Dealing with a family member with a history of abusing children

[mindutopia]

I wanted to ask some advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation about how you handled this and dealt with this as parents and how you handled the family drama that may have resulted.

It came to my attention last year that MIL's partner, who she has been with for probably 12+ years now but they are only recently married, so basically my husband's step-father, has a history of sexually abusing a child in his own family. The child was a family member of his previous wife (now passed away). The details are all very convincing and I have no doubt he poses a risk to children. It went to trial, there was forensic evidence (semen), he was convicted and served a prison sentence. This all happened when MIL and he first started dating. My husband knew he had some legal issues in the past and had had to go to court, but he didn't really know the extent of it. He was 18 when they met and was living away from home, and then for part of that time was working overseas where we met. I honestly think he was happy enough that his mum had met someone and seemed happy that he never really thought to probe to much about this boyfriend who seemed to disappear and then re-appear. They never really talked about it.

Anyway, fast forward a decade, we are now married and have a 4 year old daughter. We've never been allowed to stay overnight at their house since our daughter was born. I honestly thought it was because they either didn't like me or didn't like our daughter. We live nearly 2 hours away, which makes visiting really difficult because 4 hours is a long time in the car with a baby and now toddler. BIL and SIL were always welcome to stay though, which is why I thought they obviously just didn't like us. But finally we got them to agree that we would all come for Christmas last year and we would all stay at the house together for the first time. Then a few weeks before Christmas, MIL called to tell us that the police wanted to speak to us as step-FIL is still on the sexual offenders registry and we aren't allowed to stay at their house unless we met with the police to be interviewed and give our consent for our daughter to be there. I could have punched her in the face! And if she had told us that in person, I probably would have, so I'm grateful she thought to call instead! Apparently, there was no plans to ever be honest about his past despite him having contact with our daughter because they were hoping they could just avoid saying anything until his period on the registry was up (he had to be on for 10 years) and then we never would have had to know the extent of it. The hitch was that the paperwork had been delayed in removing him from the registry, which they had hoped would be done before Christmas, but now would take several more months. He isn't allowed to be around a child for more than 12 hours without the parents giving consent and meeting with the police to be informed about his history of offenses against children.

So needless to say, this situation blew up after that because I was furious. I take these sorts of things very, very seriously. I have a history of sexual assault myself and I used to work as a social worker with vulnerable children, having had to report many incidents of abuse myself in my professional work. So this is a really big deal to me and they, of course, would have known that, which is why I suspect they tried to lie and cover it up. My husband and I immediately decided that step-FIL would have no further contact with our daughter. I have absolutely no reason to believe she has ever come to any harm. We only see them a few times a year. She's only 4 (and was 3 when this happened), and while MIL has babysat her at our house (with help from her sister, my husband's aunt who lives close to us), our daughter has never been left unsupervised at their house nor has step-FIL ever been to our house when MIL was babysitting (husband's aunt was there and can confirm this, I suspect she knows about his history which is why she volunteered to help so there was no chance step-FIL would be there). So though we have no reason to be concerned about our daughter's safety in the past, we are unwilling to even take the chance that anything could happen in the future and it was an easy decision to stop all contact with him.

Obviously this has been a massive blow to our trust and confidence in MIL and we set some very firm boundaries with regards to her future relationship with our daughter. She has never been very forthcoming about anything that has happened. She wholeheartedly believes that he is a 'victim' and he has suffered an 'injustice' perpetrated by this child's family and that any questions we have or any indication that we don't 100% trust him no questions asked is a sign that we are continuing to perpetrate this 'injustice' against him just like everyone else has. He very much has the classic abuser mentality that everyone is out to get him and the world has it out for him, which only confirms his guilt even more in my mind. MIL's relationship with him is very controlling and she is very manipulated. They put on a good front of being blissfully happy. But we have walked in on arguments they were having, as have BIL/SIL, where he speaks to her terribly and all is not as it seems on the outside behind closed doors.

