There is often publicity about fathers and their fight to have contact with their children, once their relationship with the mother has broken down.  Some suggest that the system is biased against the father and everything will go the mother's way.  They feel that the mother can call the shots.

In my experience this is not the case.  More frequently children remain with the mother when parties separate and practically the mother then has day to day control.  If she is unwilling to agree contact, or as much contact between the children and father as the father wishes to have, then initially she is holding all of the cards.  If the father makes a Court application and it takes several weeks to get to Court then the mother may be preventing contact and there is little the father can do, aside from requesting contact.

However, at Court the Judge will take a very dim view of the mother preventing contact and (except where there are risks to a child's welfare) will ensure that there is contact of some kind immediately reinstated, even if this is on an interim basis pending further reports by the Court.  My advice is not to give up.  The Court process is sometimes slow but it is thorough and works on the basis of the children having a right to see both parents.