(Namechanger)
Took DS to visit XP today.
As all of us plus X"MIL" were chatting outside, XP saw a boy (who I very vaguely know of as he attends DS's primary school) cycling on the pavement toward us.
Instead of asking the boy to stop, the first I saw of this was XP pulling out the tape measure he was holding and, when the child continued to pass between us, whipping him with it
Luckily it didn't seem to cause the child any injury but did make him veer to and fro dangerously on his bike and look around to ask why he'd done that.
XMIL's mother laughed
I made it very clear to them both that this wasn't right.
While the rest of us went inside and I continued to question XP myself, XMIL went to the corner shop but I don't think she even got that far because, about 5 minutes later, I saw the boy came back down the road with who was presumably his dad shortly before I heard them shouting at XMIL, who by that time had gotten into her car.
I pointed this out to XP who just walked into the rear of his house and let her take the abuse.
XP started spouting some rubbish about "maybe there's too many of them around" (the boy and his father are Middle Eastern) and that "there's going to be a civil war - us against them - soon"
I'd never heard him say anything like that before.
He insisted that he'd "just tapped him" which is impossible to do with a near arm-span length of tape measure and couldn't even remember what the boy had been wearing when I pointed out that he had a jumper from DS's school.
Eventually XP's friend, who was inside at the time, persuaded him to go to the boy's father's shop to apologise.
They returned with a story about XP having shaken both the boy's and father's hand which I simply don't believe and which I'll be going to the shop to check on Monday.
As soon as this happened, I knew I couldn't let our DS have any more of the unsupervised contact which had been happening since we separated nearly 5 years ago and since XMIL made me sign a parental responsibility agreement under duress, threatening all contact between XP & DS to be withdrawn otherwise, despite my
concerns about his anger even then and his very heavy cannabis use, which continues.
I feel so stupid for letting things get this far, especially as I know exactly what I'd be advising if I'd seen a post by anyone else to this effect.
XP has a caution for hitting me for the second time before we patched things up, then we separated due to other reasons/the final straw.
At the time I was advised to stop contact and let XP take me to court, but I turned a blind eye to his abuse, hoping they were one-off...s...
Nearly 2 years ago, XP was getting annoyed by DS being distressed on a train we took as a treat for DS's brthday, so XP kicked him really hard in the shins
I let DS see him because DS still wanted to, but I don't want him growing up aggressive like his dad... AND grandpa.
I do know though that, if I don't protect DS, no-one else will.
I'm not really sure what I'm asking here... bit of both?
AIBU?
WWYD?
I'll be discussing it with the school and at the child and family therapy appointment we're due to have next week, but should I be contacting the police?