QLD What would you do? Protection Order? Harassment? Defamation? Anything?

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KMac83

Well-Known Member
25 June 2020
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0
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Bear with me.. will try to explain this in order of events and provide a little context to the restrictions/behaviors in play here.
Fiancé has an ex wife. She has him under a DVO (long story short, but she made Fiancé believe their parenting orders were official consent orders, one weekend he arrives to collect, she tells him he isn't having them. Police are called, because he didn't leave the property and wanted to wait for the police to understand what was going on, she now has a DVO for intimidation - with a couple of years left before expiry).
Consent orders now in place. Fiancé gets his children for 1 weekend every fortnight.
I have 2 children. 1 of which is a 12yr F.
They have 3 children. 1 of which is a 13yr M.
We need to drive in excess of 1.5hrs (each way) to take them to their weekend sporting commitments. Depending on draw, this could be up to a 4hour drive (each way). Ex wife would often attend sporting venues to watch her children play and situate herself within 15m of the Fiancé. The DVO has a 50m exclusion. I warn Fiancé that as she is the protected party, he is essentially breaching the DVO. He asks her to stop attending the sporting venues or we will have to pull the children from the field and leave.
Within a week, paperwork is received to relax the distance order from the DVO so she can continue to attend games.
She trawled back through 5years/90 pages worth of email correspondence between herself and Fiancé in an attempt to breach him on the 'cannot contact unless about the children' order. Out of the numerous sentences she has highlighted out of context in attempt to file for breach, we get questioned by police over 3 sentences. All charges dropped. No breach determined. She believes she has successfully breached him however. We dare not correct her as this will then encourage her to pursue another avenue/find something else.. which it seems she has...
She has sent in excess of a dozen emails to my Fiancé accusing my 12yr old and their 13yr old of incest under our roof. He forwards these to me so I can be kept up to date as the subject involves my daughter.
She calls her son at ~10pm on a Sunday night and demands my daughter to be woken up so she can question her. (Under current arrangements, my children and Fiancés children only see each other 4 times a year, for the first week of school holidays and in the event that a fathers day weekend lines up - this has only been in affect for approx 1 year. So relatively speaking, our children do not know each other THAT well).
I send an email respectfully asking her not to contact this household at inappropriate times and if she needs to communicate with my daughter, she can do so, through me, via email only.
Their children have started the ball rolling to ask to live with us for majority. She is upset with this, however seems to want to agree to the change in consent orders.
More emails arrive accusing of incest to Fiancés email address.
She makes contact again with my daughter over the phone, via her sons mobile number. I have recordings of snippets of this conversation; she sounds intoxicated. All character reference reports back that she is a functioning alcoholic.
I contact her via email asking for her to stop the false accusations or provide evidence so I can investigate and address. This is causing a great deal of anguish to myself and my daughter. She does not reply to me, but instead, replies to my Fiancé, accusing him of asking me to reply to her (as this would be a breach of the DVO).
I then contact her back via email to assure that my Fiancé did not ask me to contact her and I did so off my own accord as it involves my daughter and ask again for evidence. No reply.
The updated consent orders are sent to her for agreement in principle; I edit the existing court orders and accidentally failed to remove the court seal before sending them back for her perusal. She now is accusing that the Fiancé has illegally attempted to use the courts seal (as she doesn't know I am assisting in this department). Obviously that was not the intention. She agrees in principle, although demands them to be sworn and printed copy with a wet signature (even thought this is not required). She is also asking for the DVO to be added to the application for amended court orders (but I believe this is for her to include when she completes her half of the application form - am I wrong?). I have the paperwork printed and sent as is.
The updated consent orders arrive for her signature. On the same evening, she takes a copy of the two emails I have sent her (stupidly) from my work email address, omitting any other emails and manipulating/redacting some details and completes an online webform complaint at my place of employment. Her complaint is asking why she is receiving emails of this nature from the company. To my knowledge she is not a customer. For the record, work has advised they are supporting me as an employee, however unsure of what the formal response will be post HR investigation. My manager has suggested it may be worthwhile having my lawyer respond to the work complaint, however I am unsure of who (what kind of lawyer) to engage and what request I would make of them?

From what I have observed, she seems to be a fan of making his life (and now my life) hell. She has no regard for wasting police time and is one of the classic examples of "the system" not working as it should. She clearly will stop at nothing.

Do her accusations of my daughter constitute defamation?
Is her excessive emails on the subject matter, although not directly addressed to me, classified as harassment? Or does it classify as harassment now that she has involved my place of employment?
Can I/should I be getting some sort of protection order against her to distance her from my daughter?
How can I protect myself and my family from her (seemingly unstable) actions without jeopardizing my Fiancés ability to have his children full time? This may need to be time sensitive? I don't know...
Should I involve the police? Or obtain legal assistance?
What would you do?

(And I thought dealing with my ex husband was bad - perhaps he was in my life to teach me lessons on dealing with this one!)
 
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sammy01

Well-Known Member
27 September 2015
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Ok, so firstly, hit the enter key a bit more. Sorry, but it makes it easier to read. Yeah I know, bloody arrogant English teacher... But please accept the criticism as well intentioned, I'm trying to read this stuff and keep up...

Defamation? nope.
Harassment? yep it is...
Protection order? Hm you could try, bad idea but...
How to protect yourself from the nutter? I'll get to that in a bit.
Involve the police? HELL NO.

What would you do?
Well go make a nice cuppa and sit down....

Have you heard the phrase 'fight fire with fire'? It is the dumbest phrase EVER. You fight fire with water - cold water. So what I mean is don't do her crazy stuff. She is crazy, she will do crazy better than you and the more you fight the more she will fight. Or to put it another way - It is really hard to explain to an idiot that they are stupid. WHY? Well because they're too dumb to understand. So you need to find another approach.

