Bear with me, this may be long & I am slightly vague on some of the details as I was not with my DH at the time most of this happened so am relying on others' interpretations of the situation. As it stands I have not met the children involved despite them now being my nephews & have only met BIL twice.
DH has a brother who has two sons born less than a year apart; they are now 12 & 11. When they were small (3 & 2 approx) it became clear that BIL & his now ex were not taking care of them properly (both drug addicts, undiagnosed/treated mental health issues, BIL in & out of prison), social services were involved & the children were removed from their care. A residency order was granted stating they were to be placed with their maternal grandparents who would decide who the children could/could not see but the order stated that they were not allowed to stay over unsupervised at either parents' home, nor with my PIL due to both PIL being registered disabled. DH was deemed suitable custodian for one, but not both of the children and was refused as all parties felt it was better that they remained together. Shortly after this the relationship between maternal GP's & PIL broke down completely, BIL's drug use escalated rapidly and he went back into prison for a more considerable stretch. Not seeing their GC's having previously been extremely involved really hurt my PIL. A couple of years after this, BIL came out of prison and contact was established again briefly. However the situation did not last long and there has been no contact with the children at all and only a little with BIL. This has been the situation for the past 4-5 years.
About a month ago MIL was contacted through FB by BIL's new girlfriend having not heard anything from him for almost a year. He had suffered a breakdown and had returned to his drug abuse but has come through it; they are both working full time, he is on medication for MH issues (now diagnosed) & they are expecting a baby. They are also having regular contact with the children who stay over on a Saturday night every other weekend. This is where it gets confusing. BIL & his ex-P are now seeing the children on a regular basis despite this going against the residency order as I understand it. There have been some issues with one of the children; he is not getting on well with maternal GM and ran away, was returned by the police & has since been living back with his mother, despite this also breaching the residency order. There is no further SS involvement AFAIK. However PIL are still bring refused contact although children want it, BIL is happy about it & has facilitated this already, supervised within his home. MIL is going to see a solicitor to see where she stands. I have been under the impression that GP's rights are a myth? If solicitor feels she has a case, how does this progress? She has stated that we may have to write a letter to vouch for them as GP which I am not certain is correct? DH & I are deeply concerned that a solicitor may get their hopes up only for it to all fall apart again. We have recently moved 5-6 hours away and they miss our DC's dreadfully & I'm so worried about what this would do to them if it didn't go the way they hope.
Sorry, essay! Thanks if you got this far. It feels better just getting it all out in the open.