Serious family legal issue

Caporegime
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Why can't you just change the names and make the post clearer?

Jack - Grandson
Rob - Son
etc.

the way you have done it is terrible to read and figure out.

also it sounds like your son picked a terrible person to fertilise. best thing for him to do would be walk away or seek legal advice from a solicitor.

if this guy is in such a well paid job and comfortable why are his offspring and partners on drugs and living in social housing and being evicted, etc?

it sounds like perfect jeremy kyle type scenario. walk away.
 
Soldato
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OK thanks guys just wanted to check I wasn't missing something.

Tldr if I don't pay them then they won't let my son see his son,
And they're all dodgy as hell

Where does it say that they're after money?

From what i could make out from what you pasted in is that the "step-father" is refusing to allow the childs grandmother back into his house because it will cause issues, and if that's something you're insisting on then he's making it clear that he will fight to stop your son having access to your grandson. - seem about right?

Frankly why are the grandparents even involved in this dispute? If you're suggesting that the grandmother moves back in with with the step-grandfather, then that's probably something you should keep to yourself.

Does the mother have a secure place to stay and raise the son, if not your son should be fighting for custody. It sounds like the whole thing is getting dramatised by too many people getting involved.
 
Caporegime
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OK thanks guys just wanted to check I wasn't missing something.

Tldr if I don't pay them then they won't let my son see his son,
And they're all dodgy as hell

I missed this before, once you start paying them they'll be extorting you all of the time. Why doesn't your son try to get custody? gather some evidence that they're extorting you both for access and use it in your sons defence and then go on the offensive for custody.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
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Associate
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OK thanks guys just wanted to check I wasn't missing something.

Tldr if I don't pay them then they won't let my son see his son,
And they're all dodgy as hell
Keep any and all correspondence you get from them and show it to the legal person - might be useful for leverage.
 
Permabanned
OP
Joined
2 Apr 2007
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Why can't you just change the names and make the post clearer?

Jack - Grandson
Rob - Son
etc.

the way you have done it is terrible to read and figure out.

also it sounds like your son picked a terrible person to fertilise. best thing for him to do would be walk away or seek legal advice from a solicitor.

if this guy is in such a well paid job and comfortable why are his offspring and partners on drugs and living in social housing and being evicted, etc?

it sounds like perfect jeremy kyle type scenario. walk away.
Yes, I was in a state of shock Tbh.

It started because I sent a text to her mum asking politely about the welfare of my grand son. This triggered a massive rant by her basically asking for money.
For a year they have been messing my son around and even taken him to court claiming he was abusing the child's mother. He wasn't, they had an argument.

She won't let us see the child at all now, I've seen him twice last time about 6 months ago.

The child's mother has a real dad and a step dad, the real dad seems to have alcohol related self control problems.

The step dad won't allow the child's mother to live in his house where her real mother lives with the step dad.
God this difficult.

A = childs mother
B= child's grandmother (mother's mother)
C=mothers step dad.
D=mothers real dad

D seems to have alcohol related self control issues, never met him.
B seems to vary from being reasonable to going crazy.
C has sent me one text, no other communication except when at hospital when baby was born. He smelled of booze and had a pack of cigs in his hand.

OK
A is the child's mother 20 years old,
A, has been living in a rented flat and not managing her money, A has recently been thrown out of flat and put in council flat. A was reported to social services by B for smoking cannabis.
B has told me a third girl has been a bad influence on A. She has given A money for food and baby stuff, third girl and A have been blowing the money on booze and fags.
A tells me i am evil and never wants to hear from me, tells me she is a great mother and not to contact B or C. She has done this regularly for 10 months or so.

I texted B politely enquiring about baby's welfare as A told my son baby had virus and my son couldn't see baby.

This was supposed to be supervised contact as per one of the court hearings. To prove my son could care for baby.

B goes on a massive rant about how much everything is costing her and slagging my family and my son off, he is a student so has no money.
I did reply slightly less politely, but nothing too bad

I then received the one and only text from C saying give me money or I will do all I can to stop your son seeing baby.
I replied saying C and B will never see a penny from me.

Oh and I did call A weird and say her step dad C was a nasty little man.

What's more this is all absolutely true
 
Caporegime
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Is this like one of those cryptic recruitment drives for the intelligence services?

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Soldato
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United Kingdom
Exactly, I just sent a text asking how my grand son was and I get all this hassle back

After reading what you've said about them, I'm surprised you didn't see something like this coming.

I'd quite frankly tell the bloke where to go. If he's got such a well paid job then why can't he provide the support required?

Also this is yet another lesson why you don't stick your wick in skanky ho's.

Normally I'd agree but this just makes things harder for OP's son, which has already been made more difficult by OPs weird/nasty comments getting across to the family. Honestly OP should just stay out of it and anything he wishes to know should go through his son first.
 
Soldato
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Location
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OK, so you are already at a Court stage and have legal supervised visitation for your Son. So I assume you already have a) a family lawyer that has helped you and b) that after a number of supervised visits if your son can show that he is responsible then he will be allowed unsupervised access. c) You suspect that A (the Mum) is fabricating a virus to get out of supervised visit.

First you have to get legal advice on what to do. However, general rule - you have a Court ordered set of actions here. Do Not Engage. All you need to do is be patient allow the supervised visits until you prove he is responsible and then you are going to be able to see your grandchild. You might need to go back to the court after half a dozen supervised visits have proven that your son is responsible, but get the lawyers advice on how many supervised visits are reasonable before you should be demanding unsupervised access. If there are repeated failures of A to bring the baby to the supervised access sessions then talk to your lawyer. Let them default on the courts ruling, it just makes you look better later on. Follow the legal process as closely and as hard as possible, push that as hard as you can but do it formally. If you actually want to push for custody then if you can get someone to testify to drug use at the babies home then that might be useful. However your son is a student, custody might well not be the best thing right now for his future.