Story time - My ex used to come to change overs - i would take valium before I had to see her. I had an avo on me and much of your fiance's story sounds like my life. She is fcuking crazy. So at change overs she would scream, huff and puff. One time she had a bag of soiled underwear, not just the kids, her's too. She was throwing them at me... Yelling about laundry. It was insane. I cried, it was a mess.... THEN I got smart. So sorry to come across as sexist - But I had this idea. When the ex was ranting, I would look over her shoulder as if I was staring at an insanely pretty woman walkiing past. So I was totally distracted from the ex's rantings. I made my own way of dealing with crazy. I stopped responding to her crazy s**t and ran my own show... Now the point to my example is that I changed the narrative. Instead of responding to her crazy - I made my own rules. I dis-empowered her.

So none of this looks like legal advice - BUT it is... So let me jump forward a few yrs. I'm still seeing the kids 5 nights a fortnight, the ex is still being crazy. But on the whole things have settled down because I have taken control of how I deal with crazy. I can't stop her being crazy, but I can control my responses.... She applied to court to move 8 hours away. She is claiming she lives in fear of me and needs to move away. I get a nasty letter from a solicitor telling me she is moving and I should just accept it. WTF? The solicitor's letter explains that I'm abusive and the ex will provide evidence to the court to prove it.... I write back asking for this 'evidece' - I provide examples of my nicely worded emails and text messages. I provide copies of some of her stuff - Including her recommendation that I get a good life insurance policy and kill myself so the kids can have a better childhood.... YUP... She withdrew her court application and left the kids with me

So the kids now live with me and visit their mum sometimes. So while most of my adivce is not legal advice - just advice on how to deal with a crazy person, it does actually work as good legal advice. WHY? Well, if this goes to court the judge will be rolling his eyes at all of you.

Sorry but some of the stuff you've done is DUMB. Recording phone calls? That is actually a criminal offence. It will not be admissable in court. You let your daughter talk to this nutter on the phone? WTF? Seriously? grow up. Why would you put your poor kid in that situation? Again, a judge would not be impressed.

But this phone call with your daugter is worth thinking about for a bit... Let's look a the power dynamic here. She demands to talk to your daughter and you let it happen? WTF? Meanwhile you email her using your work email and you get into trouble. Double WTF? She is all over you guys. I bet you panic everytime she emails? Meanwhile you let her talk to your kid? Who has all the power here? SHE DOES... WHY? No seriously, why does she have all the power. I'll give my my reason... Because you let her. So you now have to learn how to change that dynamic.

So what about an avo? Let's face it - if you get an avo against HER what will she do? I don't know the answer, but I bet the thought causes you to feel fear. She will get revenge.... AND if you wind up in family court to get more time with the kids, it will not look good. It will look like you're all crazy and judges don't want to see crazy - they want to see parents that can raise kids well. Now just because she is crazy, doesn't give you permission to be crazy too...

Right - might need to go make another cuppa - Go on... And calm down, you came here looking for advice and that is what you're getting. CALM DOWN - I know you might not like some of it, but please realise I'm spending time punching this keyboard with a genuine desire to give good advice and it is good advice.

Look, there is some stuff you need to deal with. It is called being a parent... No phones after 9pm. Oh and on that phone there is a button to end calls. If she calls and makes demands you hang up and turn the phone off. Simple.

And what about these emails about your daughter? wow - this chick is a nutter. Dont respond. OR get a standard response. Something like 'please refrain from making comments pertaining to my partner or her children. I can only assume your purpose is to cause conflict. I'm not interested." Then repeat the same thing... Everytime she mentions it.... AND your fiance writes to her. NOT YOU. I mean really - what made you think that was gonna end well?

And what about work? Ok lesson learned here - Double check everything before you hit send. By the sounds of things your boss has got your back - So yep, look all of that stuff is crazy and could be grounds for an avo or police involvement, but is that gonna make things better? nope it will piss her off. I'm not gonna give much advice on that one. Workplace law isn't my thing.

Ok, final thought - you guys want more time with his kids? The only realistic way of getting it is IF she agrees. So you have to learn how to play nice. Don't fight fire with fire... On that front, happy to give advice on how to get more time with the kids but you've gotta realise that you need to learn to play the game better.

Homework - Google parallel parenting. Google shrink4men - they have some stuff on youtube too.
 
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KMac83

Well-Known Member
25 June 2020
25
0
121
Thank you Sammy01.
I'm not AS crazy (I hope). I found out about the phone calls after the fact as they just involved the 13M and 12F at the time. And it was the 12F who was recording and you can overhear the conversation between ex wife and 13M in the background. Still not ok in my book, but not actions I took.

I have already suggested my Finace to reply with a stock standard response.. of course I shold do the same.

Thank you for your kind advice and the time taken to write it up. I really appreciate it. Even the paragraph feedback; I was trying to write it as a check list of sorts, so it would limit unnecessary detail. (I'm sure you can appreciate how hard it is not to rant about all the crazy!)
I will do my homework today.
Thanks again.
 

sammy01

Well-Known Member
27 September 2015
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721
2,894
ok - Let's never mention the phone recording again and hope son doesn't mention it to her. Look nothing good can come of that sort of thing.

I'd encourage you to post of the family law forum regarding how to get consent orders for dad to have more time with the kids
 

KMac83

Well-Known Member
25 June 2020
25
0
121
ok - Let's never mention the phone recording again and hope son doesn't mention it to her. Look nothing good can come of that sort of thing.

I'd encourage you to post of the family law forum regarding how to get consent orders for dad to have more time with the kids
Agree!

The consent orders are all drafted and good to go. Just waiting on her signature now.. if we hit too many hurdles that I can't handle, I will def seek some advice.

Thank you again - Have a great day!