[Solved] Ex sold a gift I've given to my son

Hi there

I guess you could use the small claims court, but there are charges and no guarantee of success. Did you ask her if she used the money to purchase a replacement? I’m assuming she thought you would be able to track that particilar ipad.

Hopefully the court will rescind the NMO, but don't be surprised if the court ask you to take an undertaking, without admitting guilt. They may also say that if it goes to a contested hearing this could take as long as the NMO would be in place for, and it would remain in place whilst the case progresses. If that happens, you can ask for a cross undertaking, which would apply to you both, but its a suck it and see situation unfortunately, it will all revolve around the calibre of judge on the day.

Best of luck

Completely forget about getting the money back from the iPad, it’s not going to happen and that’s not your biggest problem.

Yours is not the first case I come across where a woman alleges controlling behaviour by being tracked via technology, that may be because these women are being coached ( but don’t say that in court, you can’t prove it ).

The magistrates/judge are likely to pressure you to give an undertaking. You can respond by saying that the mother’s application has no merit and you are happy to agree to a consent order where she withdraws her application and recitals can be added to the order to address whatever concerns the mother has.

Given an undertaking will cast a shadow of doubt that you’ll never get yourself rid of. It may save you time in the short term, but you’ll have to live with it forever. Conversely, if things go full trial, it will take a long time and be incredibly stressful.

If you can get away with a consent order for the application to be withdrawn and issues addressed by recital, life will be easier in the future.

Hi superprouddad!

Thank you for that, it helped a lot!

Excuse me for being so clueless but could you tell me the difference between undertakings and consent order? And is the consent order enforceable? Not that I would ever intend breach it but just for my peace of mind.

Thank you

So you start with your ex accusing you of having done something horrible, and asks the court for a non molestation order to make you stop doing the “thing”.

When you give an undertaking, you’re basically saying you promise you will not do the “thing”, without admiting guilt. If you then do the “thing”, you can be found in contempt of court and be penalised for that.

If your ex agrees to a consent order, she is basically saying, never mind, I don’t want to pursue this anymore, and you promise you won’t do the “thing” and that gets recorded in a recital, which is not enforceable, so if later on you do the “thing” you would not be in contempt of court.

The difficulty here is, a consent order can only be made if both parties agree, and there’s a good chance she won’t agree, but nevertheless, this is still a weapon you can use if the judge pressures you to give an undertaking just to get things over with.

You can say, look judge, this case has no merit, I don’t want to waste the courts time, but please understand that if I give an undertaking there will always be a shadow of doubt over me, I’m an honourable man, a caring loving father, I have great respect for the great job the mother does with respect to our child and it is not my wish to go through lengthy proceedings which are likely to do more harm than good, especially regarding our child’s wellbeing, therefore I suggest that you record in a recital that I will not do the “thing” and this application can be withdrawn by consent.

When I faced a non-mol application I refused to give an undertaking and was ready to go to full trial. I was lucky and she agreed to withdraw.

Now that I’m going through enforcement and she is trying to resurrect the allegations that she withdrew then, instead of saying I gave an undertaking I can say, I never did it, I wanted a full trial and she is the one who withdrew. Big difference.

If she doesn’t agree to withdraw, you have a difficult choice to make. Full proceedings can drag on for a long time and it will be very difficult for you.

At the same time, if later on she decides to use it against you, it will be difficult anyway.

In my case it was very simple, I hadn’t done it, and to my mind the ex was ( and still is ) being controlling and I didn’t trust her to give her an undertaking that I knew would later be used against me.

Best of luck

It’s important to point out that obtaining consent orders in this situation is quite rare, often the other party won’t give consent, the fall back position is usually the undertaking. However, it’s useful to know about and could be used as leverage to get a cross undertaking rather than the onus being on your shoulders.

You can also ask that it be recorded that any undertaking isn’t used against you should there be an application to family court, or that it affects communication between you over matters concerning the children.

Thank you both. I feel a little more confident but still, I can't afford a lawyer so I'm going on my own, I have absolutely nothing to hide.

Me and her, we were friends, in fact I was friends with both her and her husband! We had dinners together, help each other out etc. Until one day that they moved further away (3 hours drive) and I asked them to help me with the journey (I.e drive half way or something similar) just so I could see my son. She refused and said "if you wanna see your son you need to come and see him, I'm not doing any travelling". But this is not fair! I didn't ask her to move and I'm happy for them that they moved however I'm the one who's screwed as if I want to see my son I will need to drive a total of 6 hours!!!!

So I said to her. If I do that I will be taking the motoring costs out of the child maintenance and if my son needs any thing I will be buying him what he needs.

I did it and you can now imagine what happened... She said that my son doesn't want to see me. I asked various times why?! She said she doesn't know why so I said let me speak to him, she replied he doesn't want to speak to you. After emails back and forwards we agreed to meet. I went up, waited for her at the agreed location and she never showed up. I went to her house and that's when I discovered she has moved! She disappeared with my son!!! I sent her an email basically saying that if she doesn't come forward I would go to court and file a C4 and C100.

Last Monday I received and Non - Molestion Order... With accusations that I spent almost half an hour looking at the document and shouting "[censored]!!".

It is horrible when you see the other side of that person. Someone that you'd never guess that they would be like this.

Anyway... Now just gotta deal with it.

Thanks guys.

SuperProudDad - can you explain what you meant by going to full trial? Do you mean a trial in a court of law?