fc_judgments_version: 26

This data as json

_id _item _version _commit tags date court case-number title citation url counsel timestamp coram html _item_full_hash
26 20 1 1291 
[
    "Family Law \u2013 Family violence \u2013 Orders for protection"
]
 2024-03-12 Family Court SS No 998 of 2023 WVK (on behalf of children) v WVJ [2024] SGFC 15 https://www.lawnet.sg:443/lawnet/web/lawnet/free-resources?p_p_id=freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_action=openContentPage&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_docId=%2FJudgment%2F31177-SSP.xml 
[
    "The applicant in person",
    "The respondent in person."
]
 2024-03-19T16:00:00Z[GMT] Patrick Tay Wei Sheng <root><head><title>WVK (on behalf of children) v WVJ</title></head><content><div class="contentsOfFile"> <h2 align="center" class="title"><span class="caseTitle"> WVK (on behalf of children) <em>v</em> WVJ </span><br><span class="Citation offhyperlink"><a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/31177-SSP.xml')">[2024] SGFC 15</a></span></h2><table id="info-table"><tbody><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Case Number</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">SS No 998 of 2023</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Decision Date</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">12 March 2024</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Tribunal/Court</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">Family Court</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Coram</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> Patrick Tay Wei Sheng </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Counsel Name(s)</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> The applicant in person; The respondent in person. </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Parties</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> WVK (on behalf of children) — WVJ </td></tr></tbody></table> <p class="txt-body"><span style="font-style:italic">Family Law</span> – <span style="font-style:italic">Family violence</span> – <span style="font-style:italic">Orders for protection</span></p> <p></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="80%"><p class="Judg-Hearing-Date">12 March 2024</p></td><td><p class="Judg-Date-Reserved"></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p> <p class="Judg-Author"> District Judge Patrick Tay Wei Sheng:</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_1"></a>1       A husband applied for personal protection orders (each, a “PPO”) on behalf of his four children against his wife. He alleged that his wife had, in her attempts to remove from his care the youngest – infant – child of theirs, placed all four children in fear of hurt. Having heard the evidence of the spouses and the three older children, I granted PPOs in favour of the three older children but limited those PPOs to a duration of a year. I declined to grant a PPO in favour of the infant. I also directed the spouses and the children (save for the infant) to attend counselling with a view to helping the spouses to co-parent the children.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_2"></a>2       The wife has filed an appeal against these decisions. I now provide my reasons for them.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_3"></a>3       The spouses married in 2022. They had the infant, who was their sole biological child, in January 2023. Apart from the infant, they had three older children (the “stepchildren”) from a previous marriage of the husband. The stepchildren were respectively 12, 9, and 8 years of age.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_4"></a>4       Unfortunately, fissures developed in the marriage. By early-2023, the spouses had commenced divorce proceedings in the Syariah Court. The spouses began living separately, with the stepchildren in the care of the husband and the infant in the care of the wife. But the access of the husband to the infant remained a source of disagreement between the spouses.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_5"></a>5       On 26 May 2023, pursuant to an informal arrangement between the spouses, the husband picked up the infant from the residence of the wife. Pursuant to that arrangement, too, the husband was to return the infant to the care of the wife on 28 May 2023. But further disagreements ensued between the spouses over the infant, and the husband did not so return the infant to the care of the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_6"></a>6       On 29 May 2023, the solicitors for the wife sent a letter to the husband. In that letter, they demanded that he return the infant to her care “within 24 hours of receiving this letter (no later than by 12 Noon on Wednesday, 31 May 2023).” The letter added: “Failure to comply with this demand will leave our client with no alternative but to pursue legal remedies available to her to ensure the immediate return of the [infant] and seek appropriate legal action to protect the rights of our client”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_1" id="Ftn_1_1"><sup>[note: 1]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_7"></a>7       On 31 May 2023, after the husband did not comply with this demand, the wife, her mother, and her younger sister appeared uninvited at his residence, which was a rental flat. They knocked repeatedly on his door and demanded the infant. After the husband opened the door, they pushed it open despite his attempts to close it. They left only after the husband called for the assistance of the police. Throughout this episode, the stepchildren and the infant were with the husband in the flat.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_8"></a>8       On 1 June 2023, the wife and her mother returned to the flat of the husband and knocked repeatedly on the door. The husband who was in the flat declined to open the door and sent a text message to the wife telling her to stop the knocking. Nevertheless, the knocking continued for 15–20 minutes. When the door remained closed, the wife and her mother left.