Slander

[Joyce B]

 Someone has told a friend i took all her fathers money

[Kos]

You should have covered your tracks better then

[keltik]

seems to mesomebody doesnt like you much.

[Joyce B]

And what does .Should have covered your tracks mean exactly. I was married to her father..And she was always jealous .because she did not get everything she wanted after we got together . she was not the centre of attention any more..When he died she thought he had loads of money .. but instead we were in big debts.which i am left to pay . because i borrowed money to set him up in a business..

[FTVS]

Joyce, you and your step daughter clearly have major issues which i will certainly not presume to comment on, save to say that you have both suffered a major bereavement and you both have my heartfelt sympathy and best wishes.

As regards the slander, the law in the UK is that you must prove damage i.e. that harm has been caused to your reputation and that you have a reputation to protect. The latter is rare in the case of an ordinary private person (hence the free rein some of the tabloids seem to have). In this case, the person involved told your friend something that was untrue. Did you repuation suffer from it? I suspect not unless for example, you are accountant whose reputation depends on being competely honest with money. Also I must stress that defamation actions cases are notoriously expensive to litigate. 

Were I to hear this about someone i knew passingly, I would most likley put this more down to a family dispute: the daughter accusing the step-mother of all sorts following the death of her father. Try to rise above it, Joyce, it's malicious gossip. Perhaps you could ask a mutual friend or a neutral relative of your husbands to intervene with your step-daughter and/or this gossip-monger.

I hope it works out for all of you.