How could this affect me and my child?

[feelingabitconcerned]

I am a regular poster but have name changed. If I state that my partner has 4 kids, I'm sure many of you will know who I am.

To cut a very long story short;

My DP has been accused by his ex wife of physically assaulting his twelve year old son whilst he was in our home with my partners 2 other children and my son. This is not the case although my partner did physically restrict his sons access to another room and did move him two steps in the other direction by his arm. I witnessed the whole situation from start to finish and my partner did nothing that I or any of my friends and family haven't done in their parenting.

There was a lot of build up to the event and my DP son was being very defiant, rude and un-cooperative.

His ex has contacted the police, social services, sent an e-mail telling my partner that his actions are unforgiveable and been to her solicitors. Her own mother was here a few minutes after the event and she is supporting us as much as she can although she didn't see the actual incident she saw how defiant and un-co-operative my DP son was being.

All this happened over a week ago. We have not had any contact from the police, school, social services or any other professional only an e-mail from her and a solicitors letter asking my partner to give his account of what happened.

It is not the first time she has contacted the police etc. and no action has been taken previously. However, this was before myself and my now 14 year old son had moved in with my partner.

We have found out this evening that she tried to persuade her son to make a statement to the police but he is refusing to do so at the moment.

So, my question is what is likely to happen now? And on a personal level, should I be concerned that if my partners son does make a statement and lies about the facts (assuming the facts I stated above does not constitute assault.), that social services could get involved in my life with regards to my son?

I should also point out that his ex is allowing contact to continue with 2 out of his 4 children.

[Pedigree]

Frankly, it takes far more than that for social services to intervene. If anything, they will come to talk to you about the issue to find about your side of the story and put forward some recommendations to you to avoid the problem repeating itself.

[feelingabitconcerned]

Well, that was my initial thought that she is blowing a normal parenting situation out of proportion and calling it abuse and I expect social services to take no action and hopefully give her a bit of a telling off about wasting everyone's time.

She is only content when being angry with my DP.

Unfortunately you do hear of stories of kids being taken away uneccessarily and I was just having a moment of panic about it all.

[purpleroses]

Sorry to hear that. But I don't think you have much to worry about.
The police reported me to SS once after I lost my DD in the street (aged 3) - they said they had to report any missing children. But I heard nothing more of it. I also tried to report a neighbour's son once - with quite serious concerns about him (his mum was a junkie who'd just thrown him out the house and told him not to come back - aged 10, he's walked off with his school bag :( ) but they didn't take that seriously or even log it I don't think.

So I think SS get a lot of "reports" and are able to sift through for what they really do need to do something about - And from what I know, they're relatively clued up about allagations from bitter ex-partners.

Plus - your DP is legally allowed to restrain and even to smack his DS if he wants to, so I can't imagine SS or the police would be remotely interested.

And if the police or SS were interested, I would have thought they'd have taken action by now.

Your poor DP - no wonder he finds it hard to exert authority over the DC. Maybe if he writes back to her solicitor and says what happened, her solicitor will tell her to drop it?

[feelingabitconcerned]

Thanks for the reply Purple.

It really doesn't help my partners parenting does it? I've told him today that I would far rather deal with solicitors, social services etc than have 4 unruly children in my home because he is scared of his ex wife.

DP has contacted social services today who know nothing of all this, I think the ex reported him to the police and they have done nothing about it, probably because they have dealt with her on many occassions.

I am not at all concered about DP parenting in this case and in general am only ever concerned at LACK of discipline not too much of.

However, what if one of DP childrens lied to the police? DP's children do often tell lies and it concerns me that if they did this in a similar situation, we could be up against some serious problems.

[Pedigree]

The police won't do more than coming to have a word to your husband, if the do. Although i will not be surprised if exw is still waiting for the police to talk to her about reporting the issue.

Ackmowledge her solicitor letter, say you disagree with her version of the event and refute the allegations. And leave it at that. The less you engage of the thing, the most likely things won't get worse.

Try not to get worried about what would happen, most bad things we imagine do not happen, even when somebody is trying hard to cause trouble.

[ladydeedy]

the police can see through these things very well, in my experience (DH's ex also in habit of calling the police and making all sorts of accusations). Also solicitors' letters are nothing to be afraid of. They just write what the other party wants- you can chose to acknowledge or just ignore.
Dont let her actions worry you too much - it is an unfortunate state of affairs and I hope things improve for you soon. xx