Malicious allegations against my child

[BaileyRockallShannon]

If someone is making repeated allegations against my child (in writing) what can I do?

These are ’inappropriate behaviour’ allegations which have been investigated by social services and the police with no further action taken.

allegations are made in the context of an ongoing custody battle this person has with my child’s other parent (they have a child together) - my child and I do not have anything to do with this other person. My child’s other parent is logging with the police but should I also do the same?

What detail do you need?

if an allegation, that has been proven to be false or unfounded, has been repeated in writing - can I take my own legal advice on behalf of my child or log with police myself?

Hopefully there is someone here with either experience of this behaviour or legal qualifications who might know what options are available or advisable to protect my child from the fall out of a custody issue that they are not part of.

it is hard for me to know what to do for the best as I am not involved in the other people’s custody issues and don’t want to be.

Just to be clear. These are not further allegations. They are repeating the allegations that have already been investigated and no further action has been recommended.

So ex partner's wife/girlf who have a child together is alleging inappropriate behaviour by your child as a means to get full residence?

How serious are we talking here? Being rough with child, sexual abuse, beating them up? I would report to the police, however, be aware they may do their own investigation which could be distressing for your child, but is not a reason not to do it but just for awareness.

Just because this has been investigated with no further action, does not mean that your childs sibling did not experience what was alleged.
Family court proceedings should be private so you should not be told whats in the paper work anyway, and nothing will be made public.
However if the child's mother feels your child has in some way harmed her child ,she is entitled to bring it up in her own childcare proceedings.

Is it the exs new partner? And your ex cooperated with your child being investigated?

This is my Ex’s, ex partner. they got together a long time after me and my child’s father separated.

Social services don’t investigate children they investigate allegations and they speak to children with the police, after having a strategy meeting to see if they need to.

in this case they spoke to a child and said no further action needed to take place.

Both myself and my child’s father waited as calmly as we could as they went through this process as they are the ones with the expertise when dealing with allegations like these. It was hard but we understood the need for the process to take place.

I am now asking what would be the right thing for me to do about the repeating of the accusations after the decision for no further action was taken, if anything.

How old is your child?

What does your ex's solicitor say to do? I'm assuming they are negotiating custody and he has one.

His solicitor is helping him.

At the moment there are no family court proceedings and no court ordered custody agreement.

I am just wondering if I should do anything myself.

Who is this accusation being repeated to?

My ex partner. However it impacts our child and me.

If its being brought up privately in court papers or with social services then do nothing. If your child is bring slandered in public then i think you need legal advice.

I don't understand this at all. Who is the allegation about? And what is this to do with you & your child?

As far as I can see......

Your ex's ex wants to get more contact with her child with your ex

She is making allegations against your child when they are with your ex in order to achieve this

So far so good.

The issue might be when your child has children/access to children/needs a DBS check

The question then is I think what - if anything might happen in the future about these allegations

If they might have a future implication the next question is what if anything you can do to get them expunged from the record and/or is there any action you can take against the ex's ex

thank you for your reply.

fortunately my child has not been charged with anything and no further action will be taken. There is no record to expunge. Police and social services have confirmed the report made did not reach the threshold for abuse and they say they were not at any point investigating child abuse.

unfortunately the ex has now instructed a legal firm to write a letter which uses terminology like ‘sexual and physical abuse’ with no further evidence presented. I am aghast.

i don’t want to insert myself into this thing but in order to protect my child from someone determined to keep it going even after we received a no further action letter, I feel like I should seek legal advice.

If and when you get a letter I suggest having a good look at the Solicitors Code of Conduct on the Solicitors Regulatory Authority website and send a complaint to them if you think they have overstepped the mark.

You can pay a solicitor to say what you want in a letter. Just because it’s in a solicitor’s letter, it doesn’t mean it’s true.

I had someone make an anonymous malicious allegation about my h to social services. They investigated and shut it down quickly without talking to the kids because the details were obviously wrong. They told me at the time that if there is a repeat of this allegation from the same person that I could take police action for harassment but this anonymous person didn’t do it again. They sent a letter that they investigated, the case was closed and there was no truth to the allegations which I kept just in case.

