ALJ v ALK

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Woo Bih Li J
• Judgment Date: 26 August 2010
• Neutral Citation: [2010] SGHC 255
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce Transfer No 3435 of 2008
• Year: 2010
• Published date: 31 August 2010
• Hearing Date: 19 July 2010,05 August 2010
• Plaintiff Counsel: The plaintiff in person
• Defendant Counsel: Helen Chia and Rebecca Kool (Helen Chia LLC)
• Subject Matter: Conflict of Laws,Family Law
• Citation: [2010] SGHC 255

Woo Bih Li J: Introduction

The plaintiff, ALJ (“the Husband”) married the defendant, ALK (“the Wife”) on 21 April 2005. They have two children: a son born in 2006 and a daughter born in 2007. The Wife gave birth to a third child in 2008, while the parties were still married. Both parties have proceeded on the basis that the Husband is not the father of the third child. The present proceedings relate only to the first two children of the marriage.

The Husband commenced divorce proceedings and ancillaries in Singapore in July 2008 claiming, inter alia, that the marriage had broken down irretrievably because the Wife had committed adultery and the Husband found it intolerable to live with her. The Wife counterclaimed against the Husband, alleging unreasonable behaviour on his part. The District Court found that the claim and counterclaim were sufficiently proven and granted interim judgment on 1 July 2009.

The ancillary matters were transferred to the High Court and came before me for hearing. The Husband represented himself and the Wife was represented by counsel. The issues arising in the ancillaries were: (a) custody, care and control of the parties’ two children; (b) access to the two children by the party not awarded care and control; (c) division of matrimonial assets and maintenance for the Wife; and (d) maintenance for the two children.

Background facts

Both parties are United States citizens and permanent residents of Singapore. The Wife obtained her permanent residency as a dependent of the Husband. The parties met in California in 2004 and came to Singapore in February 2005 when the Husband was posted here for work by his company. They were married here two months later. The matrimonial home was a rented house. Their son and daughter were born in Singapore but are also United States citizens. The Husband travelled overseas frequently due to work commitments while the Wife worked as a property agent in Singapore.

The marriage started to deteriorate sometime in 2007 shortly after the daughter was born. According to the Wife, the Husband had problems with alcohol and frequently used violence on her. On 24 October 2007, while the Husband was away on a business trip in Shanghai, the Wife applied for and obtained an expedited Personal Protection Order (“PPO”) against him. When the Husband returned to the matrimonial home two days later, he discovered that the Wife had taken the children to stay in a hotel. The Husband left for California on 29 October 2007 to spend time with his family. When he telephoned the Wife from California just a few days later, she informed him that she had fallen in love with another man, [TP], whom she had known since 2005, and that he had moved into the matrimonial home. [TP] was the co-defendant in the main divorce proceedings and I shall refer to him as “the Third Party”. The Husband was traumatised when he heard the Wife’s news and checked into a hospital for treatment.

The Wife remained in Singapore with the children and the Third Party during this period, while the Husband was undergoing therapy. The Husband made many attempts to contact the Wife from overseas but she told him to stop harassing her and not to return to the matrimonial home. She also informed him that she wanted a divorce, that she would get sole custody of the two children and that the children were very happy living with the Third Party. The Wife also became pregnant around this time and later gave birth to the third child in September 2008. She admitted that the Third Party is the father of this child.

The Husband returned to Singapore in January 2008 and removed the two children from the matrimonial home without the Wife’s knowledge or consent. It is unclear when the children were returned to her. In any event, she subsequently applied to court by Originating Summons (Family Matters) 14 of 2008 (“OSF 14/2008”) for an order of interim custody, care and control under the Guardianship of Infants Act (Cap 122, 1985 Rev Ed). The District Judge granted the order on 5 February 2008. The court order also granted half-day access to the Husband on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Around this time, the Wife also commenced divorce proceedings in California in late January 2008. She alleged that she has since withdrawn those proceedings.

