DV and father's

[ThisGentleWriter]

my grandson"s father is in prison for abusing my daughter. he wants me to skype with him and his son. His son was 11 months old when he went to prison. what would be best for the child?

I would be seeking professional help with this. Are social services involved? Does the father have probation officer? Is victim support still a thing?
Sorry i have no real help

Thank you. Social services are not involved atm as he lives with my daughter and he is in prison. When he comes out she has been advised to go through family court so only access he can have is supervised. He is in prison now so can't harm child on Skype. But is it better to maintain a relationship with a violent father or let my grandson forget all about him

I wouldn't. It would increase the chances of him getting a contact order when he's out of prison. What does your daughter want you to do?

He will have a probation officer, either in prison or in the community, dependening on what stage of his sentence he is at. Call the probation office near to his home address and they’ll be able to pass your details on.
Have children’s services been involved? They usually are with DV cases: google Children’s Services in your grandson’s local area.
If he poses a risk to your grandson both services need to know. Equally, is he using your grandson as a tool to cause further harm to your daughter?

You can ask the prison to block your number if you don’t want him to call you.

Sorry: others posted and you updated as I was typing. How long til he is released?

And how old is your grandson now?

Does your daughter know he's made this request?

15 months

Not yet. Don't want to upset her

He has not been sentenced yet. Has plead guilty and will go to crown court for sentencing. But they only do 40% of a sentence now and he has already served 5 months on remand

15 mo children don’t want to Skype. Tell your DD and don’t facilitate it.

I absolutely would not facilitate any kind of contact! No father is better than a bad father! I know this from personal experience!

I don't know why you are asking us when you haven't even discussed it with the child's other parent.

My instincts say no.

If you establish any kind of relationship now then it's more likely that the father will get more contact, earlier later on.

Courts generally don't stop violent fathers from seeing their children unless they were violent to the child. It's not unlikely that he will get overnights or unsupervised contact in the future. Don't help him speed up the time line for this.

Did realise he was only 15 months old! This is not in the child’s best interests. This is your daughter’s decision to make, but personally I wouldn’t even mention it to her. I would block his number and stay out of it. He shouldn’t be contacting you behind your daughters back.

why is he asking you and not your daughter?
maybe because he already asked her and she said no?
or maybe because he thinks she will say no?

its best if you tell her and see what she thinks but like everyone else I would not be facilitating this
skype/video calls are a disaster with small children anyway and I'd be surprised if prison allowed it
this would absolutely be in the abusers interests and not the childs

How is it better to maintain a relationship with a violet father , sure WTF good is he in anyone’s life !!!! & he’s In jail for violence against your daughter ..
How he can’t harm the child on Skype !!!!
Read that back to yourself ! !
To answer your question, I’d leave your grandson forget about him , yes …….

When you say he can’t harm the child via Skype, I have two points to raise. First is that he can absolutely cause emotional and psychological harm. Secondly, prisoners cannot use Skype so if he is asking this specifically then he has a mobile. Prisons can do video calls so I appreciate the wrong terminology might just be used.

edited as saw your update that your daughter doesn’t know. Assuming she is also a victim of his abuse, why are you entertaining any contact with this man?

Leave this to your daughter, it isn't really any of your business unless she decides to discuss it with you. Surely you're not considering going behind her back to facilitate contact with a man that abused her? The more contact he has, the more likely he will get the opportunity to abuse your daughter and grandchild in the future.

Just to clarify he is under a legal injunction to not contact my daughter which is why he writes to me. I am not sure that doesn't break the injunction as it says or through indirect means. I have discussed it with my daughter since posting our gut reaction is No. I will write back no and don't write again. His letters upset me and devastate my daughter. However, we worry. What if my grandson asks why we never let him see his Dad. When he is older obviously. It is a mine field. But this thread has re informed for us it is more likely to re traumatise him and unstabalise him. Thank you

I once knew someone in a similar situation and she told her (infant school age) child that 'Daddy didn't know how to be a good Daddy, so that's why we don't see him'

If you contact the prison you can ask that he is no longer permitted to contact you and he won’t be able to send you any more letters. I would be of the view that this is indirect contact and likely breaching any restraining order/non-molestation order or bail conditions that he has!