Toad's Solicitor phoned me at home unannounced after hours this evening

[Karenthetoadslayer]

I thought this would call for a new thread.

As I was preparing the children's dinner, the phone rang and guess who it was? Toad's solicitor, to have a chat about contact.

I am a friendly and polite person, also was in shock, so I complied and explained to him the children's views on their father.

DS thought I was 'cool'. .

You never know what will happen at the moment.

I think looking into legal aid again has got to be a priority.

Also stopping communications about the property.

And perhaps you could ask if there is a legal Secretary who could receive his post?

Finally, I'm not sure going bankrupt is so awful. A friend of mine did it and survived. :-)

I think contacting your MP is a good idea and showing WA or CAB some of the worst solicitor's letters. Obviously you can't say here what's in them, is the sol a member of resolution? A good solicitor with children at the forefront of their thinking would be toning down some of his most horrible demands.
One thing you must try to do is hide from them when he has hit your where it hurts.
Honestly best thing would be get all of this into court asap. They will want to see best solution for DCs and the toad will see the limits to what he can demand i.e. contact with an almost adult child who is quite capable of expressing his wishes and feelings cogently and rationally

The solicitor is a member of resolution.

It is simply shocking what he writes on a daily basis. He is just copying Toad's emails for him. I keep wondering how anyone can write so much nonsense. Contradicting himself from one paragraph to the next.

For example, Toad stole some of my things. We asked him to return them. He refused and still not returned anything. Now he complains why I wasted money in solicitor's correspondence to request my property back, whereas he could have just given it back.

Now he requests that I go bankrupt so my solicitor's bills won't have to be paid.

He got evicted due to domestic violence and complains every week in solicitors' correspondence about my unreasonable behaviour and unfounded allegations.

He requests the children and I should move out so he can move back in rather than finally putting the house on the market.

To make the point of threatening to move back in he has lived in a hotel for a year now and complains about having no money.

Every time I don't agree to something he sends through a new spread sheet reducing the assets allocated to me.

And that's just the solicitor writing on his behalf.

Honestly, if I could I would take myself to court to sort out contact. So someone puts down some rules and he stops messing about.

So what can the MP do? I am not even a Britosh citizen and neither are the DCs.

I agree, this will have to go to court now. After half term.

Are you getting advice on the legal board here, Karen?

Yes, Donkeys, it is I, don't wibble! I've still got tomatoes growing in the garden, here you go, they'll ripen if you put them on the windowsill.

Can you not simply start the divorce proceedings yourself? Unreasonable behaviour would surely be a walkover evidence-wise.

Only thought re MP or MEP is that Toad and his solicitor obviously don't respect you or deal with you in a respectful or businesslike manner but they might listen up when they get a letter on headed notepaper from someone whose position they do respect. They both sound as bad as each other.
Perhaps solicitor is enjoying laughing all the way to the bank? They must know his potential assets. They are supposed to advise as well as represent their clients.
I would write to the head of the firm and quote where Toady's henchman has broken this code
www.resolution.org.uk/code/

He said he is going to make sure I will go bankrupt.

Has he put that in writing?

I would definitely report every single threat and every single pestering mail to the police for harassment, and just put it all in court.

The solicitor must be laughing all the way to the bank.

He must be wasting thousands with these pages of emails in and equally long letters out every day almost.

We are not married dubfightin I have to issue under Schedule One and Tolata. And I am going to after half term. I have spoken to my family and we agree that I have nothing to loose and may as well go for it. I have to secure a roof over the children's head and get lump sums to start us off and he can afford that. Only he doesn't want to contribute at all and everything that has been negotiated so far he has now gone back on. Also, he has now made me redundant.

I have no choice but to go to court.

He has already got a PIN warning for saying this to my parents Lweji.

Yes he has put it in writing to my solicitor.

karen I think you need a solicitor's advice, my worry woul be that Mr T's solicitor somehow trips you up and through no fault of your own (putting contact aside) you will end up with less money, simple as that, as it seems he's making a financial settlement contingent on contact and he knows that it is one area on which there's no compromise so he can draw this out, apologies for oversimplifying but I think he's out to 'win'. The spreadsheet thing sounds so ridiculous. I'm surprised that there is no legal advice available for you, what about WA? or CAB? Rights of Women? As it is the court process could be tricky even if you're totally in the right. Sadly the 'right' party doesn't always win.

Your dc are not UK citizens? Were they not born in the UK? Is their father British? If toad is british, I think that makes them british?

I don't know how these things work, but if they are not british, what's to stop you taking them back to germany?

captsinmummy the DCs are not British because we are not married and I was not in the country for five years prior to their birth in the UK. However, in hindsight I could have had that waived as I was supporting myself and if you are 'of independent means' you don't have to wait five years.

This legislation has now changed, but too late for me. I can apply for them to be British which would set me back a small fortune.

Toad has parental rights and can therefore stop us from going back home which he is currently doing.

Application to leave the jurisdiction is a tough one, but I will do this, if I run out of other options, such as him trying everything to ruin me, including the DCs.

Thatsnotmyname- I am not sure if I can afford any more representation. This will be decided next week and after that I will look into legal aid again.

But I will have to write my statement carefully. I think this is the main thing and the judge is going to read this in the same way he will read Toad's.

Thank you all to help me channel my thoughts.

I really would urge you to get legal advice if you at all can. Otherwise you are not really playing on a level playing field.
Investigate the legal aid angle.
Are there any charities that offer free legal advice to victims of abuse MNetters?

What a ridiculous situation-- they are not British but at the same time you are not allowed to take them out of the country! (I'm sure Karen that you are more than aware of the ridiculousness of it all!) Really, this situation is taking up so much of your time and energy when you should be using it to move on, get work, etc-, you are essentially stuck, on that note I should thinkg you'd be entitled to some type of legal help, you are almost a prisoner of these circumstances (I'm thinking about human rights, which I actually know very little about).

Have you spoken to Rights of Women before? I don't know much about them but the website looks promising.

Karen - so what nationality are your dc? Does it mean that they are subject to the laws of their country...?

It's a minefield.

Afaia Karen does have a solicitor, but she cannot afford to pay the solicitor to deal with every piece of correspondence of Toad's, which is relentless despite the non-mol order.

Personally I think her solicitor has not been effective enough at getting Toad and his solicitor's behaviour under control - and challenging the harassment.

Right. Toad asked his solicitor to phone me to ask if the children would receive letters from him.

I confirmed that was fine and he can write one letter each and the children expect letters now during half term as agreed.

Now Toad does not want to write letters anymore...

[anger]

The DCs are German captain

That is sooooo typical.

Detachment.

Detachment.

Detachment.

If the solicitor rings, you could just say you are busy, could he call another time.

Nil bastardo carborundum.

You are the Toad Slayer, you've got this, this man is a tedious, needy pest. What can you do to get your adrenaline levels down and your morale up a bit? What would help?

It sounds like reverse psychology would probably work.

Maybe you should ask for daily contact from his solicitor and ask lots of details.
Say something like "I'm so glad you called, because I wanted to discuss this and that".

I bet he'll stop ringing soon.

Tell him you're going to Germany and you're leaving the children with him?

Should have said no, Karen! God he is vile.

If you say No, he'll insist and pester you.
If you say Yes, he'll just give up and think of another thing to annoy you about.

Maybe play difficult about things you want to agree to? At least it would distract him from the important stuff.

It's a pattern Lweji DS was not surprised either.

I told them, panic over, he doesn't want to write to you guys now.

Not now that I agreed to it.

As soon as I agree to something, he disagrees with it, even if it is something that he requested in the first place.

You alright, Karen?