As a result of this, my husband and I sat down and wrote out a list of questions for her/them (really, her but about the case and his restrictions in regards to children). Basically, we wanted to know the charges, how long his prison sentence was (we know he was in prison for 18 months, but that wasn't the whole sentence) and what restrictions he is currently under re: being on the sexual offenders registry. We wanted to make sure they were being totally honest with us and we wanted to check up to be sure that he hadn't violated any restrictions in regards to our daughter. We thought this would be an easy way to start the conversation, clear the air and get everything out on the table, and start trying to repair all the damage in our relationship with MIL so that she could continue having a relationship with our daughter. None of my family lives nearby and we only see them at holidays or birthdays a couple times a year. So my husband's family is our only 'local' family that my daughter sees more regularly. Without them, she literally only has us and an aunt and uncle (BIL/SIL), so it's important to heal this stuff as much as we can (except with step-FIL, obviously). We thought it wouldn't even be a big deal. Anyway, my husband went to deliver the letter and list of questions to her and talk to her, and she said, absolutely not, she would not answer those questions for us. We gave her a month or so of silence to think about it and asked again. She said no.

After that, my husband wrote her a very detailed and emotional email and explained how upset we were and how hurt we had been by all this, but how the only way forward was for her to start being honest with us and answering those questions was the first step. We had decided that if she was unwilling to have any sort of conversation with us about this then she would not be able to have a relationship with our daughter in the future. We hoped that this would at least wake her up to how serious this was. Her response was that if talking anymore about her partner's past was the only way she could be in her granddaughter's life then she would have to choose to no longer have a relationship with her because there was no chance that she would ever talk to us about the things we wanted to know. We were devastated, of course, but I was also really angry. My daughter had nothing to do with any of this and she is too little to understand why her grandmother has just vanished. I feel like our expectations were so lenient (several friends I have talked to about this situation said they would have cut both of them out from the start and never given her a chance to even have a relationship with our daughter again after knowing she conspired to allow a paedophile access to her).

All of this started last autumn and it's dragged on since. We can go a month or two without hearing from her and then she'll pop up calling and texting my husband like everything is fine. Or sending our daughter cards and gifts in the post. We then have to reiterate that she is no longer allowed a relationship with her (by her own choice) and that sending things in the post is inappropriate. Our daughter is old enough now that she knows how to spell her name and she knows when something is addressed to her. It puts us in the horrible situation of having to lie and take things away from her that she can clearly see are addressed to her. But I will not allow someone who won't participate in her life to continue to hold on tenuously by plying her with gifts. So this happens every few months and then it blows up again. In the midst of all of this going on, I got pregnant in February of this year and had a miscarriage in April, while dealing with this mess at the same time. I am very grateful to have gotten pregnant again straight away the next month and am now 14 weeks and all is well with this pregnancy.

But this situation continues to wear on me/us/our marriage. My husband is supportive and he agrees with the decisions we've made, but I can tell he is getting worn down by it all. We trade off having good weeks or bad weeks when we all but have a mental breakdown. Last week was a particularly bad week for me prompted by another letter from MIL about my 'unreasonable' and 'unjustified' behaviour in further 'victimising' step-FIL and another gift for our daughter (which promptly got sent right back return to sender). It makes me want to be sick to be honest. She has been notified by letter again that she has no relationship anymore with our granddaughter and basically to leave us alone.

I guess my reason for writing all of this (which I never intended to be quite so ridiculously long!) is to ask if anyone else has ever been in a situation like this with a family member who is a sexual abuser, but not involving you or your children directly, and how did you deal with it. This isn't just going to go away. They are married. He isn't going anywhere. He will continue to control and manipulate MIL. Even if she ever was to take our concerns seriously, start talking to us, answer the questions we have for her and try to heal the relationship between us which has been so completely fractured by all of this, honestly I don't know that I would ever want her around my daughter after all of this. It would have been different if she had been open and honest from the start when confronted and tried to help us to process all of this and if she had apologised. She has literally never once said, I'm sorry I brought this man around your child (and also my friends' children for that matter, he has attended my daughter's birthday parties with children running around everywhere and we had no idea).