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_9"></a>9       On 3 July 2023, the husband brought the infant to a polyclinic for a medical appointment. He wheeled the infant in a stroller while the stepchildren accompanied them. While they waited to be served, the wife and her mother appeared. The wife spoke with the husband, but he ignored her and instead called the police for assistance. A commotion ensued, with the wife making physical contact with two of the stepchildren. The mother of the wife took the infant from the stroller and handed the infant to the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_10"></a>10     Since 3 July 2023, the infant had been in the care of the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_11"></a>11     The husband brought this application on behalf of all four children, alleging that the wife had placed them in fear of hurt. He alleged that the wife had, on 31 May 2023, placed the children in fear of hurt by hitting him and damaging the doorway to the flat in the presence of the children while the children and him had been in the flat. He added that the wife had, on 3 July 2023, hit the older children while attempting to remove the infant from his care. He thus sought PPOs to protect the children from the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_12"></a>12     The wife contended that she had been “wrongfully accused”. She stated that it was “not in [her] nature to cause, inflict or even consider hurt upon any especially not to [her] very own flesh and blood”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_2" id="Ftn_2_1"><sup>[note: 2]</sup></a></span> She adduced statements of support from her mother and her sister. The former stated that “for a person who has had her child taken away from her for an extended period of time without her consent, [the wife] still managed to speak diplomatically to [the husband].”<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_3" id="Ftn_3_1"><sup>[note: 3]</sup></a></span> The latter stated similarly that “for a person who has had her child taken away from her for an extended period of time without her consent, [the wife] still managed to speak in a calm and civilized manner to [the husband].”<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_4" id="Ftn_4_1"><sup>[note: 4]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_13"></a>13     The power of the court to grant a PPO is found in s 65(1) of the Women’s Charter 1961 (2020 Rev Ed) (the “Charter”). It reads:</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1"> <b>Protection order</b> </p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1"> <b>65.</b>—(1)    The court may, upon satisfaction on a balance of probabilities that family violence has been committed or is likely to be committed against a family member and that it is necessary for the protection of the family member, make a protection order restraining the person against whom the order is made from using family violence against the family member.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_14"></a>14     Two conditions must thus be proven on a balance of probabilities before a PPO may be granted. First, “family violence” must have been committed or must have been likely to be committed on a family member. Second, the PPO must be necessary for the protection of that family member (<em>UNQ v UNR</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/25291-SSP.xml')">[2020] SGHCF 21</a> (“<em>UNQ</em>”) at [23]–[24]).</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_15"></a>15     As for the definition of “family violence”, s 64 of the Charter provides:</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">“family violence” means the commission of any of the following acts:</p> <p class="Judg-QuoteList-2">(a)    wilfully or knowingly placing, or attempting to place, a family member in fear of hurt;</p> <p class="Judg-QuoteList-2">(b)    causing hurt to a family member by such act which is known or ought to have been known would result in hurt;</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-2">…</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_16"></a>16     Hence, physically abusing a family member will constitute family violence where hurt (defined in s 64 of the Charter as “bodily pain, disease or infirmity”) was caused by an act that was known or ought to have been known would result in hurt. Also, acts that fall short of physical hurt but that are committed to place a family member in fear of hurt, or in an attempt to place the family member in fear of hurt, may constitute family violence if such acts are committed wilfully or knowingly (<em>UNQ</em> at [26]).</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_17"></a>17     For the incident on 31 May 2023, the wife had appeared at the flat of the husband uninvited, hit him when he opened the door thereto, reached in to push the door open when he had tried to close it, and did so in the view of the four children. These contentions were supported by a police report that he had filed on the same day.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_5" id="Ftn_5_1"><sup>[note: 5]</sup></a></span> The only response offered by the wife was that she had approached the husband “cordially, but was treated with an unwelcome reception”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_6" id="Ftn_6_1"><sup>[note: 6]</sup></a></span> But apparent from the contemporaneous video footage of the incident was instead the aggression of the wife, her mother, and her sister.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_7" id="Ftn_7_1"><sup>[note: 7]</sup></a></span> Similarly, a transcript produced by the wife of the exchange between them and the husband showed them issuing their demands and threatening to call the police for assistance.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_8" id="Ftn_8_1"><sup>[note: 8]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_18"></a>18     Indeed, the wife she had no basis to confront the husband at his flat on 31 May 2023. She had been fully aware that even if the husband had not complied with their arrangement on his access to the infant, her recourse lay at law and not in an extra-legal retrieval of the infant. In the letter of demand that she sent to the husband on 29 May 2023 (see [6] above), she threatened to “pursue <em>legal</em> remedies available to her to ensure the immediate return of the [infant] and seek appropriate <em>legal</em> action to protect [her] rights” [emphasis added]. Yet two days later (and merely hours after the deadline in that letter of demand for the husband to return the infant had expired), she attempted such an extra-legal retrieval. She assembled a posse of her relatives, appeared uninvited at the flat of the husband, and forced open his door when he had tried to close it. And she did these actions in the view of the children, who were in the flat, while blocking the doorway to the flat, which appeared to be their sole path of egress from the flat. With the spatial limits of the rental flat leaving little distance between her and the children, she must have known that these actions would likely place them in fear of hurt.