Injunction/Restraining orders

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RitchieJoe

Active Member
I won't bore you with the details but basically my older sister has been threatening violence against my mother and today she turned up demanding to speak to her. My mum refused to answer the door as my sister is quite unstable, so my sister put my mums rear car window in with a brick........

I have called the police and they have made an appointment to come tomorrow, but it appears to be never ending and we are considering moving. So I just wanted to ask if anyone has any advice or knowledge of restraining orders or how I can deal with this issue. Whilst I don't believe in violence against women she was no stranger to raising a hand to me when I was younger and she's threatening my mother so I have considered strangling her. But I do want to study to be a psychiatric nurse and that would derail that occupational train.

Please don't judge my family on the actions of my sister.

Ritch
 

TVC

Guest
A horrible situation for you all to be in. All I can suggest is that you wait for the Police. As you said, you won't bore us with the details, but the details will decide what kind of action the police will take or advise.
 
Sorry to hear this. These are not uncommon and we all encountered similar issues within immediate or extended families sometime in our lives. Ask all the questions including support from the Police. For them its a daily issue.
 
You will be told this anyway, but in brief here is what you can expect from the police visit :

We could record a criminal damage and proceed with it. Within that, you have a number of options of what we can do:
- the absolute minimum; speak to daughter, possibly caution her if she admits it, take no further action if she doesn't.
- the absolute maximum; arrest daughter, interview and seek to take the matter to court IF her previous convictions make that an option and If CPS choose two. Those are big IFs that I'll let the officers at your appointment explain in detail. If she is charged at court the prosecution can apply for a restraining order after conviction - no guarantees it would be granted, but they usually are.
- something in between... Depending on the local domestic violence policy of your force these vary wildly.

The 'restraining order' that the above charity can assist your mother in obtaining is actually a 'non molestation order', but essentially they do the same thing - criminalize otherwise technically legal behaviour in order to protect your mum (I. E. "don't go within 100 metres of your mother's house").

:edit: should have mentioned the choice of minimum /maximum /in between will be your mother's, not the police's!
 
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Lullabelle

Banana
Location
Midlands UK
I won't bore you with the details but basically my older sister has been threatening violence against my mother and today she turned up demanding to speak to her. My mum refused to answer the door as my sister is quite unstable, so my sister put my mums rear car window in with a brick........

I have called the police and they have made an appointment to come tomorrow, but it appears to be never ending and we are considering moving. So I just wanted to ask if anyone has any advice or knowledge of restraining orders or how I can deal with this issue. Whilst I don't believe in violence against women she was no stranger to raising a hand to me when I was younger and she's threatening my mother so I have considered strangling her. But I do want to study to be a psychiatric nurse and that would derail that occupational train.

Please don't judge my family on the actions of my sister.

Ritch

I think a lot of of families have 1 rotten apple, doesn't mean the rest of the barrell is tainted
 
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RitchieJoe

RitchieJoe

Active Member
Thank you all for the replies.

I am going to provide a couple of details so that perhaps copper or anyone else can answer some questions I have. My sister has a history of making threats and physical violence towards myself (when I was too small to defend myself) and my mother. We have not provoked today's incident or previous incidents, her main issue is our refusal to speak to her due to previous events. Today she went from asking me to go to the door to give her a hug and within the space of 4-5 minutes she was shouting threats at my mother and then put the back window in. She is incredibly emotionally unstable and I fear for my mothers safety when I am not around. We had reported death threats etc previously but my local force didn't take them seriously as they were made over facebook/social media..... yet racism on social media towards celebrities is treated seriously....so I was stunned to say the least.

Copper..... would the police need to apply for a non molestation order or is it we could do ourselves? and what would the consequences involve if she broke the order? I appreciate the answer to my final question may seem somewhat obvious but given my experience with our local force I would not hold my breath.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
These orders are civil, it's for you to apply. It's breaching them that's a criminal act.

You want a non molestation order. Don't get a restraining order, even one of the rare ones with a power of arrest attached.
 
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RitchieJoe

RitchieJoe

Active Member
These orders are civil, it's for you to apply. It's breaching them that's a criminal act.

You want a non molestation order. Don't get a restraining order, even one of the rare ones with a power of arrest attached.