But anyway, even if MIL had a change of tune tomorrow, I truly don't feel 100% comfortable that she wouldn't do whatever he tells her. What if he asked her to take inappropriate pictures of our daughter? She truly believes he is innocent. Would she chalk it up to that's nothing weird between a grandfather and a granddaughter to have a few pictures from bathtime? It makes me sick thinking about it. But we are going to forever have to be dealing with this because we have a large extended family and strong relationships with them that we don't want to lose just because we don't have a relationship with MIL. I've tried to find resources, but all I can find are resources for those who have been abused by a family member. That's not us, and I'm so grateful. But there is nothing out there on how to deal with having a sexual offender in the family and the strain that puts on family relationships. I guess I'm just looking to see if there is anyone out there who has been in a situation like this. I feel so lost some days dealing with it, and then other days so stressed out and angry. It takes up a lot of my time and emotional energy. Our family life has really suffered the past year, despite my husband and I doing our best to stay unified and be positive about it all. I know the stress is affecting our daughter.

I don't think it's safe to let the daughter have a relationship with MIL because MIL is so intent on denying the conviction.

She seems to have abided by the post release conditions but when the registration on the SO list expires, she may not. And she seems very unwilling to discuss anything about the matter openly, so an honest and reliable agreement isn't possible.

If the OP's daughter has a relationship with her grandmother then at some point it may be necessary to cut contact with the woman because she may act in a dangerous way ... not out of malice but blind refusal to face facts.

From hints that the OP has written the conviction was for an older child, so the grandfather may become a greater danger when she is older. There's much too great a chance that the grandmother won't face this possibility and the OP may be forced to cut contact.

So the granddaughter could be in the position of having had a relationship with her grandmother and then suddenly having had no more contact. That's very upsetting for a child and if the child is say 11 or so, it may be very difficult to completely sever the relationship - she could get in touch independently at 14 or so because she misses her grandmother. Even if not, it's very painful to lose a trusted adult that you've been close to (the OP's daughter will trust her GM; she will have no reason not to)

It's too great a risk. The stakes in this case are too high.

I just wanted to say since several have mentioned it that this has never been about whether my husband is 'allowed' to have a relationship with his mum. He still talks to her, but the relationship is frayed. He has chosen for her to have no contact with our daughter and though he continues to speak with her on occasional, the relationship is very damaged because of her continued deceit, which we are both very sad about. But all of this is very much his choice, just obviously not the choice either of us wanted, which is why it's so distressing and I asked for some support and advice from anyone who has been in this situation.

I just wanted to say thank you all again for your thoughts about this. It's really helped. I think what SeaEagleFeather said actually really gets at what I'm concerned about. I don't know if my MIL poses a direct danger to our daughter, though my instinct is to err on the side of caution since she has been completely unwilling to talk about any of this or try to work with us to sort out a solution. But I think my biggest concern really is this dragging on for years and affecting our daughter. They haven't seen each other in nearly a year now as she keeps popping up, blaming us for all these problems and then going away again when we re-enforce the boundaries we have set from the beginning for her to have a relationship with our daughter. Initially, her position was that she wouldn't have a relationship with her unless her partner was allowed one as well because it wasn't 'fair.' She's not mentioned this in probably 6 months, but I worry about us re-starting contact (even if she were to stick to the boundaries we have already set about speaking to us about everything and several family counselling sessions) and then it blows up again and she demands he has contact otherwise she won't either. Then it's just back and forth in and out of her life forever and all of this stress dragging on and on. I have family members that I had no relationship with as a child (just because our families didn't really get along) and I have family members I've ceased contact with since I became an adult, and I don't feel like I suffer at all for that. I do know I suffer a lot because of family members who were dysfunctional and in and out of my life, and I guess that's what worries me, in addition to the risk of abuse potentially posed.

