Text messages as evidence in court

[getinmybelly]

A worrying situation is brewing with dp's exw. She often sends him texts referring to 'agreements' for care of the dcs that don't exist, to try to make it appear that he is being unreasonable or is going back on a formal arrangement when in fact there is no formalised childcare/contact arrangement between them as yet. This happens when she wants something, like to have the children for a weekend that she was not originally going to. They have a verbal arrangement from when they separated that she claimed they would reassess after a certain period, but she refuses to discuss it and creates large drama/conflicts around any potential change to the arrangements. She either enforces the initial verbal arrangement with rigid inflexibility, or changes it whenever she feels like it to suit her, and then reinforces these changes with these text allusions to 'agreements' that haven't happened, or threats of bringing the police around if he doesn't do what she claims they have agreed . He backs down to prevent conflict situations for the children as she seems to be prepared to take things pretty far to get what she wants, but he has been trying hard to get her to mediation to formulate something in writing (she has so far balked at this idea).

She also sends texts that relate to verbal disagreements that have happened, sometimes a long time after the event, sometimes soon after, in which she explicitly accuses him of being abusive or aggressive, and often inserts details about these events into these texts that just aren't true. It is quite bizarre and worrying. I can feel that these texts are being positioned and designed in such a way as to present a not very nice picture of him, and he's not sure whether it helps to reply challenging the facts in these messages, or just to ignore them - the same with texts alluding to 'agreements'. Replying potentially engages him in unpleasant text exchanges which he would rather avoid, but not replying presents no alternative to what she is presenting as 'facts'.

He is hoping to resolve things by mediation but if the situation does end up in court, how much weight might these kinds of messages carry? Would he need to prove that the contents of these messages are not true and how could he do this?

In my case this is the same that happened to me but my LO's dad was saying they weren't true when in fact they were true. His idea was to make out to the court I was lying. Fortunately for me the court didn't believe him these were put in our court bundle with his emails stating these never happened etc. and he was question on them buy my barrister but mentioned far to much information than that was in the message to make out he knew nothing about them.

I know this doesn't help, sorry

It helps a bit - if she/he was questioned I think it would become obvious quite quickly that what she's saying isn't true, and she has been very inconsistent.

Then that would help incredibly. Does your Partner have a barrister? If not if he goes to court he needs to ask questions like;

when did these conversations take place?
If via phone/email/text what date and time? where is the proof? If she says in person he needs to ask where, when, time, what was the whole conversation, etc. The judge will pick up rather soon that she is making this up.

What I learnt on a course your Partner needs to treat her like a business like relationship he needs to start emailing her instead of texting if he can attaching delivery reports to them all, if he ever talks to her in person and doesn't have anyone else there he needs to write down what was said, attitude, body language etc then send her an email stating something like;

"Dear Mrs ......

further to our verbal conversation at ..... time, ..... date at ....... location this is to sum up our conversation including what was said by whom, you asked if you can have the children at .... time and day but as I said it was my time with the children and I was unable to swap to an alternative time due to plans.

I trust you understood see you at ........ for pick up/drop off

Mr ......."

I had to do this to my LO's dad and it works very well the judge/mediatior can see you are taking it very seriously, you've been nothing but polite and child focus don't let him get into blaming her or things she can try and make look like he's trying to start an argument.

They gave a couple of good websites and if I can find them I'll post them.

www.midmediation.org.uk/index.php/contact-activity-orders/separated-parents-information-programme-spip/?doing_wp_cron=1385740939.1407999992370605468750

These are CAFCASS recommended and the judge would be rather impressed he tried to 'better himself' without prompt and didn't need to be court reffereed

Thank you, that is helpful. Sadly this is the sort of thing that she sends him in a text after a disagreement, but it's not true!! This is what is so difficult - but you are right about the emails I think it would be better like that. The other thing is that he has journalled all of these things and has all the details of the disagreements and what was said, (including occasionally things he said that he wasn't proud of), and the texts she sends just don't correlate with the actual events - so he would be able to answer those questions easily and she would probably not...

Thanks for that...

The fact that he has documented things he's said which he isn't proud of would show the judge that he is being extremely realistic and he's not one sided and only feeding the information that he wants to show which more often that not happens in this case. She will most likely send him emails that will really irate him if she messages him saying he can't have the children on his days don't argue with her just simply reiterated that as per their mutual agreement it is his turn to have the children and because he didn't agree to swapping days he will be collecting the children as planned and he requests that they be ready and available for contact. The police will not get involved due to it being a civil matter so he's not to worry about that. You may find she plays sneaky and goes out so when he comes to collect the children she's not there he needs to video him knocking the door with no answer and make sure its time and date stamped so he has proof of him going to collect them as promised and then send her an email stating he went to pick up and there was no answer due to this you feel it's fair if you re-arrange dates and reiterate you will be picking them up on the next arranged date and then make a note of it. The judge won't be impressed with her playing these games.

www.cafcass.gov.uk/media/2843/Parenting_handbook%20March%202012%20FINAL.pdf

This is the booklet you receive on the course if the course is court ordered it's free, if it's not it's about £150 to go on it but the courts would really appreciate it. The book is VERY helpful to parents whom are willing to co-operate and be child focus