Hi, this is my first post in this forum, I am basically looking for some experienced or expert advice on a residence order that I initiated a while ago, I will try to keep the story as brief as possible, but in reality there is 11 years worth of story to get through.

August 2000, I have a daughter at 19, I had only known the mother for about 12 months at the time she was born, we then got married a couple of months after her birth.

6 months later we were separating because of my wife's unstable behavior of staying around her sisters until sometimes 3am, not doing simple tasks like cleaning nappies off the floor and constant unbelievable lies regarding her own family and history.

I went to live at my parents, she turns up at 2am because she said she was having issues with her parents and wanted to give us another go. She moved into my parents with us. Whilst there she would not get up to the baby and would do hardly anything for her.. I was working all the time so did not think it right I should have to do it all the time. during the period I even employed my wife whilst my mum looked after our daughter but due to unreliability, timekeeping issues and poor work, I was ordered to sack my own wife.

During this time she was going back and forth living with my parents and her own she would be with us for about 2 weeks and then just not come back. During this time she come back once and said that she tried to get our daughter off her parents and they refused to give her back, so I called the police to recover our daughter. A few weeks later she disappeared for the last time.

I was seeing a solicitor and managed to see my daughter for a couple of hours on a Sunday by solicitors agreement ( although she come out with some story that my daughter could not be away from her mum too long ), after a few months it suddenly stopped because when I went to collect my daughter she did not turn up and I had no more money for a solicitor.

For several years I was in and out of solicitors offices and contacting social services due to concerns about her unstable behavior and I knew that after she left me she had started smoking cannabis, but she had disappeared.

I later received a letter from a guy I had never met. He had just separated from my ex and was concerned about my daughter and his own children. we met up and found the same lies she had told me but they are a little different.. for example my ex had told me she was raped and lost a child named Nadeen, she had told basically the same story to the other ex but with a different child's name.

Social services were already involved with my ex again due to unstable behavior and the big issue of not telling the truth - they kept catching her out, these were all reported by my daughters school and by my wife's ex boyfriend. - at this time I started another relationship.. it was around 2007.

My ex disappeared off to Scotland with her children intending on living up there but come back after a couple of months because the boyfriend she was seeing at the time had an ex of his own and had punched my ex.

One of the things my ex would tell social services included - I was hiding upstairs whilst her other ex was abusing her - she wanted me to tell social services that was true.. but I refused.

Soon after my ex met another guy - besides the half dozen between - ( lets call him guy 2 ),

guy 2 was with her for about 2 years, during the period my ex could no longer handle my daughters behavior or attitude towards her, including slamming doors, swearing at her, throwing things at her etc etc. so between the three of us we agreed that I should take my daughter for 6 months to correct her behavior.

During the 6 months I found out that my ex had told my daughters school that my daughter was lactose intolerant and allergic to penicillin, this was amongst her inability to even make simple appointments to doctors and was generally a recuse.

When the 6 months was over I pushed for a social services meeting and we all signed an agreement that my daughter should live with me to get my daughters life stable as she had kept on being moved and having different schools.. 4 primary schools and 3 houses in 2 years.

Although this agreement was suppose to settle my daughters life, my ex kept telling my daughter that she could go back to live with her whenever she wanted.. I strongly objected because this confused my daughter and my ex history told me to fight all the way.

Later that same year her other children were put on the child protection register due to accusations of my ex being physically abused by guy 2, she later had a broken arm and took guy 2 to court.. guy 2 was found innocent as the break could not possibly have happened the way my ex had described it and there were lots of discrepancies. - it did however come out to say that my ex had accused someone else of raping her 1 year before I met her but she had refused to do a rape kit and as she had no marks it was dropped before it even went to court, - also another interesting thing was that the social worker ( who had been trying to help my ex but never really helped the kids ) had tried to commit suicide after guy 2 was accused.

During these times my daughter was still living with me with my ex on the phone trying to blackmail her into choosing one or the other of us.

Soon after a new social worker was issued the case and put my ex's mental instability and issues down to 'the abuse she had suffered in the hands of guy 2' and closed the social services case file ( even though not 7 months earlier guy 2's daughter had slipped under the water in the bath ). That letter promptly went onto facebook by my ex to 'prove the case is closed' for whatever reason.

About this time I started recording telephone conversations from my ex to our daughter and one of the things I caught on
tape is my ex saying ( after I had applied for residence ) 'if you decide to live with your dad I cannot guarantee I will be able to see you that often if at all ' and ' you do realize that you will have to stand up in court and pick your dad or me'. Previous to this conversation its on record by social services that my daughter could not make up her mind who she wanted to live with - I transcribed this conversation down onto paper

We went to our first court date ( I had no solicitor with me - she did ) and it was ordered on cafcass recommendations that she has a psychiatric assessment, 1 hour of phone calls a day, a section 7 report to be done by social services and supervised contact to be arranged between us, my only order was to find a solicitor..

When I met with the social worker that is suppose to be going the section 7 order she mentioned that within the social services reports I smack my daughter, and yes on the odd occasion I do, but its very very rare and its an absolute last resort, plus I never break the smacking laws.. not anywhere close. Anyway, the social worker seemed transfixed on this one thing, she believed it was illegal and I pointed out that is was not under the children's act 2004, then she had the gall to ask me 'how often do you smack your partner?', of course I dont, but she had already made the presumption that just because I parent that was I was automatically violent as she did not ask me if I did smack my partner, she just assumed I did, so I am now worried that the social worker is going to submit a bad report just because she does not personally agree with me.

there are a few things I also have to say

1) there are 4 of us in a 1 bed flat and although we are trying to move, its not going to be until near the end of the year

2) my daughter is 11 and has made a wish to back to her mums ( I think because of the threat.. and I can prove it was said )

3) I still have no representation in court, although I do have solicitors advice.

Would anyone be able to give me an idea on the outlook.. I know I have rambled on a bit but the whole story is important to know.. what are the chances of me being able to carry on protecting my daughter by having her stay with me from a residence order.. thank you