We've very cautiously skirted the issue with our daughter this last year when she asks about them. We've said, they've been busy or we'll see them soon. Or we just change the subject and distract her. This past weekend I was really upset and literally just couldn't stop sobbing about this because another letter from her arrived on Friday. My daughter asked what was wrong, and I told her honestly that I was feeling sad because someone hadn't been very kind to me and had hurt my feelings. Last night as I was putting her to bed she asked if I was sad again today and if the 'bad men' came to my office again and if they'd hit me. I felt so sad that she was genuinely worried about this and still thinking about seeing me so upset. I really try to shelter her from this and my husband and I tend to only talk about it after she has gone to be, but obviously I'm not a robot so I couldn't make myself not be upset in that situation. I don't want this to carry on with her seeing me so stressed and upset, never mind that I'm pregnant and really shouldn't be this upset. I guess I still just hope for an easy solution, but other than just pretending none of this happened, I know it isn't possible. Which is just sad.

It's been good to have some perspective on all of this from those of you who have taken the time to respond though, so thank you.

oh dear, mind, what an awful thing to have to handle when you're pregnant too!

It is very hard (and for your husband) but I do think you're at the stage where you need to look into obtaining a non-harassment order against her. This can't go on.

As someone said up thread, you need to write down the whole situation and specific incidents as factually as you can. Both for any future legal situation and to keep an unemotional record for the sake of perspective in future.

I'm sorry you're going through this OP but I strongly believe you are doing the right thing. The fact that all of this only came out because of a clerical error and that she and other members of the family actively conspired to keep his conviction a secret tells you she is an enabler of the worst sort.

She's made it clear that she is not going to change; she sees her relationship with a child sex abuser as more important than your child's safety.

She may not be in the age range that he has a preference for at the moment but she will be sometime; and do you want to have to break the relationship then?

Some families will twist themselves in knots to defend a family member.

An acquaintance had a family member who admitted; was convicted and imprisoned for rape of a minor. Acquaintance has broken all ties; other family members have continued contact; blamed the victim; and continue to leave him alone with children of the same age. . .

The last only came out when a different family member sent her a link to a facebook photo where he had been left to supervise a sleepover of a young family member and friends.
The person who sent the link had stayed in contact as she believed that he had agreed not to be left alone with children & that his partner was enforcing this; except it was (partners) grandchild that he had been left with, and I'm willing to bet the house none of the other parents knew the facts.

When other family member asked WTF; she was accused of shit stirring and being dirty minded and he'd served his time. . . (She reported to SS and the police)

Your MIL does not seem to understand that what she has done is doing is minimising the abuse and creating an environment where it can happen again.

As her letters are upsetting you so much and have the potential to upset your DD, I agree that you need to send her a brief letter/email saying that if she contacts you/DD again you will consider it harassment and will be seeking a non-harassment order against her.

And if she ignores this; do it, this will not stop you DH having contact with her if he chooses to continue.

Oh Mind, that sounds so awful for you and your husband. I've been in a situation where I had to fight to get my family to not let my niece see her grandad (my SD) as I knew he was a potential risk. Don't want to go into too much detail but my argument was that letting her have a relationship with him or any of the adults having a relationship with him meant he had the potential to groom her. And whilst you can control all contact with a child when they are little (outwith school) you can't control what they do as a teenager and she might then decide to see him on her own and you wouldn't know anything about it. The same with your MIL. she might promise not to let her see him but as she is quite clearly in denial/being manipulated you can't believe her. I'm still seen as a bit hysterical about it all but I would fight tooth and nail to keep her safe and don't care if the adults in her life have to make difficult decisions to do the same.

Abusers are master manipulators and great at playing the victim as you know. Mine (although it was non contact SA) had every excuse under the sun, was curious, not getting enough sex from my Mum, he had been abused and I was the only one who refused to see him for a good long time. He had the others convinced he would kill himself if they stopped contact.

Your MIL just needs to suck it up. She chose to make the decision for you and her son to let their child spend time with and develop a relationship with a convicted child abuser. She cannot now expect to have a lovely normal relationship with any of you or with her grandaughter. Trust your own instincts and don't let anyone else sway you from them.

x

I am going against the grain here, but your MIL is also a victim here in a way. She truly believes that her husband is innocent (or wants to) and believes she needs to be loyal. He has probably manipulated her to that point. I feel sorry for her even while understanding why you feel incredibly angry too.

