6-year-old’s cellphone stirs trouble

A woman who gave her 6-year-old daughter a cellphone sparked a feud with her ex-husband’s new wife and landed her in court Tuesday for a phone harassment charge.

The woman, Mary Lemons Barlow, said she bought her daughter the cellphone so she could talk to her directly while she was staying at her father’s house during his court-ordered visitation time.

However, her ex-husband’s new wife, Candie Lemons, maintained Barlow constantly called her daughter, which was disruptive and interfered with the relatively small amount of time the father had with his daughter.

At the heart of the issue before General Sessions Judge Larry Ross was Lemons’ claim that Barlow had harassed the Lemons family by calling their phone when the mother could not get an answer on her child’s cellphone. Specifically Lemons testified that Barlow had threatened them if they did not let the girl keep her cellphone turned on while visiting their house, saying she would take legal action to further restrict the father’s visitation.

‘We were afraid of what she’d do,’ Lemons testified regarding threats of legal retaliation made by Barlow that were recorded on her cellphone answering service.

Given the fact the threat heard on the answering service was not the point of the warrant, Ross opted to dismiss the phone harassment charge against Barlow, but he emphasized what he heard in the recording of Barlow’s call to Lemons amounted to extortion and perhaps tampering with prosecution.

‘You can’t call and threaten people like that,’ Ross said. ‘You’ll be lucky if these folks don’t go back out there and get a warrant.’

Ross noted the action could land Barlow in jail if her ex-husband and his wife decide to pursue new warrants against her, which are within their legal rights. However, Ross said the wise thing to do would be for both sides to get along and come to some sort of agreement.

‘First off, I don’t think a 6-year-old needs a cellphone, but that’s just me,’ Ross said. ‘The first thing they ought to have done is turn the cellphone off when she came to their house because that’s the father’s time and there’s nothing to say the child has to be allowed a cellphone.’

Ross said his advice would be for the parents to stop arguing and try to behave in a mature fashion in front of their child.

‘The best thing you can do is shut up, go get in your cars, and go home,’ Ross said.