URGENT advice needed about unstable/abusive ex.

[nearlythree]

A friend of mine left her dh some months ago. Since then he has been turning up at work and abusing her, and making abusive phone calls and texts. He's also been drunk whilst in charge of their dd, even to the extent that he has driven her in the car when he is over the limit. Last night he had their dd and she was unwell; he couldn't handle it and rung her mum to give her a load of abuse - he couldn't even manage to give her Calpol (probably drunk IHO). Then this afternoon she got another long abusive phone call and he said he was going to kill himself. He managed to tell several family memebers of his intentions and his father went to his house to find him trying to gas himself in his car. Needless to say, my friend is terrified that next time he will try it with their dd in the back of the car.

So, what should she do to stop him having unsupervised access to their dd? Can she stop access altogether?

And can she get an injunction or similar to stop the harassment?

What should she do to look after her interests for when the divorce finally starts to go through?

TIA!

If the child is resident with her then she can do what she likes until a contact order is sought. Her may not even make an application, but I'd say he is more likely to use abuse and threats to get access by the sounds of things.

in this respect then some form of protective order may need to be sought. I know very little about this but I believe they have many loopholes and grey areas??

She could report the harrassment, keep logs of all calls etc.She could get an injucntion tostop him coming near her.
I would stop my dd going to her father (had similar experiences and my dds only went with his Mam -how helpful are his family?)
could SS do anything re supervised access ?as I guess your friend won't want to supervise it

How old is the dd btw, is she old enough to use a phone?I made a point of teaching dd1 my phone number/my mams number in case anything happened (even though my xh was supervised)

Thank you, this is very helpful.

One issue is that her mil acts as a childminder three days a week and believes her son to be perfect. So if she wants to stop contact presumably she should get another cm?

Their poor dd is only 18 mo. He's such a prick.

I will suggest she calls the police tomorrow am.

Thanks to you all again.

bump.

She doesn't have to hand the lo over if she'd be in danger, in fact she'd be mad to do so at the moment.

Yes, get a different childminder and make sure the new cm knows never to hand the child over to dad without mum's permission.

She could be proactive and apply for a prohibited steps order under the Children Act l989 to get an order banning him from seeing the child until he's been assessed by a psychiatrist. That's pretty draconian, though and courts don't often make those orders.

If she was one of my clients I'd be writing to him saying he can only see the child at a contact centre (v. secure playcentre, he can't remove her), until he's got himself some treatment.

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Thank you, mumblechum, crossed posts!