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.

YES! To what lala says 👍🏻

@Mindutopia I am really shocked that she is a social worker. I wonder what her employer would think. Healthcare professionals are held to a higher standard.

Quick one to say I think your approach to this situation is completely spot on. I'm also a SW with a young daughter. Very briefly so hopefully not too outing I have been in a slightly similar situation.
Family friend has some LDs. There was an incident, he disclosed it and asked for help. Led to Police involvement. When my daughter was born his family came to see me, explained incident and the support and restrictions in place, put me on the phone with the relevant police officer. They were transparent and co-operative and made me feel ok to continue to see them all within agreed boundaries which they have never pushed. I am very glad I was given all this info from the outset. If they had withheld info or been like your MIL and tried to minimise/justify I would have had alarm bells ringing all over the place and would have stopped contact with all of them, possibly, unless I was sure I could supervise contact at all times..even so the trust would have been broken.
As parents you are the first line of defence for your child, good on you for sticking to your instincts. I would not trust the MIL either, she seems to be very much in denial and sorry to say cannot be trusted to keep her grandchild safe.
Horrible for you and your DH to be put in this situation and I hope he can also see, although he is in a difficult position (and has a history of worrying about his mum) that ultimately he is being a great dad by prioritising the safety of his dd above all else.
And cannot believe this MIL is a practicing SW!!! TBH I believe it could affect her registration with the HCPC if it was known that she initially withheld, and still refuses to disclose, info regarding her partners sexual offending history/licence restrictions to her DS, potentially putting DGD at risk of harm. You might not want to go there but I'm kind of shocked she's out there as a SW with such a disregard of the risk she has exposed you all to.

And cannot believe this MIL is a practicing SW!!! TBH I believe it could affect her registration with the HCPC if it was known that she initially withheld, and still refuses to disclose, info regarding her partners sexual offending history/licence restrictions to her DS, potentially putting DGD at risk of harm. You might not want to go there but I'm kind of shocked she's out there as a SW with such a disregard of the risk she has exposed you all to.

This really bothers me.

She's a social worker but is refusing to do all the things she knows she should be doing to safeguard her own grand daughter. She is minimising her partner's actions and refusing to believe he's guilty. I worry that this means she's going to be far too sympathetic to offenders she deals with professionally.

I'd think carefully about reporting her for this. She can't possibly be doing her job of protecting vulnerable children if she won't even protect her own grand daughter.

I feel so sorry for your DH. But of course you are doing exactly the right thing.

Without going into too many details an extended family member abused his DD's over several years. He was convicted and received a longish sentence. His second wife stood by him, believing that his DD's were malicious and jealous of his new life. She too was a supposedly intelligent woman. I know for a fact that they were sexualised at a young age because one of these children interfered with me on a sleepover. I had no idea what was going on but as an adult it is a sickening glimpse into these girls' lives.

What I'm trying to say is that you are protecting your DC from something that could cause limitless damage so no amount of vigilance is too much. Your MIL is stupid and dangerous.

i thought all court judgements are made public? my bil's financial advisor was convicted in a fraud case and he was convinced it wasn't nearly as bad as we thought so i went and read the judgement online. it was quite hard to find, but i did find it.

Judgments in criminal cases are simply the jury's verdict, so there's nothing to be made public unless journalists choose to report the trial. What you read was probably the judgment in a subsequent appeal case.

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

This is the most concerning thing I've ever read. Please report her to the HCPTS. They will assess her fitness to practice and in the tribunal reveal his actual convictions. A family friend was in a similar situation except her fiancé originally told her he was in prison for fraud, not abusing his own daughter. When she found out he was on the register he lied again about what he'd done, and it was only the SSSC (she was in Scotland) tribunal hearing that the truth was revealed.

Do not feel a second of guilt for putting her through the process. If she has nothing to hide and sound judgement then she will be allowed to continue working. You must safeguard children against them both - see the Ian Watkins from Lost Profits case for an example of seemingly normal women offering children for abuse to please a manipulative partner.

Good luck

If you can, and it must be guttingly hard for your husband, I think people are right - this should be reported. If you can.

Horrible for you, how to deal? You have to go no contact. Sorry but this woman clearly prioritises this man over her relationship with her son and grandchild. You could not guarantee your DDs safety, physical and mental, with her.

Who the heck wants to be in a relationship with a child abuser? She must be wearing blinkers and massively minimising.

Sorry OP

I agree with her fitness to practise, her husband has committed a very significant sexual crime against children for him to be imprisoned. Her judgement and boundaries make her unfit to be a social worker.

