house in the UK, and I am staying in the other. I have had to make hundreds of trips to see my son, and pay for all the traveling expenses.

I have to pay her 225 euros as well in child support.

This all began in when I asked for custody because my son's mother was not letting me take him to his doctor's appointments. He had been diagnosed with a language development delay and abnormal growth. Before removing him from the UK, social workers were trying to persuade her to feed him better, and they had escalated his care, and were working on a Child in Need plan.

The Porto family court did not accept the evidence from the NHS and UK social services and refused to allow my son to have new evaluations, arguing that I was trying to make his mother look bad. There was an upsurge of support for the mother and a lot of people got involved to help her, by making accusations against me, some of which were false, or which omitted important positive information about me that they knew could help me.

The Porto Family Tribunal eventually ended the supervised visits in August, after which I was allowed to have my son for 8 hours of unsupervised contact on Saturdays and 3 hours on Wednesdays. But this wasn't good enough, as it meant he wouldn't enjoy any kind of "home life" with me, and I would be what my lawyer called a "shopping centre dad", limited to spending time with my son in shopping centres on rainy days.

But eventually, with help from my mother, and after three years of fighting, I won an appeal to reinstate my home visits.

And last weekend, for the first time in over 3 years, the Porto appeal court allowed my son to come home for the night. This was a relief. For three years, I was only allowed to be with Alex in a small room with note-taking social workers. I missed his third birthday, and saw him grow up as though looking through a key hole, where I could only see glimpses. After winning her "victory" of imposing supervised visits, his mother stopped talking to me for three years, so I had little idea of what was going on.

When the big day came, I was scared that he would cry and ask for his mother. He has changed so much in 3 years. He is six years old now. The last time he came to stay he was two. He used to love staying at my place, and even said that he didn't want to go back to his mother.

I could't wait for the day. When it finally came, the 27th of October, Alexander wanted to go straight to my home so we did that, and he spent the evening playing with my cats and toys, watching a movie and playing video games. When it was time to go to bed, he changed into his pyjamas and went to sleep without crying.

I took him to my ceramics class and he revealed that he knows how make a coil pot. After that we went to a trampoline centre. At first, to save money, I let him go in alone to jump around. But in the end I couldn't resist the temptation to join him. As it was the weekend before Halloween, the trampoline centre had hidden 3 pumpkins amongst the bouncy things, and we spent the last half hour looking for them.

The next morning he woke up and announced that his mother had told him he would spend two nights with me, and so it was time to go home. So we started making our way home, but stopped several times on the way to walk the dog, help a couple move house and have fish fingers. As he ate them, Alex counted them in English.

We finally got to Alex's place at around 5pm, his mother took him without saying anything.

What with the transport costs, food and the trampolining I spent most of my money on this trip.

As it's difficult to find work in rural Portugal, and I can't leave to work elsewhere, I am writing this appeal to help me carry on taking care of Alexander. I could survive here without help if I didn't have to fight for his right to have a father in his life. His mother lives in my flat and I have to pay child support and travel to 200 kilometres every time I go to see him. Her lawyer is often launched new legal actions against me which have to be defended. Reading what he writes, anyone would think that I was a psychopath who should be locked up in an institution, rather than a father just trying to be present in the life of his son. He has never met me in person to try to negotiate. I, on the other hand, have no legal representation. Last month, as I had no more funds to pay them, my lawyers resigned and I need to pay them. I have applied for legal aid but it was denied.

I am writing this in November 2023

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October 2023 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I am a British father living in Portugal, after fighting for 3 years I have just won an appeal which will allow me to have my son to stay overnight. My 5 year old son has a history of developmental delays, neither his mother nor the authorities have tried to help him to overcome his language development delay. In fact, the past 3 years, the Portuguese state has drastically restricted my access for wanting to provide speech therapy and take my son to his doctor's appointments. Because I stuck to my belief that children have a right to health care and development, the Family Tribunal labelled me as "obsessed with his child's development" and has allowed me only 2 or 3 hours a week of contact with him, in a small room with note-taking social workers. They have refused to allow my son to have medical evaluations. They refused to let him have any evaluations, to verify if he still needs therapy. He has become emotionally and culturally alienated, and since late 2021, he is no longer able to speak to me in English. His last words to me in our native tongue were: "Mama Go No Touch. Mama Go No Hug". Since then he has refused to hug me.

But on the positive side, he still enjoys playing with me and he is looking forward to having more freedom with me.

I am writing this in October 2023

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June 2023:

In May of this year, when the Tribunal delivered its final custody decision, I finally won the right to be with my son outside of supervision. From August to now, I was allowed to be with him on Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. I used this time to rebuild my relationship with my son, for the first time in three years, we went swimming, played at the beach, the park, the zoo, trampolining, played with my dog and cats and had a game of chess.

But this is all very little and very late. Due to the actions of the state, my son has lost the ability to speak his primary language which is English. He now speaks to me in Portuguese, which I find difficult to understand.

Thanks to the appeal court, my son will finally be allowed to come home for the night, on alternate weekends, which is great. But in between these weekends, we will only have 3 hours of contact on Wednesdays. This isn't enough to allow me to help him to recover the ability to speak English language, for that I will need to go back to court. I have spent all my savings on court fees and lawyer's fees, and so I need help with this.

The funds will be used to pay legal costs. First, 4300 euros will be used to pay debts to lawyers. The rest will be used to fund a new legal process aimed at allowing my son to have equal time with both his parents, so that he can learn to speak English and have a proper, healthy relationship with his father.

This fiasco has gone on long enough. This week, I will have a meeting with my lawyers to determine the next steps. If you can help me to help my son, I will be very grateful.

I am writing this in June 2023