Personally, I think I'd let her see DD, but under supervision. You don't know how much this man is controlling her, so it's reasonable to be concerned that if left alone she might take pictures or do something he asked of her.

OP have read entire thread; all being well in a month's time I'll have a daughter and I can already tell you if my mil did this, she would never see me or my daughter again, never.
It wouldn't even matter if the paedophile abuser died and she wanted to see me/my daughter; to me this is so beyond the pale.

I don't care how delusional, vulnerable etc. she is ... whatever deficiencies there are in her judgement & character make her a danger - by proxy - to children and young people.

You have been and are, in my view, actually too soft .. and how dare she stress you out and essentially harass you at all, let alone during your pregnancy .. anyone else would be so ashamed, yet she still thinks she and her "should cross the street to pass, let alone be involved with, let alone be married to" creature of a husband .. are the victims.

You should look into ways to stop her harassing you .. and don't feel one bit of guilt or upset; you've not put your husband under any pressure to cut contact with her and she can still have a relationship with him; she's lucky. Don't let someone that unhinged and whose morals are skewed & shaky cause you any more stress You are 100% in the right ... as above to me you are too kind/soft.

Thank you. I think I'll talk to my husband again tonight. She did text him on Friday about me to say she had sent this previous letter. He hasn't responded to her as far as I know. But I think the next step is probably to let her know once and for all to stop contacting my dd and I (I don't have any concerns about her continuing to have a relationship with my husband, that's his choice if he wants to and he does want to at least know she is okay from time to time, I've simply asked him to share not information about me or about our daughter). She has been told probably 3 times since January that she will have no further relationship with her, but we haven't quite said, do not contact us at all or else. My best friend went through something similar with her parents (totally unrelated to anything to do with abuse, just a family dispute and harassment) and she said that it only took sending one gift for her daughter back return to sender for them to get the message and leave her alone. So I'd hoped doing that would have sent another strong message, but perhaps it's true we need to look into non-harassment orders if it doesn't stop.

And yes, I do genuinely feel sorry for her to a degree. She is vulnerable and she does have mental health issues and she has a history of co-dependent relationships with men where I think she gets off a bit on 'saving' them and being the only one who really understands them and can protect them. She is also an NHS social worker (never mind those child safeguarding duties though, eh?) and much of her work involves meddling in people's lives and trying to sort them out. I think she would crumble if ever she allowed herself to consider that what he is convicted of really happened. The last letter I got from her on Friday contained statistics about wrongful convictions of child sexual offenders (where one finds such statistics I don't know, because there is clearly no reliable source on such a thing). I think for the sake of self preservation she would gladly give up relationships with her children and grandchildren to preserve this worldview she has built up him and about their relationship. I do feel sad for her in that sense and I suspect that if she was in a more healthy mental state with more social support, this wouldn't be happening (she has lived in the same village her whole life but as far as I know has no friends, they also have no friends as a couple as far as I can tell, only a few family members they occasionally socialise with). But at the same time, I keep trying to remind us that it's not possible to fix someone else's dysfunction for them. She's an adult and she needs to get help for herself if she needs it. She's a perfectly competent adult who is well enough to work and manages the rest of her life just fine, so she needs to take responsibility for this too.

Has anyone sought out a non-harassment order? What is the process? It would be a last resort, but I would at least like to know our options if it comes to that. When my friend went through the situation with her parents, they would routinely drive 6 hours (!) to her house to bang on the door and shout abuse at her if she wouldn't answer. It seems really paranoid to think that could happen in our situation, but my husband was away this weekend and I was alone at home with our daughter. My dd said at one point she saw someone outside our window. I truly think it was just her imagination going wild and don't really think there was anyone outside our window. Where we live is very isolated and there's no way I wouldn't have spotted someone lurking around outside if I looked out right after, there's nowhere the person could have gone to. But it scared me to death. What if they came to our house? What if I was alone when it happened? I immediately locked the doors, but the whole thing just put me on edge. So I would like to be prepared in case it gets to that, which hopefully it won't.