I absolutely agree with daffodil, on the rise and especially pestov! My concern is that your MIL continues to insist on you giving her partner access to your daughter! If she truly cared for your daughter she would jump over hot coals to gain access, my fear would be that she is doing this to appease her partner! This screams of brainwashing/ manipulation to me and I would not trust your MIL to be anywhere near you or your children! I applaud you and your husband for your quick thinking and your actions to protect your child! I can only imagine how distressing this was for you both, wondering if you changed a nappy around him etc.

I would be incredibly concerned, especially as your MIL has previously conspired to allow him access to your daughter without declaring his conviction! It horrifies me that a child has been raped, yet this man is off the sex offenders register as soon as ten years after the conviction! That poor child has to live with the consequences of this awful mans actions for the rest of their life! Surely a pedophile should be on the sex offenders register for life!

Please consider contacting social services and making a complaint about your MIL putting your child in danger and refusing to disclose details of his conviction! Perhaps her employers will give her the wake up call she desperately needs! Especially as this man will shortly not be on the register and she will no longer be obliged to inform parents of his conviction! If she has neighbours with children, or friends who have grandchildren and are not aware of her partners conviction she may be manipulated into getting him access to those children. Its an awful thing to suggest, however she allowed her granddaughter to be exposed to a pedophile, all be it under supervision! That is unforgivable and also a sign that she is totally under this mans spell!

It horrifies me that a child has been raped, yet this man is off the sex offenders register as soon as ten years after the conviction!

We don't know a child has been raped in this case, do we? Just that the man has a conviction for child sex abuse, which could be something else.

Semen as evidence was involved, OntheRise so I'd say if it wasn't rape, it was close enough to it as to make no difference.
And as PPs have said, this is just what he was caught on, and what there was enough evidence to assure a conviction on. It's probably only the tip of the iceberg in regards to his perpetration of sexual abuses against children.
OP, you're doing the right thing for your children in going NC with MIL, (aside from your husband continuing to touch base, which is understandable.)
You'll never be able to trust her - nor the rest of the family, who conspired to take away your ability to keep your daughter safe. What would have happened if they'd kept the secret from you, and then he abused your daughter at some point in the future? Because that so, so easily could have happened, if you hadn't found out the truth.
Reoffending is horrendously common amongst pedophiles, and you MIL and the rest of the family were willing to risk your daughter being sexually molested in order to preserve SFIL's reputation/happiness.
Honestly I'd go NC with all of them in regards to yourself and daughter and future child, and let your husband conduct his own relationship separately if he wants. It's far more damaging for your children to have a fraught and inconsistent relationship with your pedophile-protecting in-laws, than to cut them off completely now while your daughter's young and will adjust more easily, and your future child will never know any different.

I would never ever ever ever have anyone who lied and protected a discusting pedophile around my child. Cut contact completely don't give her a choice, if she can lie for him and defend him she will do it again. He is discusting and so is she and anyone who has protected this vile specimen of a thing!

Semen as evidence was involved, OntheRise so I'd say if it wasn't rape, it was close enough to it as to make no difference.

Ah, ok. I missed that. Thank you for the clarification.

You'll never be able to trust her - nor the rest of the family, who conspired to take away your ability to keep your daughter safe.

I agree.

I did initially consider if I should report her. I am truly not someone who wants to be vindictive though, and I fear it would be construed that way and used against me within the family. My primary concern really is protecting my daughter though and making sure her relationship with any family members who can be in her life is strong and positive (my family doesn't live in the UK, so my husband's family really is my daughter's only 'family' in the sense of family we see and do things with). Even though I have faith the rest of our family would support us if they knew the full story (most of them don't at this point), I really did worry that that would cause a lot of lies to spread before we could talk to anyone else openly and honestly. Ultimately, that would hurt rather than protect our daughter. So I didn't pursue it. Also, realistically I have no information to go on anyway other that secondhand information as we know little about the charges and the case (as that's what MIL continues to lie to us about, though to clarify since someone asked, it wasn't rape, it was non-penetrative, or at least that's what they say and that's what I've been led to believe the actual charges and sentence reflect but I don't really know). There are others who know about all of this though - including one family member who is NHS clinical staff also with safeguarding responsibilities - so I figure those people are in a better position than me in terms of information and understanding the current safeguarding guidelines to make a report. They won't, or else those same people would have told me first, but I think I have to let go of that responsibility a bit. She does work in adult mental health though, not with children directly. I think if she worked with children it would raise some different concerns and I would have to do something.

