Hi Guys I know I am a pain but I am really upset.

[Karenthetoadslayer]

Toad must have broken into the house when we were away and took a large and valuable cutlery set that my parents gave me. Previously I had the set in storage, but I took everything out of storage at the beginning of the year and when we went on holiday, I put valuables in a "secret place" in the house.

I just wanted to put everything back and realised the set is missing. He was after that and tried to take it, when he got evicted (I had covered the empty boxes and saw that these had been messed with).

I have no evidence that he took it, of course.

I wondered why he had taken the silver polish - now I know!

Karen, I actually meant that you need to be very very sure that your solicitor is deflecting the bully as that is why you have hired her. You are trying to put her between you and Toad and you need to be sure that is actually happening.

I have alerted her to the fact that Toad will still want to return to the house when the orders expire and stall the sale which is exactly what he has in mind. We are going to have to renew the occupation order. Toad says he has to have access to check repair work to put the house on the market. We say he doesn't, I can do that. However, if we refuse outright, he is more likely to be able to kick up a fuss and will be able to say that the has to have some access or move back in, it's his house after all. If we allow some access strictly supervised, he has nothing to complain about and we can stay and make sure that the house will finally go on the market and we will be able to untangle ourselves. If we move out, which he would pay for, the house will never get sold and we would have to force the sale at some point.

That's the theory. In practice, I am scared out of my mind.

He has agreed to be there for no more than half an hour. I don't know why the builder is doing that, though.

Toad knows that he will go to prison if he does not behave. In his situation, I would not even want to take my chances and stay away.

Toad knows that he will go to prison if he does not behave.

I don't know that he does. He has sent you mails and you haven't reported him.

Fingers crossed for you.

This is a very good point Lweji I am not quite sure why we are not doing this and I am not at all happy. He has been warned and he has stopped sending personal mails. But now he is sending masses of mails about the house.

I will of course have to draw the line when he is for example, refusing to leave. That's different to writing a mail.

I will talk it through again with my solicitor in the morning and then decide. If he is being evasive about the conditions, it's off. This is not about mails, it's about my children's safety. I can ignore mails for the sake of getting somewhere to finally achieve finality, but I can't have him in the house.

We have already announced that we are going to renew the occupation order.

I inferred the reasoning behind it - to stop Toad making a fuss - but I can't see why he can't nominate a third party. His access is not being 'strictly supervised', it's being left to some poor builder. Furthermore, having succeeded at this he will make more demands to come to the house.

If it was the other way round - that he had a occupation order against you and he wouldn't let you in the house to pick up some things of yours - you would make an appointment with the police to go and pick up your stuff accompanied, to avoid a 'breach of the peace'. Of course that's not the same scenario but you get the point.

He has already breached the non-mol by emailing you. What makes your solicitor think he will stop trying to get into the house if you let him in this time?

He's pushing boundaries and he has got away with it so far.
He knows that it won't look good if he shows that you weren't so upset that you reported him.
And he shows that he doesn't care about the orders.

You have to pull him up on the little things, or you'll end up in big trouble.

ATM he knows neither you or your solicitor want to upset him.
Well, fuck him.

Do go and work for the competition. Do make it hard for him to inspect the house and do report him for every single breach of the order until going to jail and staying there is a real prospect.
Then give off a little if he makes you happy.

For a start, I am not letting him into the house. He is not allowed access to the house as such, just the empty conservatory.

The situation with the builder was basically Toad's idea. I have no idea why he is even doing this.

Totally agree, this will lead to more demands. He will see that jobs need doing and he will find reasons why he has to do them himself and so on.

Going round in circles here. I will have to go through this again first thing with my solicitor.

Good luck Karen. I agree with lweji and twinkle - at some stage you will have to stand up to his bullying. Otherwise it will go so far, that you will be seen to be 'ok' with it. He has ignored most of the rulings against him, and not seen any consequences.

I know you are terrified of him, and it is a effing miracle you have got away from him. Please start pushing him back.

Hope your solicitor does a better job of protecting you and your dc from him today.

(Re the floor tiles - why can't your builder go to Toads place with the samples in the back of the van and show him? Re 'inspecting the works' - why not photos? Video?)

Hope you get a helpful conversation this morning.

It sounds like your solicitor just doesn't understand abuse, and is working from the basic premise that Toad is actually a reasonable and rational person under all the crap. He is not. A shl who understands abuse knows that Toad is far from rational in any normal sense of the word, and that he must be fought tooth and nail with no concessions whatsoever. There is no keeping a man like him sweet.

You mentioned a German shl upthread somewhere. Can you contact him for an informal chat? I believe WA could give you details of a 1 stop shop too, which I think you do need.

Good luck this morning, KB.

Delurking to say thinking of you today. Am also worried that your solicitor thinks this is OK. Am not any sort of legal eagle though, it just doesn't make sense to me. Rooting for you K.

I am so hoping that he is not going to accuse me of attempted murder.

Just as I was about to leave and had squeezed an email agreement out of Toad regarding the conditions of his visit, virtually 15 minutes before he was due to arrive, I heard a loud bang right by the back entrance where he was supposed to come in and I had left it open. A massive branch of our huge tree in the back garden had come crashing down in the storm and completely flattened the washing line. What a near miss!

Toad has come and gone and his yucky scent is still stinking the place out.

Of course he has immediately written to me that I should pay for the damage. Of course I am not going to do any such thing.

This:

I have complete faith in my solicitor. She has handled everything absolutely brilliantly and meticulously and what needs to be done now is to conclude everything. So we ignore what we can to to achieve a managed outcome.

Of course we all know that he is not a reasonable man.

Still of course after one year it is tough but it has to be done. Main thing is to try and detach more.

I do what I can.

It's a real shame the branch missed.

|Twinkle - Karma! Only 15mins out. Maybe next time (Pestilence, next time?)

Karen, so did he abide by the ruling? I bet he has something vile to say.

Glad it went to plan. Sorry for my previous comment.

Still waiting for the verbal onslaught tbh.

For today I shall not look at that email account anymore.

For the avoidance of doubt I was not sitting in the tree all night hacking away at it.

Better take lots of photos, to back up that statement, karen

"this axe officer? Oh I was just chopping some meat, you know how tough some of those cheap cuts are!" :o

Glad it went well. :)

(except the attempted murder via tree)

Karen - I'm glad it's over and seems to have gone well enough. Shame the branch couldn't have hung on just a little bit longer but it seems like you need him alive to get the money out of him, yes?

If you're happy that your solicitor completely understands your position and how dangerous your H is, then that's fine - it looked as though she wasn't really taking it very seriously from your previous posts.

Would you be able to get someone else to read your emails that Toad sends you, and then let you know the gist of what's in them, so that you don't have to do it yourself? Although in reality, he's still in breach of his non-contact order, so you shouldn't still be receiving so much from him!

Is the game plan to give himself enough rope to hang himself twice over, or something? It just seems a shame that you have to cop the brunt of it while you're waiting to cumulatively strike back.

I am still spooked by the tree. This tree is one of the oldest trees round here and of course it has a protection order. It has been fine for such a long time and just before Toad came, a major branch fell in front of the door that he was about to go through. The more I think about it, the more it freaks me out. It is an omen. [Halloween Emoticon]

Isn't Mother Nature wonderful?