Your advice please!

[hmmm]

Hi, the advise if for my boyfriend. I will try and remain very factual about the situation.
They had been broken up for 3 years when i met him, when his ex found out about me she refused him access to their young child for about a year. In the last 6 months she has allowed him limited access but only at my boyfriends mothers house so he is 'supervised' and I am not allowed to see the child or she has threatened to stop him seeing his dad atall.
In the first year (last year) she would harrass my boyfriend, he would recieve in excess of 30 text messages per day, all abusive and threatening. Some asking to get back together but most were angry. Non of which my boyfriend replied to but all of which he has stored on his computer for evidence. It is clear she is using the subect of their child as a way of hurting him, she is very resentful we are together and has made this very clear.

So, my boyfriend is in the process of taking her to court but it has taken over a year now and he still awaiting a court date form his solicitor. He has been recieveing the letters from his exs solicitors and is concearned on what will happen in court from what she has been accusing him of.
She does not want my boyfriend to be allowed to see his son unless they are supervised by the grandmother. The reasons she has given for this are as follows
- The father on one occasion gave the child fizzy drinks and sweets when he refused to eat his tea
- The father once allowed the child to stay up til 10pm on a weekend night
- The father on one occasion watched a video on Youtube with swear words when the child was present
- The father lives with his father (the childs grandfather) he is a recovering alcoholic so the child would not be safe staying over there at his house.
- On one occasion the father took the child out for a walk, they put a coin on a train track which had a public footpath running over it. They later returned to collect the 'squished coin' and the child kept it as a momento. The mother is saying that 'the father allows the child to play on a train track'

The mother is enhancing anything she can in order to stop the father seeing the child on his own.
He is a very calm and honest good man, the mother is an unstable character, she has had a troubled past and is on much medication. He does not want full custody of the child, only access.

So my question is, do you feel the courts would accept the points she has made and agree with the mother that he should only be allowed supervised visits??
And any further advice would be appreciated
Thanks

[smackie9]

She hasn't got a leg to stand on. The things she has mentioned are no threat to the child's welfare. If the grandfather is a recovering alcoholic then your bf should prove that he is going to counseling and going to AA meetings on a regular basis. Fizzy drinks, tho not healthy, is not life threatening.....if he was offering alcoholic drinks that would be cause for alarm. Up past 10pm: A child sometimes cannot sleep, so on occasion it is not uncommon for a child to be up later. You can't tell me a parent hasn't had a child up past their bedtime...give me a break. The train track thing.....if the father was not present on the track in front of an on coming train, then the child was not under threat of danger duh. Like he would let the child "play" on the track.

It sounds like your bf's lawyer should be digging up some dirt on the ex if he was doing his job right.

[hmmm]

Hey smackie
Thanks for your reply gal.
Its a relief to read, I did think it was a load of bull but always good to get an outside opinion on it.
There is a bit of a hidden card here, she smokes pot every day.... She doesnt do it in front of the kid but she does it when hes asleep. Now, the child is ok living there and my boyfriend has no concearn that she would harm him or allow him to be harmed, hes considering mentioning this to his solicitor to back up his case but hes worried that the child will be taken away from her instantly and he'll have to quit his job to look after the boy
How does that kind of thing work?

[smackie9]

I don't think it's justifiable to have the child taken away just because they smoke pot. They don't have out of control erratic behavior like someone who smokes crack or meth. So leave the pot smoking out of it. He just needs to bring up her emails and it will show how manipulative she is, and how she is just doing this to cause trouble. Visitation or his child is his right, especially if he is expected to pay support.

[packagedealx3]

I have heard of parents that were doing a great deal of damage, when there was a great deal of proof, not lose their kids because the kids are taken care of in terms of clothing, housing and food, and that's pretty much all that the courts are concerned about. I agree that none of the things brought up with the exception of the alcohol recovery could even be considered an issue and I would also believe that proof of rehab if there was any and recovery programs, AA attendance records, etc. Your boyfriend might need to have a back-up plan regarding where he would live if his dad relapses.

Since he hasn't the means apparently to take care of his child full time I would agree about the pot although I would do whatever I could to document the use in case he does need to obtain custody of the child at a later date. The laws may differ in your jurisdiction but in Texas, even if the guy is like years in arrears paying child support, she cannot legally prohibit visits between the child and the parent and they are not on the things she has noted, going to require supervised visits so while it has taken time, things will change when the court order is in place.

[Diablo]

The court will and probably has taken a dim view of his not wanting custody. If he comes up with plenty of evidence of her wrong doing but does not want custody, her lawyer will probably make the point that if she were that much of a bad mother, he would want custody to get him away from her.