What to do if you are harassed by your ex-husband, ex-wife or ex-partner
Harassment by an ex-wife or ex-husband or ex-partner is unfortunately incredibly common. In too many cases, a former wife had decided to harass her ex-husband via the internet, email and social media (or the other way round). The challenge of of how to stop online harassment by a former spouse is particuarly high.
In the early days of the internet, there was an online harassment method called Google Bomb, which was particularly favourable among single, disgruntled individuals who felt aggrieved by someone, and who with little understanding of how the internet works, had been able to cause substantial reputational damage to their adversary. A powerful Google bomb does not necessarily need to be driven by an equally powerful force of bloggers and posters. In this case, it provided a vehicle for the utilisation of harassment by an ex wife.
A Google Bomb, at its most effective and long-lasting form can sometimes be created from someone’s back room and provided the Google Bomb is sufficiently targeted, it can still cause enormous amounts of reputational damage online to its unsuspected victim. A simple form of how a Google Bomb, or of a Mini Google Bomb can easily be created is given in the example below:
Warning!!! Please don’t repeat at home.
A successful business consultant from Surrey (let’s call him John Smith) and his wife Sandra Smith, went through an acrimonious divorce which left Sandra bitter to the extreme. During the divorce, Sandra was not able to afford the same quality of legal representation as her husband John, which resulted in a poor legal settlement for her and for her children and this led to John Smith being a target of harassment by an ex-wife.
But once the divorce was completed, Sandra took her case right to the ‘people’s court’, also known as the internet, where she represented herself in front of many of John’s personal and business contacts.
What Sandra did was of course unlawful, and often when court cases do not turn out fairly, it can leave people feeling angry and frustrated, since only the people involved know the true story of why they ended up in the divorce courts. In this case, Sandra felt aggrieved and was intent on being vengeful against her ex-husband. Sandra decided to embark on an online harassment campaign. Sandra went through a copy of John’s contact book and then sent each person on the contact list the following email:
Hi, this is about John Smith. I want you to do me a big favour and have a look at this information for me. This is really important.
Important information about John Smith – a liar
FOLLOW THE ABOVE LINK John Smith – a liar
Needless to say, her actions had caused John substantial reputational harm, since all of John's contacts read their emails from him immediately, and despite them realising that it was clearly a vengeful act, it left John feeling full of anguish and not knowing where to turn.
On seeking assistance from our internet law firm, we were able to resolve the matter quickly, and relatively amicably. Defamation and online harassment by an ex-wife or ex-husband or ex-partner is an unfortunate, stressful situation to be in and this law firm has seen many disgruntled adverseries take to using social media to defame people. There are have been cases of slanderous impersonation and many have suffered breach of privacy by having their private information posted online as well as the sharing of intimate images, and if it is happening to you, you need help quickly.
For all online harassment issues and any harassment by an ex-wife or ex-partner, call us now for advice on 0800-612-7211.