Please note, all names have been changed for confidentiality reasons.
Miss Field is a single parent with a 4 year old son, living in Plymouth.
She lives just around the corner from Mr and Mrs Snow, although the rear of each house backs on to a communal area and car park, containing the area for waste and recycle bins for the houses.
Both parties had agreed to mediation, although had not wished to meet at this stage.
The Mediator therefore arranged a day with both parties when he could call to each of them in turn, with the first call being an introduction to the mediation process, and to hear about the issues.
Once the mediation had started, through visiting parties in turn the Mediator established that whilst there was ill feeling between the households, this had centred around Mr and Mrs Snow’s young son playing football with friends in the car park entrance, which was right alongside the wall of Miss Field’s house, thereby keeping her young son awake.
This had resulted in Miss Field telephoning her brother ( who lived elsewhere in the city ) to assist in resolving the situation ; he had come over and been abusive to the boy and his parents ; this Miss Field had not intended, and she had told her brother to stay away from now on ( but Mr and Mrs Snow did not know this at the time )
As a result of Mr and Mrs Snow realising the upset caused by the football incidents, and Miss Field being able to get across to her neighbour that she had not meant her brother to be abusive ( and apologised for this ), the neighbours felt able to move forward, and made a written agreement.
They agreed to put the past behind and move forward, to not allow children to play in the car park entrance, and to be civilised when they saw each other in public, with an agreement for there to be no threats or abuse between the families.
Weeks later one of the parties returned her Client Evaluation Form to the Mediation service, stating :
“Mediation was the only way this situation could go forward as communication had completely broken down between us.”