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_19"></a>19     The incident on 3 July 2023 was not stated by the husband in his Complaint, the process by which he commenced these proceedings, and raised by him only at trial. Nevertheless, the wife deposed to this incident in her evidence-in-chief<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_9" id="Ftn_9_1"><sup>[note: 9]</sup></a></span> and provided an account on the events that day. I did not therefore think that admitting the evidence on this incident would take her by surprise or otherwise occasion prejudice to her. I thus allowed the husband to lead evidence on this incident.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_20"></a>20     The husband deposed that two of the stepchildren were hit by the wife at the polyclinic on 3 July 2023, when the wife appeared and tried to retrieve the infant.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_10" id="Ftn_10_1"><sup>[note: 10]</sup></a></span> All three stepchildren deposed to the same: that the wife had kicked one of them on the thigh and had pushed or slapped another on the hand.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_11" id="Ftn_11_1"><sup>[note: 11]</sup></a></span> In support of these contentions, the husband exhibited two sets of medical documents from Changi General Hospital. For the stepchild who had been kicked in the thigh, there was a diagnosis of a bruise on the thigh consistent with an “assault” and a prescription for two days of medical leave from 3 July 2023.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_12" id="Ftn_12_1"><sup>[note: 12]</sup></a></span> For the stepchild who had been pushed or slapped on the hand, there was a prescription for three days of medical leave from 3 July 2023.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_13" id="Ftn_13_1"><sup>[note: 13]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_21"></a>21     The wife initially maintained that the evidence of the stepchildren on the events of 3 July 2023 was “totally untrue”. But she subsequently suggested that any physical contact must have happened in the context of a “commotion” and amidst the “tension” that had transcended the interactions.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_14" id="Ftn_14_1"><sup>[note: 14]</sup></a></span> By this suggestion, therefore, the wife did not deny that she had kicked and pushed or slapped the stepchildren. Moreover, it was difficult to accept that this physical contact had been accidental. The kick had been delivered at the height of the “thigh” and with such force as to produce a bruise for which two days of medical leave was prescribed for its victim. And the push or slap had necessitated three days of medical leave for its victim. This incident thus involved at least the knowing causing of hurt to the two stepchildren who had been kicked and pushed or slapped, and the knowing placing in fear of hurt of all three stepchildren. The wife had thus perpetrated family violence on all of them.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_22"></a>22     Although the spouses were undergoing divorce proceedings, the stepchildren would likely have further contact with the wife. This was because of their close relationship with the infant, about whom the wife felt fiercely and whose extra-legal retrieval by the wife had precipitated the unfortunate events that are the subject of these proceedings. The difficulty that the wife had in regulating her emotions around the husband and the stepchildren had left the stepchildren at risk of further family violence. Their protection thus necessitated the granting a PPO in favour of each of them.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_23"></a>23     For completeness, I did not think that a PPO was necessary for the protection of the infant. Any family violence by the wife on the infant had been purely tangential to that on the husband and the stepchildren. With the infant having been returned to the care of the wife since 3 July 2023, the risk of any family violence by the wife on the infant had abated.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_24"></a>24     Still, given the closeness between the stepchildren and the infant, it would be in the best interests of the spouses, the stepchildren, and the infant to preserve a functional relationship between the stepchildren and the wife. To that end, I directed the husband, the wife, and the stepchildren to attending counselling with the Ministry of Social and Family Development with a view to improving this relationship. I also limited the duration of the PPOs in favour of the stepchildren to a year, in the hope that by the conclusion of the counselling, the formal orders for their protection would no longer be necessary.</p> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_1_1" id="Ftn_1">[note: 1]</a></sup>WAEIC21</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_2_1" id="Ftn_2">[note: 2]</a></sup>WAEIC1</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_3_1" id="Ftn_3">[note: 3]</a></sup>WAEIC6</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_4_1" id="Ftn_4">[note: 4]</a></sup>WAEIC7</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_5_1" id="Ftn_5">[note: 5]</a></sup>HAEIC11</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_6_1" id="Ftn_6">[note: 6]</a></sup>WAEIC4</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_7_1" id="Ftn_7">[note: 7]</a></sup>See video taken by H on 31 May 2023</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_8_1" id="Ftn_8">[note: 8]</a></sup>WAEIC4</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_9_1" id="Ftn_9">[note: 9]</a></sup>WAEIC3</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_10_1" id="Ftn_10">[note: 10]</a></sup>1NE3</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_11_1" id="Ftn_11">[note: 11]</a></sup>3NE3, 5, 7</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_12_1" id="Ftn_12">[note: 12]</a></sup>HAEIC17–18</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_13_1" id="Ftn_13">[note: 13]</a></sup>HAEIC20</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_14_1" id="Ftn_14">[note: 14]</a></sup>3NE6</p></div></content></root> acacb21f72be1aafef622269e004cde481917df3

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