We received another letter from her and she seems to get the points we were trying to make about our concerns and says she will respect our decision. Sadly, that still means "I don't care about your child and I'm happy to never see her again because this paedo is more important," which continues to anger and upset me every time she says it. But I hope it means an end to the battle and I hope maybe it helps my husband to accept it and find some peace about it. He still struggles a lot more than I do. Honestly, in a way, little about this has surprised me too much as they are the sort of people to behave like this (which is exactly why I can see if we did maintain contact and god forbid anything ever happened to our daughter, I know they would be quick to point the blame at her and us, that's just how they are, very closed off and defensive), but I think it's harder for my husband to accept as it seems normal to him. It's all he's ever known, whereas I know from my own family life (though they are dysfunctional in their own ways), that this isn't normal.

In her letter though, she did ask to continue to send cards and gifts. We've asked twice for her to stop. There is a little part of me that wants to say that's okay in the hope maybe one day she'll be out from under this man's clutches and we might be grateful we allowed that connection to remain open. But I really don't know. I also really don't know how to even explain that to our dd? Like is it confusing for a young child to find out that an adult she's always been close to doesn't want to see her, but does make to give her a Christmas present? I want to do the best for her and not to appease other people and I don't know how to make that make sense without it confusing her. I obviously can't truly tell her the whole truth about everything at this point because she's too little and it's not age appropriate. I worry it's allowing her a foothold to wiggle herself back in, yet if it would be better for my dd, then I'd be open to consider it. Just not sure if it is, and it seems even harder to explain to our 2nd, who isn't even born yet, why he/she has this long lost granny who lives nearby and never visits but sends birthday cards. Does that seem weird and confusing? I suspect it probably does.

I can't remember if I mentioned this but I am NC with my parents. We decided against accepting gifts from them because it made us feel grubby, accepting gifts from people who had been so vile to us; and because they told people how awful we were, accepting gifts but not talking to us.

We decided in the end to have no contact at all. But we set very clear boundaries, and told them what they'd have to do if they wanted contact to start again. Not much: an apology and an explanation of one specific thing, that's all. We made it clear contact would resume again if and when they did those two things, but so far they've chosen not to.

It's up to you, of course. But we did have a period of limited contact and that was far worse than no contact, because they kept on trying to weasel back into our lives. Cleaner now. I hope you find a way to make it work for you.

We found it much easier to have a clean break. We were very clear with our asks based on

1. Acknowledgment that it was a crime. Illegal, wrong and harmful and acknowledgemental that he was at fault and that not even God could prevent it from happening again. There are no shades of grey imo of child abuse. Rape, indecent exposure, indecent touching. Grooming. Child porn. To me it is one and the shame shade.

2. that ALL parents in the family and extended family with children are told.

Because my mother in law minimised and absolutely refused on both counts even though we said we would keep a relationship active with the perpetrator in our family in our presence. She still refused.

So we wrote emails and letters to ALL family and extended family anyway on point 2. And 95% of the family told us to fuck off even though he was convicted twice of a serious crime. We decided to keep our children safe without their involvement in our lives. It devastated us that they all reacted like that because they seemed so normalised about peodophila or so blinded by the trust they told us we were trouble makers and my child was responsible . For us. It was an easy decision. For my husband it was the moment of seeing his family and I mean many members for what they really are. Monsters

Close the door ....

Thankfully I have no experience with this at all, but I remember reading on here, that women who continue to have a relationship with a paedophile will do almost anything to prove to the man that they believe them, they support them, they understand them. So the man piles pressure on her to establish a relationship with the child, and when that is solid, gets her to offer the child to him as a gift of proof that she believes him. And maybe the first couple of times nothing happens anyway, underlining her belief. And then, it's too late.
Chilling stuff. OP you are 100% right to allow no contact whatsoever with this woman.

i would report her to her employers.
Not just because she's married to a convicted sex offender, but also for her attitude and her behaviour throughout.

The sending of gifts etc is her still trying to form some sort of relationship with your dd - it's a form of grooming

If she's sympathizing with the paedophile then i wonder how that influences her decisions regards the children she is mean to be safeguarding?
She is in a position to word and influence the statements given by children, who knows how many children she's left to the mercy of their abusers?

Sorry the "offered up child " is the same as the "gift of proof" referred above.

Someone said that at least the GM tried to "protect" her DGD by not letting her stay over... I don't think she was protecting the child, I think she was protecting the pedophile. Knowing there were conditions on his release I'd say she was more concerned about someone finding out they had breached those, than concerned about potential harm coming to the child.

Succinctly, it had little to do with responsible child safeguarding and far more to do with pedophile apologia and minimizing/overlooking his crimes.

Report anonymously. You have to protect others as well as your own.