From what you've said there is really near to no chance of them of turning up.

When you look at it, they -have- conformed to the conditions set for him, quite carefully. They ~just~ didn't tell you what those conditions were, or why. But they have abided by the law.

So don't think they'll do anything particularly crazy ... mind you I suppose again that's a reason to get a non-harassment order. There should be info on line about how to go about getting one, I believe that you have to send a firm letter saying No More Contact first by registered post or such like. But you need to know your ground here so it's best to look it up or to book half an hour with a solicitor. You don't even go into detail, just to say that this is what you want and how do you go about it.

Of the social workers I worked with, most were very very overworked decent exhausted people doing their best in impossible situations. But a minority were screwed up people working out their problems on the very vulnerable people they were supposed to help. It doesn't surprise me to hear that your MIL is one.

Google his name and location. There is likley (depending how long ago this all happened) a news paper article about him.

I've only read your OP but I can honestly say that in your shoes, if MIL chose a child sex offender as a partner knowingly, that alone would mean she was cut off from my DD and me without a second thought. No way would ANY contact take place. No discussions. No question. Done.

I'm sorry but your MIL should be deeply deeply ashamed to bring this man into her family. Disgusting.

OP have you tried googling FIL's name? You may be able to find some details if it was ever reported by court journalists. Then at least you may get a better idea of the details.

I don't have children but this would be a no brainer for me. No contact with DD ever. She lives with a peadophile and covered up the fact. The babysitting with the other member present was about protecting her OH rather than your daughter. Her bleating that is not fair that he has no contact/relationship with your child is warped. Even if she thought he was innocent, surely as a parent she would totally understand why you would not want him around your children. I feel for your DH -but I don't think I could have a relationship with his DM if I was him. She lives with a convicted child abuser. That would be enough for me to cut all contact. I worry about her profession. Her warped judgement is not conducive to working with the vulnerable.

Op. Your mil in her mind believes what she is doing is right. Your mil is doing what she can to normalise as she is unable to rationalise and navigate the relationship boundaries and moral compass. I see this as a mental illness. Doesn't mean she is right. She isn't.

It's a very common reaction that pedophile sympathisers act like that. And they want you to fall in line as they are unable to face the horrors of the crime and the kind of person they live with. They simply refuse to process, acknowledge and be honest with it. Therefore their judgment poses a risk to your child.

I would be giving her an extremely wide berth . Christmas cards and that's it. And really you both should get some counselling. To help you move on a be mentally ready, strong and happy to receive your new baby bundle without it being marred by them. You are in control of your happiness!!

In similar situation

Brother been charged with some sex offences. I'm unsure what with.

He's got MH issues. He's currently living back with my parents and I'm really uncomfortable with it, and taking my DC there. I'm supervising everything but once all the information comes to hand I may have to decide whether to never take them there again, if he's still there.

My mum is a bit convinced he does things out of the MH issues. I'm less sure.

Sigh.

MrsT2007 I'm sorry to here about the situation with your brother.

We talked about it again last night and I think I've realised my dh is struggling with this all more than I understood. I think we are going to try a few sessions of Relate counselling. I feel comfortable I think with the decision we've made and I know it's the right one, especially hearing some more perspective on this from everyone here this week. I want to move on. We've done everything we can. In fact, I think we've probably done more than we should to try to get MIL to do the right thing and respect our concerns and support us in moving forward so she could have a relationship with our daughter. But she has no interest and won't hear it and has said multiple times that nothing will ever change. I think I can fully accept that and I want to move forward and have some closure and peace again in our family. This has been hanging over our heads for 9 months now. I can't live with the weight on my shoulders anymore.