On the link provided the form was to be completed by a police officer. So the non molestation order I presume comes with a power of arrest attached?
 

Drago

Legendary Member
It's a civil order, and we're forbidden by ACPO from becoming involved in civil process, though undoubtedly many do. Last year my oldest daughter had to get one as they were being hassled by her partners ex partner. I didn't get involved beyond giving her the couple of hundred quid required for the court process. Pretty sure she had it in a few days, and a court officer then served it on the subject.

A non mol carries a power of arrest, so once breached it then and only then becomes a criminal matter. A restraining order or injunction is reliant on you gathering the evidence then having the wherewithall to go back to court yourself, whereas a non mol is for the Dibble to go slapping handcuffs on people.
 
As per Drago above.

You can fill in the form and refer your mother - or just use the contact details to call them direct. For organisation just put "None". I normally have their info cards to hand out with their contact details on, but am not at work at the moment. Once referred they call you - or use the 0844 number on their site which is 24 hour if you want immediate advice.

You are right - we very rarely give much credit to Facebook type threats. The nature of Facebook tends to mean that the recipient is, in effect, consenting to being in the conversation with the other party. The analogy would be someone receiving those threats and insults over the phone, yet never hanging up. You have to accept 'friends' to allow them to contact you, and you always have the option of 'defriending' and blocking to prevent contact. If the other party persists then it changes things (tries other avenues etc), but on the whole if someone contacts us with "someone is bothering me over facebook" our answer is mostly going to be "then defriend them, block them and see if it stops". So I'm not wholly surprised about the previous response.

Remove her from Facebook, block her, and that will raise your credibility when you speak to the officer that attends.

The fact she smashed your car in this case obviously changes it, as you have a criminal offence.

As for restraining orders, whether they 'work' or not mostly depends on your definition of 'work' and the attitude of the offender towards them.

The simple fact is, if your sister continued with criminal acts, putting windows through, assaulting people etc then they won't really make a great deal of difference - if she commits criminal acts, she can be arrested and prosecution sought for those acts.

Non-molestation and restraining orders are meant to be preventative. They try to prevent it getting as far as those criminal acts, by in effect, making it a criminal act to go near the victim, contact them, etc. If the offender ignores them and breaches them they can be arrested and prosecution sought*.

Most people I've met who have one don't regret having them - though not everyone has always thought they made much of a difference.

As Drago said, they are a civil thing. We don't get involved - we used to just tell people 'It's down to you to find a solicitor to get one, or apply yourself ". The charity I linked filled a superb gap there to assist people. Truthfully they tend to concentrate on husband/wife domestics, but that doesn't mean they won't be able to help - you'll have to ask them.


*please note I use the phrase 'prosecution sought' rather than charged. Our justice system always requires sufficient proof to charge, so even if you KNOW she's breached it, if she denies it and there is no other evidence, we may struggle to get it through CPS unless we can produce evidence to show them.

Good luck. I don't envy your situation at all and hope that you can get things resolved.
 
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RitchieJoe

RitchieJoe

Active Member
I got in from work today and apparently the police are going to issue her with a harassment order, but from what I gather it was very poorly explained to my mother and they didn't give vital information I.e whether or not it carries a power of arrest with it. I will have to give them a call on sunday on the non emergency telephone number to get the details myself.
 
It's likely it doesn't.

I suspect what they mean is serving a "1st case harassment" notice. I. E. A bit of paper that says "leave your mum alone otherwise we will arrest you for harassment". It's basically just a warning, but written down and recorded to prevent people later using the defence "my mum doesn't mind me coming round".

If it is what your mother is happiest with, then so be it - however technically, under home office rules they should have crimed a criminal damage if she smashed your mother's window, which it doesn't sound like they have done.
 

buggi

Bird Saviour
Location
Solihull
Your sister's track record is proof that things will never change. Do everything you can, as above, to keep her away and don't feel bad about it. My cousin is the same and after much heart ache my uncle has had to do the same. Some people are unstable enough to kill or severely harm those closest to them. My mother knew someone whose son stabbed her 32 times because he was mentally ill and recently a couple about a mile away suffered the same fate at the hands of their son, the sister survived. Please don't allow yourself or your mother to come to harm out of loyalty. Move if necessary. Take care x
 
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