The contact I have had with the SS has been tough. From the beginning when I was unfortunate enough to fall into their Venus fly trap jaws they have sucked every inch of life out of my long-term partner and myself. On the ground, the department is mainly run and made up of women, wet and condescending in attitude; their ability to be impartial is almost zero. The child like manner in which you are treated with their softly spoken patronising words only make things worse if you are innocent of the allegations made towards you.

My contact was cut from approximately 180 days in one year to two one and half-hour sessions of contact per week, supervised by a clipboard wheedling so called "expert". After a few weeks it became apparent that sides had been taken. The SS officers didn't even bother to hide this from me in the hope I would react and give them more ammunition to hang me with.

Initially my partner and myself tried to make the best of out a bad situation. We would arrive on time only to be told that the mother of my daughter hadn't turned up once again. We would bring new clothes for my daughter, as she seemed to always turn up in rags, these clothes were all returned.

We were criticised by the SS for a number of things; leaving contact for a cigarette break, smelling of body odour, but mostly reacting to the things my daughter came out with in contact, i.e. "mummy says I need a new daddy". All of which never happened and were explained away by the mother to His Honour Judge M in court. Over the months we felt that H was slowly slipping away from us. She became acclimatised to the system, being passed from one SS officer to another. She also became acutely aware of the hate her mother had always had for me ever since I had left her because of her promiscuous behaviour.