Could you forgive a relative for a malicious social services report?

[TheLastDragons]

I’ve been thinking about something that happened years ago and wondered what other people’s views are.

Could you forgive a close family member who reported you to social services and by forgive, I mean stay in contact and still have them in your life?

For context, in this situation the report was completely malicious and unfounded. There were no safeguarding concerns about the children, and social services found nothing to support what was said and luckily I could disprove what had been said. The person who made the report never gave a proper explanation and initially denied doing it. They only admitted it when they were confronted with proof but it left me a long time not being able to trust people close to me and wondering who could have done it.

It also wasn’t a misunderstanding or someone acting out of genuine concern it genuinely seemed intended to cause harm, and possibly even to make it look like someone else had made the report, this is what I suspect was the intention.

Years later I still sometimes think about it and wonder how others would feel in that situation. Would you be able to forgive and move past it enough to keep that person in your life, or would it be a line that couldn’t be uncrossed?

To add to the school thing my children had literally just started as we had just moved so the school did not know me previously and the only thing they knew about me is I was being investigated by social services. So I feel it clouded their view of me whereas if they knew me or my children before the report they probably would have seen my parenting and that my children were well taken care of but because they didn’t know me they obviously believed what was written in the referral and it took a lot of time for me to feel like I weren’t being kept an eye on more so than other parents.

I would be vengeful for the rest of my life. If I could resist going round and thumping them in the head I would likely spend some time destroying them ie giving awful reviews if they had a business of whatever opportunity there was.

I would be highly unlikely to forgive. It would be one or the other- never think of it again or be furious about it for 10 years

"I would actually like to hear what they had to say for themselves just to hear what they would come up with"

Is that achievable, so you at least "have closure/can make sense of it" @TheLastDragons?

Is this person still in your life and do you have access to them?

If they were very young and had since grown up and throughly apologised for it and taken complete accountability for it and the trauma it caused, then maybe

No I don’t have them in my life anymore but they don’t accept it and constantly try to force their way back in but at no point have they ever given an explanation. Nothing they could say would make me forgive them but I am intrigued by what their aim was just because it backfired massively. The case was closed and now no one in the family speaks to them. I wouldn’t seek out an explanation though but they've never attempted to give one.

No, it’s unforgivable.

No

No, I wouldn’t. Was it an adult?

@AmandaBrotzman are you in the service?

Retention of records, just fyi

We are required by law to keep case records for a certain period of time depending on what sort of service we have provided.

The general rules are:
Children in need cases – 25 years
Child protection cases – 30 years
Looked after children cases – 100 years.

If we look after a child, we keep the case records for longer, so that as children grow up and want to know why they were looked after, they can see their records.

Is this what you are alluding to?

Yes

In that case there would be no way back for me, OP. Sorry this happened to you. X

I presume on the radar just means “known to”. One incident is hardly known to thought since SS spend most of their time dealing with the same families who really are “known”

No. Never.

Does the relative insist they did nothing wrong?

They act like it never happened. I haven’t spoken to them really since I found out anyway apart from the day I did find out. They started kicking off and becoming hostile so wasn’t really any explanation at the time.

No - I'm about to go NC with my 86 year old mil due to the amount of accusations she's made about me. Social worker came to see
me on Tuesday and told me they have a file on me there's been so many referrals. I've cared for my in-laws, done everything for them for the last 6 years and this is what I get???

Then no, I would not forgive. I’m currently estranged from my sister after she did something extremely spiteful but refuses to accept that it was out of spite

No I'd give them a wide berth.

I wouldn't forgive them either - nor would I ever forget it. I would never trust them again and any contact would be minimal.

You say the referral was all lies but then that the referral had things that only this person would know. So there was some truth in there? Are you sure it didn't come from a genuine place of concern?
How old was the person who reported it?

You’re adding 2&2 and getting 5. Things they could only know could just be things like “on 5th June the child was taken for a hearing test at tree town surgery” and only the malicious reporter knew that had happened.

The things that were in the copy of the report were comments made that had been twisted, see this is what I mean people will always try to say there must be some truth to it. You are never believed.

Thank you. Sigh, The thing in the referral was something that had been twisted and wasn’t even something to do with me. Hence why the social worker didn’t even mention it because it was so irrelevant, there was lots of weird irrelevant things in the report that the person had said. They weren’t mentioned because they were silly little things that weren’t social services matters.

No

Oh that’s awful, it causes so much unnecessary stress.