I am not a lawyer, but it seems like you were not aware of his failure to modify his income statements to the court until after he stopped paying at all? IE, you were under the impression that everything was by-the-book on his end, until the payments stopped? I think that that might work in your favor, under the circumstances of the judge asking “Why weren’t you more on top of this whole mess? You should have yelled at the system earlier.” And as for your caseworker being unreachable, I think your best bet is to call/write/email them frequently and document that extensively, both the time-of-call and the meat of the conversation, so that after enough unresponsive time you can call someone higher up the chain and tell them “Look, do you think 10 phone calls unanswered and 20 emails unresponded-to is a symptom of me not trying? My court day is x months/weeks/days away, and I haven’t heard anything!?!!” Documentation and notetaking and patience and persistance are the best way to beat bureaucracy.