Interfering Grandparents and abusive ex partner

[Guest]

Hi I would like some advice to be able to assist my daughter with an abusive ex partner and his interfering parents and other family members.
My daughter has a 2 year old son and has split from the father who she has had an on off relationship with since 2013. He regularly sends her abusive text messages and she is constantly harassed by messaging and over social media by his family.
Social service have been involved as the relationship between my daughter and her ex partner was quite volatile at times. No harm has ever come to the child. The involvement with social services was to monitor the relationship between my daughter and her ex to make sure it did not affect the child.
My daughters ex partner has failed to turn up to most of the meetings arranged by social services and due to a fight he had recently where he knocked another male unconcious, social services have now recommended that he does not have unsupervised contact with his son.
My daughgters ex makes no attempt to visit his son, always sends the grandparents who travel 20 miles to pick up and drop off the child. The grandparents only take the child to his fathers who may or may not look after him unsupervised, potentially breaking the conditions set down by social services.
The grandparents demanded to have the boy every weekend and when my daughter advised them that its not practical to have the boy every weekend, as she may have plans and he has other family who may have planned things with him, they bombard her with abusive messages and accuse her of stopping them from seeing the child and threaten to take her to court.
My daughter is constantly asking me to get involved but I do not believe that me calling or messaging them to start an argument will resolve anything. They are quite a volatile family all round. I can't stand them and would rather we had no involvement with them at all, ever. But I am not a malicious person and understand that the child has a right to see his grandparents and vice versa. What I do not like is that as the sole carer and provider of the child, they insist on verbally attacking my daughter verbally, by text and social media accusing her of being obstructive and a bad mother.
My daughter is a very good mother and has done me proud, and her son, by the way she loves and looks after her son day in day out and does not deserve to be treated this way.
I would like to know what legal measures my daughter can take to stop the grandparents and the rest if the family from harassing her. They have the child more often than not but do not like being told no when situations mean that its not always practical to have the child.
The father recently sent my daughter a message saying that she was a bad parent and that when the child goes to school he would be bullied because of her, as she is a disgrace. This was purely because he failed to deposit the maintenance he is supposed to pay on a monthly basis, so she contacted him to ask where it was, they got into an argument about access to the child, as the father has a new girlfriend which he manages to take time off work for to go on holiday with but would not take time off work to look after his son during the school holidays so that my daughter could still attend her part time job.
I have advised her to limit the contact with him and to contact the CSA and let them deal with the maintenance issue as he does not give her what he rightfully should anyway.

If there is any advice out there on offer it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Openlaw15]

Re: Interfering Grandparents and abusive ex partner

Hi I would like some advice to be able to assist my daughter with an abusive ex partner and his interfering parents and other family members.
My daughter has a 2 year old son and has split from the father who she has had an on off relationship with since 2013. He regularly sends her abusive text messages and she is constantly harassed by messaging and over social media by his family.
Social service have been involved as the relationship between my daughter and her ex partner was quite volatile at times. No harm has ever come to the child. The involvement with social services was to monitor the relationship between my daughter and her ex to make sure it did not affect the child.
My daughters ex partner has failed to turn up to most of the meetings arranged by social services and due to a fight he had recently where he knocked another male unconcious, social services have now recommended that he does not have unsupervised contact with his son.
My daughgters ex makes no attempt to visit his son, always sends the grandparents who travel 20 miles to pick up and drop off the child. The grandparents only take the child to his fathers who may or may not look after him unsupervised, potentially breaking the conditions set down by social services.
The grandparents demanded to have the boy every weekend and when my daughter advised them that its not practical to have the boy every weekend, as she may have plans and he has other family who may have planned things with him, they bombard her with abusive messages and accuse her of stopping them from seeing the child and threaten to take her to court.
My daughter is constantly asking me to get involved but I do not believe that me calling or messaging them to start an argument will resolve anything. They are quite a volatile family all round. I can't stand them and would rather we had no involvement with them at all, ever. But I am not a malicious person and understand that the child has a right to see his grandparents and vice versa. What I do not like is that as the sole carer and provider of the child, they insist on verbally attacking my daughter verbally, by text and social media accusing her of being obstructive and a bad mother.
My daughter is a very good mother and has done me proud, and her son, by the way she loves and looks after her son day in day out and does not deserve to be treated this way.
I would like to know what legal measures my daughter can take to stop the grandparents and the rest if the family from harassing her. They have the child more often than not but do not like being told no when situations mean that its not always practical to have the child.
The father recently sent my daughter a message saying that she was a bad parent and that when the child goes to school he would be bullied because of her, as she is a disgrace. This was purely because he failed to deposit the maintenance he is supposed to pay on a monthly basis, so she contacted him to ask where it was, they got into an argument about access to the child, as the father has a new girlfriend which he manages to take time off work for to go on holiday with but would not take time off work to look after his son during the school holidays so that my daughter could still attend her part time job.
I have advised her to limit the contact with him and to contact the CSA and let them deal with the maintenance issue as he does not give her what he rightfully should anyway.

