Family Visitor: Does Father need to prove relationship?

I was married to a Turkish national for 7 years. We divorced in 2005. We have two daughters, both at school, aged (just) 16 and 14. He enjoyed unrestricted entry to the UK but this lapsed due to him not entering the UK enough in recent years. He is now remarried to an Indonesian woman. They have 3 children and a business in Bali.

We last saw him 3 or 4 years ago when we visited him in Turkey. Over the years we have been unable to agree about his contact with our children. He has asked that I send them to either Turkey or Bali for the summer holidays and each year I have been uncomfortable with this for many reasons and have said they can only come if I accompany them and due to my work commitments this would mean we could not extend a trip beyond two weeks. Then he would not agree to the expense for such a short period. Stalemate. He has contributed financially to us over the years and made regular phone and online contact with our daughters.

We finally agreed in July that I would bring them to Bali for the Easter holidays at his expense. The trip was booked and finalised on 30 October.

Within the following week our eldest daughter became acutely ill and is in a specialist unit in a hospital in our area. Her father quickly applied for a visitors visa which was refused. I can see that he rushed the application and did not provide enough evidence of his ties to Bali so he will reapply. I will support this and provide everything necessary.

However, one part of the decision letter concerns me. It states that 'there is no evidence of contact with your family prior to this letter'.

Please can someone advise if in the next application we need to demonstrate contact over the years. If birth certificates and passports are provided is that not enough? Does the father really have to give evidence of an actual relationship with his daughter? Is the fact that he is her actual father not enough?

Also, more generally, apart from providing the other evidence that was omitted in the first application, do we need to comment on or address the reasons for refusal at all in the next application or are they assessed in isolation?

Sorry for such a long post. It is a very distressing time for my family and many years since I had to deal with this agency who have caused my family a lot of hardship in the past.

Contact may mean phone calls, skype messages email, etc.

I am sure they are satisfied the familial blood link is present.

They just want to see that he has a role in the life of the child.

Get the children to write about their relationship with their father.

There views will be factored in any decision.

They are of the age, where they can express view, which has to be considered in evaluating their best interest.

Thank you Obie. The nature of my eldest daughter's illness means she has limited capacity to write a letter. Are you aware this is a valid requirement to demonstrate his role in their life? It is not like we are applying for a fiancé visa where I would have to prove a relationship.

We can do the work between me and her sister, but I resent having to for as I see it, if there were any time he should be present it is during such a difficult and worrying time as this. I am also time poor and exhausted trying to juggle work and parenting commitments with regular visits to the hospital (1 hour round trip each evening) so do not want to trawl years of emails etc especially when time is of the essence.. It seems rather ironic that the people asking about contact are the very same people thwarting the contact.

On another note for instance, I have been involved through my own relationship with UK forums for absent fathers who fight to secure their rights for their parental responsibility and fatherly presence and it is very often the case that father's contact can easily be frustrated by the mother so with this in mind it seems unfair to me for them to throw in such a judgemental and unfounded statement. I am sure the UK family courts do not have the right to take the view that a father should not have contact with his children based on this being limited previously so would be surprised that immigration laws can contradict this.

Doesn't my daughter as an EU citizen have a right to a family life and the reassurance of her father's presence at a time like this?

Hi everyone

Just wish to highlight my questions from my original post and subsequent

Also, more generally, apart from providing the other evidence that was omitted in the first application, do we need to comment on or address the reasons for refusal at all in the next application or are they assessed in isolation?

Is proof of contact really a valid requirement between a Father and daughter for a visitor visa?

Can anyone advise?

Thanks