TCV v TCW
Judge | Tan Peck Cheng |
Judgment Date | 20 May 2015 |
Neutral Citation | [2015] SGFC 64 |
Citation | [2015] SGFC 64 |
Docket Number | D884 of 2014 |
Published date | 22 July 2015 |
Hearing Date | 03 December 2014,07 January 2015,30 January 2015 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Tan Wen Cheng Adrian (August Law Corporation) |
Subject Matter | Catchwords: Family Law-Ancillary matters,custody care and control of child |
Court | Family Court (Singapore) |
This is a hearing of the ancillary matters adjourned to be heard in chambers after Interim Judgement was granted to dissolve the marriage between the Plaintiff (‘husband’) and the Defendant (‘wife’).
I made the following orders:
The husband has appealed my decision on custody, care and control of the child. I set out the reasons for my decision.
BackgroundThe husband is a Singapore citizen, last working as a quantitative analyst with xxx in London (‘UK’). The defendant is a Mongolian citizen and a housewife.
The parties married in Singapore on 28 June 2011. Their only son M (‘the child’) was born in UK on xxx July 2012. The child is a Singapore citizen.
The husband’s account of the marriage and the events leading to his application for leave to file a Writ of Summons for divorce within 3 years of the marriage (‘OSF 36/2014’) were as follows:
There are on-going proceedings in Singapore and UK in this case.
Singapore proceedingsWhen the parties were in Singapore on 18 January 2014 the husband filed OSF 36/2014 on 22 January 2014 for leave to file a Writ of Summons for divorce within 3 years of marriage and served it on the wife on the same day. The wife immediately moved into a hotel and 3 days later, on 25 January 2014, she returned to UK on her own.
Two days before the filing and service of OSF 36/2014 on the wife, the husband filed OSF 30/2014, to restrain the wife from bringing the child out of Singapore, and OSF 31/2014, for sole custody care and control of the child. His reason was that he was fearful that after the service of OSF36/2014 on the wife she may carry out her previous threat to bring the child away. On 23 January 2014 the court granted an interim order in OSF 30/2014 to restrain the wife from bringing the child out of Singapore.
On 26 February 2014, the husband was granted leave in OSF 36/2014 to file for divorce. He filed the Writ for divorce on 28 February 2014. Interim Judgement was granted on 9 July 2014.
The wife did not enter appearance for the Writ nor take any steps in all the proceedings in Singapore. She only attended 1Pre-trial Conference on 2 October 2014 when she was serving imprisonment sentence of 10 weeks for illegal entry into Singapore by a catamaran from Langkawi, Malaysia with 2 hired Caucasian men to take the child away. Although she informed the court at the Pre-trial Conference that she would not contest the divorce but would engage a lawyer to contest the custody of the child she did not do so. She was released on 7 October 2014. She returned to Mongolia and is currently in UK.
The wife’s UK lawyer had however written to the Family Justice Courts, Singapore (‘FJC’) on 25 July 2014 to request that the Singapore proceedings be ‘stayed and discontinued’. In...
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