My husband, however, really doesn't want to close that chapter and accept that she is never going to change. He wants to keep things as they are and stay in this limbo where we never really tell her to fully cease contact (even though he said he did want to do this multiple times already and we've written her 3 letters jointly in the past 7 months or so saying exactly that). I think he hopes if we just ignore it, magically one day it will solve itself or if we just keep pushing her and writing her these letters and emails and trying to convince her that she'll see the light. I do understand his reluctance to fully let go of it (it's his family after all and he's so used to be responsible for their dysfunction that I don't know if he knows any other way). He's also not very assertive, hates confrontation and his approach is usually just to ignore problems until they go away or someone else (usually me, honestly) fixes them for him. But we just can't live like this. We're so stressed all the time and it's affecting our daughter. And though we've said the door is always open if she does magically change her mind and decide she wants to move forward of her own volition to be open with us and respect the boundaries we've set, I can't live in this limbo where we are chasing after her every few weeks trying to convince her that's what she needs to do and then getting some crazy, bullying response back about how she isn't going to do anything we've asked. We need to let go and say we're done, but be in touch if you have a change of heart and see the light and are ready to do everything we've asked (otherwise, she needs to leave my daughter and I alone). I'm ready to do it, but my husband is still clinging on and doesn't want to move on yet. I think maybe some counselling would help us sort through that. I honestly don't know if our marriage would survive if 3 years from now we are still doing this every few months with no change. I don't want to find out frankly. I want to close the book and move on with our lives. Has anyone done Relate? Did it help?

Hello we didn't see Relate but saw someone similar. The sessions themselves won't try to solve your stresses or fix things between you both. But it gives a safe room to let it all out and listen to each other.

I personally had to draw the line in the sand and cut off our in-laws. And with that everyone else on in laws side too who didn't have the views which I though safe and logical. That's a lot of people.

My hubby well we broke up for several years but finally reconciled when he realised I wasnt going to comprise. There is no compromise when it comes to the safety of my children.

If you can't be honest. You can't be safe.

Good luck OP.

Fuck me, she's also a SW???!!!!

Surely her employer would be concerned if they discovered her living with a convicted child sex offender?
Wasn't there something in the news last year about teachers being vetted in regards to whom they lived with?

Wow I'd only just read and absorbed she's a SW !!!
Wtf? Seriously? I'd be considering sending a strongly worded email to her trust and and her management about all this. If she can behave like this to family etc wtf is she like with clients?

And to you and your family. This must be so distressing. I know how upset I am about my beloved brother, but I can't get past what he's done and what he did to the young person involved :( Hence the NC with him, after 55 years :(

"If you allow your daughter to have future contact with him, you become liable to any harm done to her and could lose her to care if she is abused. So do you plan to allow your daughter to have contact with him again?" Obviously the answer is no. "

If the police said that, then it is a clear thing to say to your mum that of course she can't have a relationship with him. I recognise what a strain this must be. I would discuss with the police how to prevent her chasing you.

seeds I'm sorry about the situation with your brother. It must be a very deep grief, worse for being complicated.

mindutopia I'm in/have been in a similar position. I found just repeating the words of the initial safeguarding SW (I assured them that my dc would have nc, the SW accepted this but said if I did allow contact then my dc would be put on a CP plan) works for me, it stops me having to justify my actions.

Of course the person in question in my family is 'innocent' and has been 'set up by the police' ... they were just looking at adult porn apparently and they have 'changed the boundaries'!

Be prepared for this to affect your life and relationship for years to come OP .. I speak from bitter experience!!

I wouldn't allow MIL a relationship with my children in those circumstances

She can't be trusted to keep your DD safe. Not because she's malicious or nasty, but because she believes her partner is innocent.

If MIL has s relationship with the child then the child will trust her grandmother. In the years to come to she'll trust granny's judgment and it'll just take one slip, one five minute need to nip to the shop or one moment where your DD bumps into MIL & SFIL while she's out alone (or with a friend's family) and that trust in granny will mean she'll trust SFIL too.

There's also the drip feed where over the years a relationship with Granny could easily mean hearing about poor picked-on SFIL which means if/when DD is faced with him she'll either be confused or trusting.

Are MIL & SFIL married? If they are I'd be ordering a copy of the marriage certificate to see what name he is listed under then googling that.