Question
A final hearing resulted in a barring order and a court order to communicate via a co-parenting app. The father is now refusing to use the app and messaging through the elder daughter (aged 16) instead. How do you handle this?
Answer
If you have a final order saying communication is to be via the co-parenting app, you would be completely justified in blocking him on all other channels. Your daughter would also be justified in doing the same, or you doing it for her if it is age-appropriate. At 16, frankly, it probably is.
What will happen then is either his messages go nowhere because he is blocked and that is the end of that, which means he will have to start following the order, or he tries to make a new application to court. Or rather permission to make an application. remember the section 91 (14) bar is a filter, not an absolute bar. Think about it: going back to court to say that the mother is following the final order and he is not is unlikely to meet the threshold for a section 91(14) application or bring joy to a judge.
This is fundamentally about boundaries, modelling what a dignified “no” looks like, setting a clear line and holding it with a stuck-record approach. That is the only way to reinforce a boundary with someone like this. You repeat it, you do not move it, and you do not apologise for it.
