Restraining Orders

The mother may want to talk to a lawyer to see if there could be possible consequences against her for allowing the father to violate the order. In general, if an order was issued for a child, most likely a judge believed that the respondent was a danger to the child. If the mother allows the child to be put in a dangerous situation ignoring the order, and something happens to the child, the mother may want to ask a lawyer whether or not she can be charged with some type of crime of endangering the welfare of a child, whether or not there can be abuse/neglect charges filed against her by the state’s child protective services, or whether there can be any other consequences against her such as a loss of custody, etc. I cannot tell you what can happen in this situation since I am not specifically familiar with STATE’s laws and how the courts treat this type of situation. Here is a link for lawyers in STATE: LINK

One consequence that may be possible when someone who has an order allows a respondent to violate an order, in general, if later something abusive happens that the petitioner wants to report to the police, it may be harder for the petitioner to get the violation to be taken seriously by police and prosecutors. Also, if a petitioner has a temporary order and s/he plans on returning to court to get a final order (if that is the procedure in the petitioner’s state), the respondent may be able to use the petitioner’s behavior against him/her in court possibly. The petitioner may want to alert his/her lawyer to any prior contact with the respondent when preparing for a final protection order hearing so the lawyer can prepare for how to respond if this is raised. In the case you describe, I don’t know if the mother is also a petitioner and has an order for herself or if the order was issued by the court after an arrest, etc. Also, if a child has an order, it may also be possible that the child’s mother may have been ordered by the judge to follow the terms of the order. If the mother violates the order, it may be possible that she may be at risk of arrest or contempt of court for violating the order. Again, I have no idea if any of this would apply to the mother in the situation you describe. For this reason, the mother may want to show the order to a lawyer and get specific advice about her situation.