If there is any advice out there on offer it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

If the harassment is serious enough it could be a criminal offence. As she does not live with him, she could get a Court Order for an injunction: Non Molestation Order (NMO). An NMO basically stops him from having any contact/ communication. However, normally the law is that there must be an attempt at family counselling mediation (ie MAIM, through professionals) but in domestic abuse situations, counselling may not be necessary to get a court order.

NMO requires Court Form FL401 and here some guidance (see FL700): http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.u..._forms_id=1117

Here's a completed NMO/ FL401 application I found online to give you an idea how to complete them: https://www.cilex.org.uk/pdf/Form%20...0completed.pdf

An NMO is actually free and its effect will be to stop all contact, ie no more texts, no phone calls etc. His (child's) grand-dad etc will not be stopped from contacting the child if he is not named on the NMO/ injunction. The grandfather has the legal right to contact and could get a contact order himself, or any other affected family (on father's side). The NMO consists of an initial hearing where he (the ex) will either admit the harassment, or if he does not, there'll be a Fact Finding Hearing. If he accepts his wrong at the first hearing (preliminary), he may be offered an alternative (Undertaking) which has the effect of NMO anyway it just normally saves the expense of the hearing. If he breaches (breaks the terms) of the NMO it could lead to a criminal offence, I believe. In the alternative, if he breaches the Undertaking it has the same effect of as breaching an NMO.

You or your daughter could do this (obtain the NMO) yourself or get a family lawyer to do it, but there'll be costs obviously. Your daughter can change her mind (discharge) about the NMO at any stage, which may be useful as a deterrent to stop her ex from harassing her/ your family.

NB: an Occupation Order applies where the partner lives there - so this is why I assume it's an NMO and not the Occupation Order (as he doesn't live at the property).

[Guest]

Re: Interfering Grandparents and abusive ex partner

Hi thanks for the response. Although very helpful it's the grandparents I'm more worried about.
There has been no physical violence on the fathers part. Everything has been verbal.
Other members of his family verbally attack her on social media, all down to the lies he tells his family about her.
I can accept that relationships breakdown and my daughter be her ex may longer see eye to eye and still be civil to him, but his family go to great lengths to make her life a misery.
He's too much of a coward to admit to his family that he made mistakes too, they think he's golden boy, regardless of his history of violent attacks when out drinking.
I just want them to leave her alone and respect her decisions where her son is concerned. They think they should have him every time they want him. They make out they are ok with her but it's all a big game. They will never pick up the phone and speak to her because they don't like her, everything is done over messenger. If she tries to call them they won't pick up the phone to her. They need to back off.

I just need to know what I can do to stop them, the grandparents, giving her a hard time.

[Openlaw15]

Re: Interfering Grandparents and abusive ex partner

Hi thanks for the response. Although very helpful it's the grandparents I'm more worried about.
There has been no physical violence on the fathers part. Everything has been verbal.
Other members of his family verbally attack her on social media, all down to the lies he tells his family about her.
I can accept that relationships breakdown and my daughter be her ex may longer see eye to eye and still be civil to him, but his family go to great lengths to make her life a misery.
He's too much of a coward to admit to his family that he made mistakes too, they think he's golden boy, regardless of his history of violent attacks when out drinking.
I just want them to leave her alone and respect her decisions where her son is concerned. They think they should have him every time they want him. They make out they are ok with her but it's all a big game. They will never pick up the phone and speak to her because they don't like her, everything is done over messenger. If she tries to call them they won't pick up the phone to her. They need to back off.

I just need to know what I can do to stop them, the grandparents, giving her a hard time.

It doesn't require violence just a certain level of harassment for which the court is called to intervene: Johnson v Walton [1990] 1 F.L.R. 350. In Vaughan v Vaughan [1973] 1 W.L.R. 1159, the judge made an approved definition for NMO, "to cause trouble, to vex, to annoy, to put to inconvenience". This may be enough for an NMO, ".....his family go to great lengths to make her life a misery....:" Johnson [1990]; Vaughan [1973].

"The grandparents demanded to have the boy every weekend and when my daughter advised them that its not practical to have the boy every weekend, as she may have plans and he has other family who may have planned things with him, they bombard her with abusive messages and accuse her of stopping them from seeing the child and threaten to take her to court"

The parents have rights to see their children of course but the rights of grand-parents have to be reasonable. They can threaten your daughter with court action all they want but it's what the law says not what they want it to say.

It may be best in your family's situation to go for mediation/ counselling as I think this will be more helpful.