bulling by ex and his girlfriend

[OneWaySystemBlues]

I'm writing this about a friend who has recently divorced her ex, which has been a long, drawn out process. They have 3 children together, aged 13, 10 and 6. All the way through he has been sending her horrible texts and emails, usually saying stuff like she is pathetic, incompetent, only wants his money (despite the fact she is only after support for his children), having a go at her for being on benefits etc etc. Yesterday, great timing, she got a text from his new partner, saying much of the same - how she was useless, should get a job and stop asking her ex for money (which she isn't), how her children are ashamed of being on free school dinners and how badly behaved her youngest is.

Her ex seems to have something against the youngest child, who is 6, and is refusing to take this child on holiday as he says the behaviour of the child is affecting his relationship with the other 2 children. He slags my friend off to his new partner, to the children and has put obstacles up all the way through the divorce, at the same time blaming her for it taking too long. Even though the divorce is final, the money bit hasn't been finalised yet - I don't know how that happened, and he is dragging his feet on that, leaving my friend with a lot of uncertainty as to income and support for the children.

My question is, how should she handle this bullying from her ex and his partner? What is the best way for them to communicate? She is ignoring as much of it as possible, but some of it is really vitriolic. Can her solicitor do anything? Should she involve the police - although no threats have been made, just general bullying, undermining and nasty words. I don't have any experience in this so would appreciate any words of wisdom from anyone.

She has to keep all the texts & emails & show them to her solicitor. Trouble is whatever his new lady says about the kids could bite him in the bum hard & although it'll drag out the divorce longer it'll make him realise he's gotta watch his mouth & keep a tight leash on his woman before it gets to the point where the kids get affected. Bear in mind if the 13 year old doesn't like what's going on or if they overhear they're well within their rights to say I don't want to see or hear from him again. As long as your friend doesn't reply to these messages & just takes them to her solicitor she's not doing anything wrong. X

My DP has had a very similar situation and found this from the CPS website helpful:

Harassment

In this legal guidance, the term harassment is used to cover the 'causing alarm or distress' offences under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 as amended (PHA), and 'putting people in fear of violence' offences under section 4 of the PHA. The term can also include harassment by two or more defendants against an individual or harassment against more than one victim.

Although harassment is not specifically defined it can include repeated attempts to impose unwanted communications and contacts upon a victim in a manner that could be expected to cause distress or fear in any reasonable person.

The harassment of another or others can include a range of offences such as those under: the Protection from Harassment Act 1997; the Offences Against the Person Act 1861; the Sexual Offences Act 2003; and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. It is important when considering this type of offending to look at all relevant legislation when formulating charges.

Harassment of an individual can also occur when a person is harassing others connected with the individual, knowing that this behaviour will affect their victim as well as the other people that the person appears to be targeting their actions towards. This is known as 'stalking by proxy'. Family members, friends and employees of the victim may be subjected to this.

He has now reported his ex to the police and they said that they intend to prosecute. I started a thread in legal if you want to see what he has had to put up with. His solicitor also wrote a letter to his ex with bullet points re her unacceptable conduct and saying that he would seek a restraining order if she did not stop.

Your friend does not have to put up with this, please encourage her to get legal advice.

The first thing your friend has to do is send just one text saying "I want you to stop sending me abusive and unpleasant texts." That's all. It removes her X's ability to claim that he didn't know they were upsetting her because he was just 'discussing' their children.

The second thing she should do if the texts/emails continue, is see the police. This IS harassment and she can stop it. I hope she's keeping them all. If she isn't, she needs to start now.

The third thing I would do in her situation is contact social services for advice. I would be thinking about going to court to establish supervised contact, since the exclusion of the 6 year old is going to have all sorts of unpleasant consequences for the dynamic between the children and is highly suggestive of an attempt to control and manipulate the children in order to suit the X's own agenda. In which case, there welfare is not being best served by his continuing to have them unsupervised.

If she's hoping this will all go away if she doesn't protest too much, she's going to be waiting for a long time. The only way to deal with a manipulative bully like this is to use the strength of the law to put him back under the rock he crawled out from.

Thanks for all that. She is keeping records and is forwarding most of the emails and texts to her solicitor. When the money bit is out of the way she may then take some legal action, but is waiting for that to be sorted, which hopefully it almost is. I'll pass this link to her so she can read it herself - but if there are any more ideas, please keep them coming.

Your poor friend . Her ex should like a knobhead and she is well rid btw.

What kind of father resents his youngest child , ?

A crap one .

Is there an online Txt storing thing she can use ?
To save the txt on ,incase she needs them to prove he's harassing and abusing her via txt .

All three should go on holiday or none - I'd be putting my foot down over that one.