What to put in a Non Molestation order

[Resisterance]

I'm applying for a Non Molestation order (and have accepted grounds for this by a solicitor) but the draft wording on the generic Non Mol seems to apply more to fathers/ex partners who are violent or who are not allowed to see their children.

My DC's father is an incredibly charming and intelligent professional, who is something approaching sociopathic, so my issue isn't physical abuse but years of ongoing carefully worded repetitive harassing emails and messing about with childcare and the court order (which he instigated in the first place) which make life intolerable and make parenting really challenging as well as getting support as so much of this is for physical issues rather than coercive control.

He does see DC (as per CAO) so I can't create an exclusion zone for us, so for me it's addressing the long tedious essays he writes constantly in pseudo legalese which whilst on the surface seem like he's concerned for our DC, are actually veiled threats to me, constantly changing plans, making everything look like I'm a crazy stalker, maliciously reporting me regularly to social services and other agencies for alleged abuse, taking advantage of the fact that I was seriously ill with C19 to change the CAO arrangements and not change them back, never telling me if he's collect DC or not etc etc etc.

This is a long winded way of saying, how do I phrase a Non Mol to address these issues where he will still have to drop DC off to my home (not allowed in so drops to pavement currently) and collect from school etc. I'm really stuck on wording that he will then spend ages on unpicking to try to find the loopholes and wriggle around the wording - which he's done with the court order already making that a total nightmare to manage. Advice please!

Do you not think you're going down the wrong path here? This is about managing communication regarding the children - so perhaps better within Children Act proceedings if at all.

I think you'll come up against a brick wall asking a judge for a non-mol on this (I appreciate I haven't seen all of the details but this is my first impression and is likely to be the judge's as well).

So to be clear you want

Stick to the court order

Stop threatening

Stop dicking the kids around?

Does your solicitor believe this is best or court?

Your non mol would have to be specific

Ie

No more malicious reports to xyz agency due to x amount of investigations all proving untrue and malicious

Hi OP.

First I want to apologise as I'm not a lawyer so if you would prefer to disregard my advice then of course please do, I am no expert in this subject, I just wanted to share my ideas with you.

From a brief look into non-mol orders, it looks like language is key. So mentioning that his language is coercive and controlling, intimidating, these are things that should be addressed as reasons why you no longer want to receive written communications from him. I assume that you will need to receive some form of communication from him though when it comes to DC?

I really don't know what you are and aren't allowed to put in these orders so I don't want to make a fool of myself or mislead you. I just wondered if you're able to request that any written communications from him are, say, bullet pointed, a total of 100 words or less, and no more than 'X' per week? So that way he can't send you wordy emails, and he can't circumvent that by sending you multiple shorter emails.

I'm prepared for somebody much more knowledgeable than me to come and tell me I'm full of hot air! I just wanted to respond to your thread and wish you the best of luck. I'm not like your partner but I do like myself a bit of 'legalese'

Thanks @collaborate but he's already taken me through court for CAO using children's act but behaviour is getting increasingly worse Police are behind me and asked me to apply for one so that they could do their job more easily but solicitor thinks i have plenty of grounds for non mol application

Well once non mol created they have to serve to ex so when he disagrees with it... which he will.. it will go to family court.. so yes back to court regardless

Do come back and let us know how you get on. I think you’re going to struggle because you’ll have to tightly define what he can and cannot do without strangling contact arrangements. I’d make sure that there were Children Act proceedings at the same time including a prohibited steps application.

Thanks @amemebyanyothername exactly this.. it's the continuous and lengthy emails which continuously make accusations, change plans, threaten etc etc.. i was thinking something like no more than 1 x email per week and no more than 4 lines etc but looking for suggestions about what to include along those lines and how to frame these so there are minimal loopholes

The process is under way so as i said I'd like suggestions/advice on what to include and how to write it rather than asking if I'm doing the right thing or have i looked at other approaches. Its been years of this behaviour and i cannot go on with this level of harassment any longer.

Thanks @collborate could you clarify this further.. what exactly is a prohibited steps order and can it run alongside a non mol?

The family court suggested putting in a c79 application today too as ex brought DC back six hours late.

@Resisterance ah well I'm very glad that my limited understanding might be of some help! I'm happy to offer suggestions and hopefully you can cross reference them with other posters' legal knowledge and build a successful statement.

I think the key to a judge taking it seriously would be an obvious impression throughout the statement that you are only interested in things that will benefit your child, and you're not attempting a power play of any kind.

You don't need for him to tell you if there is an immediate risk to your child's health when your child is in your care, as you would already know. There is no reason why he would need to contact you when you have DC, except to ask clear questions about his next visitation. If he genuinely believes that you are endangering DC, he needs to contact the relevant authority. There is no reason that he should contact you with 'concerns' about your parenting. So the bullet points should only ever be about practical issues regarding impending visitation arrangements.

Make it clear that you expect for him to speak to the appropriate people if he believes you are doing something wrong, and that you don't want to hear his concerns. Practical, practical, practical. He can't argue with you wanting practical communications from him. I wonder if you can also specify how far into the future he can discuss with you - so for example, if DCs birthday is in January, you want him to ask about arrangements in December, not in August? That would be very helpful I imagine.

The only other thing I'm keen to know is if you have any concerns that he will attempt to manipulate DC when in his care? If so I hope you would be able to add something about what you consider to be appropriate practice during visitation. It may be nigh on impossible to prove if he breaches that, but it would certainly help to have it covered if one day DC came home and told you 'Daddy said you XXXX'. At least then you could say that you expressly told him this is not acceptable practice. I have no idea if that's something you're allowed to do though.

I really hope you manage to get this through successfully. It's such a grey area but so many parents have the same struggles with ex partners, and I would really hope that these struggles would be taken as seriously as physical abuse, because coercive control and manipulation is a hideous form of abuse that flies under the radar time and time again.