Also just from the other side - you have a single mum with a crap support network and a new baby who is going to be feeling under threat and have all sorts going on. Sure she might be struggling and not doing it real well, but bringing up a kid on your own if it is the first time round and you have no experience is hard yards. Living on benefit is not some easy option. Actually you son having the child for a full weekend every other weekend would give her a decent regular break, once she know the baby is going to be safe it is quite possible that she will start to see upside. Also babies do really regularly actually get ill - and the first time you have a kid and it starts to run a temperature you are quite convinced that it could die and perhaps you ought to take it to hospital... it is easy to forget that mad panic from first time round when you are like, yeah they'll be fine just sponge them down and feed them Pamol.
 
Caporegime
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B goes on a massive rant about how much everything is costing her and slagging my family and my son off, he is a student so has no money.

You missed that bit out before... so that is the source of the tension - your son presumably isn't required to pay much via the CSA

https://www.gov.uk/how-child-mainte...intenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance

Presumably he's paying very little i.e. £7 a week?

And I'm assuming as the mother is a waste of space the grandparents on her side have to step in and provide funds.... and they're hoping you'll do the same?
 
Associate
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In essence this is a custody battle despite the complex story.

Ok the basics are your son (through you presumably) can go to family court for 2 reasons

A) to have a formal contact agreement made for access. If this is breached by either party then it makes further court rulings in favour of the injured party easier.

B) full custody. Far more expensive and will solely concentrate on what the child needs and wants over the slagging off back and forth. Courts have to put up with endless mudslinging in most cases so generally ignore this and only look at proven offences, social services records etc.

The issue with the step-dad seems pretty straight forward. He's trying to intimidate you though claiming he has the resources to win over you at court. Ignore it, a person of means would have just paid the £200 or so for a solicitors letter to be drafted stating their intentions, not do it on the cheap.

Your son needs to decide what route he needs to go down and seek legal advice accordingly. I'd always advocate having a formal custody agreement as his ex's personal circumstances are always likely to change which can/will always screw up any informal agreements. I've seen people come seriously unstuck when their ex gets a new partner who sticks their oar in and things escalate.
 
Soldato
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OP’s son needs to get proper legal advice from a family law specialist.

This. Having been through this kind of thing myself, all of this. Follow their advice. All contact should be over text message or email only. No face to face conversations.

ALWAYS put the best interests of the child first. State this, along the lines of "I believe it is in the best interests of the child to have contact with his father". Do not give in to demands for money - keep track of all of these threats and attempts to extort. However, be supportive.

Best of luck.
 
Soldato
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If you've got a letter threatening you, then you take that with you to court to back up your claims that they're trying to get money out of you for access to the child. Your son's child isn't a paid-for commodity, they're a human being and your son, as the father, has a right to see the child. You definitely need to get the courts involved.
 
Soldato
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I would strongly suggest legal advice - in my experience, not a lot actually goes to court; quite often taking legal action is enough to make them back down. I would also suggest mediation between your son and the mother of his child. If she's not talking sense, she will be told as such. It can quite often be very effective in making parents grow up and get on with it.
 
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OP
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I would strongly suggest legal advice - in my experience, not a lot actually goes to court; quite often taking legal action is enough to make them back down. I would also suggest mediation between your son and the mother of his child. If she's not talking sense, she will be told as such. It can quite often be very effective in making parents grow up and get on with it.
We've spent the last year trying to get her to go through mediation, she's brought 2 court cases with made up allegations, my son is supposed to be attending 6 supervised visitations in caffcas center, 15 weeks have passed since he was supposed to have 1 every week, he has had 1, the caffcas supervisor seemed very happy, A has just pulled out of the latest one as she is being evicted.
 
Soldato
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Is there a reason why he's only allowed supervised visitation? Is this due to the claims she has made? Or will she only allow supervised visits?

Ultimately, if she keeps on cancelling then it will go against her - but you need to keep a record of absolutely everything - if he is showing up to appointments and she doesn't show then he needs to have a copy of a sign-in sheet or similar. Keep evidence of even minor things like parking ticket stubs to show that he has been somewhere. If she's accusing him of any violence, then aim to mitigate that - if there's even been a hint of it, then agree to counselling etc. Be reasonable and calm - it's important to not ask for too much - you'll get plenty of people saying "go for full custody" - unless the child is at risk of serious harm then that simply won't happen, so just ask for what's fair. What's stopping him from going to court to ask for visitation etc?
 
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OP
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Is there a reason why he's only allowed supervised visitation? Is this due to the claims she has made? Or will she only allow supervised visits?

Ultimately, if she keeps on cancelling then it will go against her - but you need to keep a record of absolutely everything - if he is showing up to appointments and she doesn't show then he needs to have a copy of a sign-in sheet or similar. Keep evidence of even minor things like parking ticket stubs to show that he has been somewhere. If she's accusing him of any violence, then aim to mitigate that - if there's even been a hint of it, then agree to counselling etc. Be reasonable and calm - it's important to not ask for too much - you'll get plenty of people saying "go for full custody" - unless the child is at risk of serious harm then that simply won't happen, so just ask for what's fair. What's stopping him from going to court to ask for visitation etc?
Yeah she made loads of claims all unfounded, my view is, as he hadn't seen the sprog for so long the court wanted to be super cautious and it was what caffcas recommended.

She had applied for a prohibitive steps order that was thrown out.

No, with regards to custody thanks for the advice.
Personally I think her situation will deteriorate, she has some pretty dodgy acquaintances leading her astray.

Having said that I would by far prefer everyone just to get on. Why wouldn't I?
 
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