I would talk to SS for advice. They will know whether to ignore or what process to follow to get her to leave you alone.

OP I can see you have posted in Legal, but the thread is coming up in Active so I’m not sure how many responses (like mine) are from non-lawyers.

given the future implications I would not leave it up to advice from SS (or even the police) and your ex’s solicitor is engaged to resolve the custody situation.

personally, I would be looking into finding a solicitor who has expertise in defamation and seeking advice from them. Some will do an initial 15mins for free but even if you have to pay for a consultation, I would consider a few hundred pounds to be well worth protecting my dc’s current and future interests.

Allegations made to the police and social services are covered by qualified privilege. In order to succeed with a libel claim on behalf of your child, you would have to prove they were malicious, i.e. that she knew the allegations were false and made them anyway. Whilst it may seem obvious to you that she is acting maliciously, it may be difficult to prove if she claims she believes the allegations she is making and says that she is making them out of concern for the safety of her child. If she believes her allegations to be true, it is not unreasonable for her to continue in that belief even after social services and the police have investigated.

Anything she says to her solicitor is protected by absolute privilege, which means you cannot successfully sue for libel on that basis. Witness statements, statements of case and so on are also protected by absolute privilege. Even if the letter is not protected by privilege, it is unlikely to give rise to a successful claim as it was only sent to your partner, and he knows the allegations are false.

With any claim for libel, there is the risk that going to court could result in her claims receiving much wider attention than it has currently.

I am unclear as to why your child needs protection. Police and social services have said that there will be no further action, so how is your child going to be harmed? None of her accusations will be on any public record. I understand that it is distressing to see your child accused like this, but it may be that your best course of action is simply to ignore it.

Thank you for your responses.

i don’t think I have a case for libel/defamation but I am interested in sending a letter back to the solicitor to note my objections RE the language used in the latest letter (letter not to me but to my ex’s solicitor)

There is also an added issue that the letter has stipulations in it based upon the incident being investigated. In other words “such and such thing can’t happen until the allegation is fully investigated”

My understanding is that it HAS been fully investigated by qualified professionals who work with children, and was closed with no further action several weeks before this new letter has been sent. I have verbal and written confirmation. So why is this person trying to continue labelling my child as an offender and what are they proposing they will do next so far as investigating goes?

At the very least I would like to know that this person and their family will not attempt to contact my child.

unfortunately there are now court proceedings (custody) happening between the other parties and I don’t want to muddy those waters.

Stipulations in a letter from a solicitor have no legal force. You can ignore them.

Writing to the solicitor to object to the contents of a letter he sent to your partner's solicitor will get you nowhere.

Your partner's ex is using these allegations to try and win the court case. It is highly unlikely she or her family will attempt to contact your child. If they do, you can take action against them.

Anything you do is likely to muddy the waters. I remain of the view that your best course is to ignore it.

Op I would strongly suggest you follow the advice prh47bridge. Her career is involved in this type of situation and her advice is based on that.

Thank you.

the stipulation was signed. Even though it wasn’t legally binding, that was the advice, and a response will be sent by ex’s solicitor.

The ex and her child have had previous contact (telephone) with my child so I have blocked them both on their phone as a precaution. Largely because my child is unaware of the reporting. I have had no contact with them for over a year.

I have sympathy with any mother who is worried about her child’s safety but do feel like all the correct investigations were done.

I'm not a lawyer, and obviously it depends a bit on your relationship and current contact. But, if you haven't already I would think that the single most supportive thing you could do would be sit down collaboratively with your ex and agree a contact schedule which gives you shared child plenty of time with your ex but means that your shared dc is at your house:

• any time the other child is at the other house
• any time the accusing parent might come to the other house
• any time another unrelated child is at the other house

That would be immensely supportive of your child (because it limits any future allegations to past incidents only) and of your ex (can be presented in court around contact)