The Husband removed the children from the matrimonial home without the Wife’s knowledge or consent on two more occasions in April and August 2008. Again, it is not clear when the children were returned to the Wife’s care and control each time but she had to apply for and obtain further court orders against the Husband for their return. In fairness to the Husband, it appears that the Wife herself had also been in breach of the 5 February 2008 court order granting him access to the children. The Husband explained that he resorted to removing the children from the matrimonial home because the Wife had refused to let him see them.

During this stormy period, the Husband also committed acts of harassment against the Wife and the Third Party. In January 2008, he forged the signatures of the Wife and the Third Party in a SingPost application to redirect their mail to his own mailing address. He then opened the Wife’s and the Third Party’s letters sent to his address and used the information in these letters to contact their family members, acquaintances and friends without their permission. Later in April 2008, the Husband also sent several death threats to the Third Party in the form of text messages. For these acts, the Husband was charged on 7 October 2008 with forgery and criminal intimidation under ss 465 and 506 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) respectively. He pleaded guilty to both charges and was fined a total of $8,000 and in default eight weeks’ imprisonment. Apparently, three other charges were taken into consideration.

As mentioned above, the Husband commenced divorce proceedings in Singapore in July 2008 alleging adultery on the part of the Wife. The Wife counterclaimed on grounds of the Husband’s unreasonable behaviour. In his affidavit of evidence-in-chief, the Husband alleged that the Wife had been in an adulterous relationship with the Third Party long before she applied for the expedited PPO against him on 24 October 2007. He produced as evidence a photograph of the Third Party’s diary indicating that the Wife and the Third Party had an “anniversary” on 9 October 2007. The Husband also alleged that after the marriage broke down, he discovered that the Wife had previously been married to three other men and had committed adultery in the last two marriages.

The Wife claimed in her defence that she only got involved with the Third Party after the marriage had irretrievably broken down. She did not address the Husband’s allegations about her previous marriages. The Wife also claimed that the Husband had behaved violently towards her during the marriage due to his history of alcoholism and depression. For example, he pulled her hair on one occasion when she was driving along the road with one of the children in the back seat, which nearly resulted in an accident. On another occasion, he ripped her spectacles from her face and slapped her, breaking the spectacles in the process. After the marriage broke down, he started to harass her family and friends. He also breached court orders several times by removing their two children from her care and control and refusing to return them until she applied for committal proceedings against him.

On 1 July 2009, the District Judge found that the claim and counterclaim were proven and granted interim judgment.

The parties’ two children are presently living with the third child and the Wife, who continues to work as a property agent here. The Husband has half-day access on two weekdays from 2.00pm to 7.00pm and full-day access on Saturdays from 9.00am to 7.00pm, with the handover being made at Tanglin Police Station. He has no overnight or overseas access. The Wife also continues to be in her relationship with the Third Party. The Husband is currently unemployed, having lost his job with his company in May 2008. He is living on his savings but stated that he had a job offer waiting for him back in California. He is also paying $800 and $1 per month towards the maintenance of the children and the Wife respectively. Although both children are United States citizens, they are allegedly unable to leave Singapore as their passports have expired. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (“ICA”) has in fact granted the children special passes allowing them to remain in Singapore pending the outcome of these proceedings. It was not made clear to me whether these special passes could be used as temporary passports for the children.

The Husband’s wish was to bring the two children back with him to California. He stated that he only came to Singapore for work and did not intend to remain here permanently. The Wife originally intended to bring the children with her to Dubai, where the Third Party is currently working. However, she changed her mind and now wished to remain in Singapore for the foreseeable future. She also mentioned that the Third Party was posted to Dubai by his company as a temporary safety measure because of the threats made against him by the Husband. Finally, she stated that although her permanent residency is due to expire next year, she was confident of obtaining a fresh permanent residency based on her own merits.

Preliminary issue – Stay of proceedings

Before dealing with the substantive issues, I had to address a point brought up by the Husband which caused some confusion. His main argument was that the children should return with him to California so that the ancillary matters could be resolved in the Californian courts. This was in fact his primary objective throughout the various proceedings here and he had taken out applications to stay both the...