AIBU to suggest a solicitors letter? Malicious accusation to Social Services

[PearlyG8]

I'm a long absent but long term MNer hoping for MN wisdom on a knotty subject.

I just had a call from my partner's cousin whose MIL has just called Social Services to make accusations, primarily about cousin's pregnant sister but encompassing both families (cousin has 2 primary school age children, sister has 1).

There has been huge conflict between MIL and cousin over the years. I have met MIL a couple of times at family occasions, she was perfectly pleasant and seemed reasonable. A couple of years ago I heard there had been a major upset and saw a really unpleasant message she'd sent to cousin's mum which definitely colours my view.

As I understand it the accusations about cousin's sister and young child are based on a phone conversation with 6 year old grandchild. MIL has no direct contact with sister.

Is there anything cousin or sister can do? Cousin was really annoyed about potential waste of scarce resources investigating as she knows the pressure SS are under because of her volunteering work. She's obviously very concerned about the upset to her pregnant sister too.

Any MN advice appreciated.

Honestly, if this is the first time this has happened, the best thing you can do us let ss do their job. It will be clear the child is not abused. Your cousin can even discuss with the social worker how this is a malicious call, and that she doesn’t want to waste already limited resources. If the woman continually does this,

It is upsetting, but if it happens again, then social services has policies to warn the accuser about malicious reports.

I don’t think a solicitors letter will do much, as this woman has already escalated it.

Thank you, that's really helpful.

Social services receive malicious reports all the time. They have processes for dealing with them and unless there really are concerns they will close the case quite quickly.

I'm sure that's true. Is it worth suggesting to cousin that she asks SS what their policy is about malicious reports?

I've had a malicious referral made. Ss said nothing could be done (even though it was proven to be a lie) and that they just have to do their investigation anyway which is fair enough. Imagine how many people who get reported claiming it's malicious?

It happens unfortunately - my ex has tried this a couple times.

Ss do have a duty to investigate but they also have policies/procedures for dealing with malicious reports.

I've not had one for a while now from ex so I suspect he got quite a ticking off re wasting resources etc.

I’ve been maliciously reported too. I told them my ex was behind it and offered to take a day off work for them to come and meet me and DD. SS sounded completely disinterested, but asked if she could put in a welfare check to DDs nursery which I wholly supported. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was very upsetting so I feel for your cousin

SS done a full assessment on me but closed the case. They said to me that if it's only the one report they wouldn't act on it being malicious. Only if it was happening frequently.

The best thing they can do is be open and welcoming and just let SS do their job. It'll take them no time at all to assess that their time is being wasted and they'll just do the needful and move on. They were very nice and totally understanding when something similar happened to us. As upsetting as it is it's best to not turn it into a huge drama, that's exactly what the malicious complainant wants.

I just wouldn’t get involved.

SS have procedures in place - assuming of course the MIL (a) actually made a complaint (b) she didn’t do it anonymously.

This is on the peripherals of stuff I touch on, but I’d rather have 10 alerts cross my desk that are unfounded, than another Baby P.

Look at the degrees of seperation - my partners cousins MIL has complained about my partners cousins sister - it borders on the ridiculous - where do you all live to have this close degree of proximity?

Incidentally - SS wont tell the your partners cousins sister that it was her sisters MIL that made the report.

They will be able to tell quite quickly if it’s a malicious report - they get a huge amount of them, as ss are the ultimate bogey man in our society (unfortunately).

Also, if she continues to make reports they will be able to ignore her without going through everything after the first time.

I found out this year that I had a malicious report made about me a few years ago. They didn’t actually investigate it as it didn’t meet their requirements to open a case, thank goodness! I was really upset to find out though, and I’m glad it didn’t trigger a full blown investigation, as it would have been incredibly upsetting. It was someone complaining that I was ‘misusing’ my money by not spending it on the ‘right’ childcare... which ss correctly identified as someone angry I wasn’t handing over my money, and child, to their greedy little selves! There was other stuff too, to make it sound less about money, but the main point they kept coming back to was that I was ‘not right in the head’ and shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions about my own money because I was err, endangering my own child. And when asked for examples the only one they could come up with was that I was spending my money on the ‘wrong childcare’, oh and I’d give my child to anyone and they didn’t have consistency of care.

Quite rightly children’s services didn’t pursue any kind of investigation as there didn’t seem to be any actual concerns about my child’s safety or wellbeing.

This delightful public spirited person wouldn’t leave a name but I do know that i moved from a nanny who I didn’t employ beyond her 3 mth probation period, to a part nursery, part new (better!) nanny situation. I suspect the disgruntled old nanny decided she didn’t like that very much. In which case maybe she should have been a better nanny then, I’d suggest (like, not texting her boyfriend all day and leaving my baby unattended!), instead of making malicious calls to ss!

Thank you all for the help and advice.

Can I ask kitkatsky if that means the first contact to the school to see if there are any concerns could be enough to completely deal with things?

I do agree with you about reacting to every suspicion to prevent another baby P HollyBayTree. As far as I know there's no secret about MIL contacting SS and saying, rather as WellThis's nanny, that all the parents involved are 'not right in the head', her firm view about the entire family her son has married into.

Re proximity I'm only involved because partner's cousin wanted to talk it through with another mum and we're all seeing each other at a family funeral tomorrow. Generally speaking I have enough on my plate to avoid anything avoidable! If any child in my extended family needed help I'd want to offer it though.

(Not really relevant HollyBayTree but partner has over 50 cousins who mostly grew up near each other although widely dispersed now! )

A relative did this to me. I believe their concerns were genuine, thoroughly misguided and it was malicious to contact SS

All that happened was a call all be it a long one with a social worker and then she did her checks with other agencies (school, GP etc) and closed it as the concerns of this relative are not enough to warrant resources and intervention from SS and they disagree with the relatives "solution" they wanted to enforce on me

On the bright side... I can no longer be threatened with being reported to SS if I don't do x, y or z (which the relative misguidedly assumed would solve everything magically if I had)