My exP with whom I have DS (6) - carried out emotional, physical and financial abuse toward me when we were together. His mother was totally complicit in this and threatened to have DS taken off me the night I had her son arrested for violent assault of me and his 4 month old son.
The antagonism has continued on a pretty much weekly basis for those 5.5 years since we separated for one spurious reason or another. I have had him warned by my sol for harassment.
Since September, DS has been going to a club one day after school, arranged by his dad (with my initial agreement) and which his paternal grandmother collects him from as the childminder can't be expected to accommodate it along with the other kids she looks after. DS told me just after Christmas that GM was not nice to him when she collected him (no surprise), was bullying or ignoring him and he ate his dinner alone in the kitchen with the TV on while GM and GF watched TV in the living room and study, respectively. However, he did not want to stop his club.
Roll on Easter holidays and further assertions by DS that he really doesn't want to go to GM's after club, will give up club in order not to have to go there. Also - and I realise I can do nothing about this - he has been left at GM's overnight when in his dad's care (has him 2 nights a week, alternating Thu/Fri and Sat/Sun) which he hated. He asked to text his dad to say that he did not want to stay at GM's again as his dad did not believe me when I told him - then when his dad still did not believe him, rang his dad to tell him.
I am well aware that exP is terrified of his mother and will not be passing the message along. I told him that DS has asked to stop club and will be going back to childminder from next week. Cue abusive message from GM, accusing me of treating her like a dogsbody (? - I never made the arrangement for the club, it was his dad's idea and certainly isn't in any way helping me out - if she had said no to collecting after club, DS would not have gone and would still be at CM's) and saying that it wasn't worth collecting DS just to feed him as it meant she could not make arrangements to see her friends on that day (she is 2 years retired).
I got a call this morning from DS who has been with his dad Sat/Sun, saying he wanted to stop going to the CM and wanted to go to GM's every day. I told him we would talk later but that the CM was expecting him and - for his dad's benefit as I knew he was listening - that I would be turning up at GM's to get him and I would not be alone, if daddy took him there instead of CM.
CM emailed me to say that DS v upset had arrived at hers and told her he wanted to go to her house and not GM's, that daddy had made him tell me that and he didn't mean it.
Would this fall under the definition of coercive control in the new law? I know I can't stipulate what he does with DS when he is there, but when he is supposed to be returned to my care (or CM in my place), I can feel they are building up to trying to take DS off me for real.
Sorry it's so long - thanks for reading and hope it makes sense. There may be drip feeds or I can refer you to my old old threads from 2010 when I was first assaulted.
