My partner died 4 1/2 years ago leaving me with our 3 girls who are now aged 9, 8 and 5. At the time of his death, his mother was living in Scotland, however she moved 250 miles south to be nearer to us and to 'help.'. To cut a long story short her manipulative and controlling behaviour has destroyed any relationship she had with me and the girls. It took just 12 months from her moving down here. The effect of her behaviour has had a devastating effect on my girls and I stopped her having unsupervised contact a year ago. She did not like this and has fought me every step of the way resulting in the threat of court proceedings from her last July. We are now due to start mediation next week. I want to try my best to find a way forward and I have never stopped her from seeing her granddaughters, I just think the contact should be supervised in view of how she has acted in the past. Since i insisted on supervised contact she has visited the children just 6 times in 12 months. I am worried that if mediation fails, this will go to court and the decision will be taken out of my hands. I just wondered if anyone had been through something similar and what her chances are of being granted unsupervised access? I understand children have the right to see their grandparents but surely there has to be some constraints when their welfare is at risk.