Googled: UK how child custody works, UK how child residence works, and I checked the community tags
One of my characters is a
Questions:
1. Would the mother have any final say in parenting decisions apart from whatever the father chooses to grant her? In other words, if the father is determined to let the girl to do something (something legal) that the mother strongly disagrees with, does her opinion matter?
2. Given that the father provides well for his daughter and that she'd strongly prefer to stay with him, am I correct that any legal attempts by the mother to get custody of her daughter or otherwise change the status quo after the divorce is settled would probably fail? This comes up in relation to soothing the girl's worries rather than in relation to the mother choosing to pursue it, so I'm more interested in likely outcomes than in the actual process.
If it's relevant, the dispute from the previous question is whether the girl should be allowed to spend time with a woman who has no actual criminal record but who has a somewhat shady past and was recently a suspect in a child abduction case.
3. I'm looking for the equivalents of some relevant US phrases. Is this right?
custody order = residence order
to have custody = to have residence
"Your mother wouldn't be able to get custody of you" = ???