Thorsen Jens Christian v Amjit Kaur

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Koh Juat Jong
• Judgment Date: 29 July 2000
• Neutral Citation: [2000] SGDC 29
• Year: 2000
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Citation: [2000] SGDC 29
• Court: District Court (Singapore)

Judgment

GROUNDS OF DECISION

Background

1 The parties were divorced in 1997. On 7 July 1998, a consent order was made granting joint custody of the child of the marriage, J (male, born 25 January 1994), to both parties, with the father having care and control of the child from Friday to Monday and the mother, during the other days. Parties subsequently applied to vary the order. On 28 July 1999, the father was granted the custody, care and control of the child with certain stated periods of access to the mother. The father brought the child back to Denmark. He was to bring the child back to Singapore for mother to have access in December 1999. He did not do so. The mother went to Denmark in April 2000 and brought the child back to Singapore without notice to and consent of the father. The mother then make an application under SIC 750836 of 2000 ("the main SIC") for her to have custody, care an control of the child. The matter was not ready to be heard as parties had not filed all the affidavits necessary for the application. Meanwhile, the father filed several applications. Five of them were heard by me on 24 July 2000. Essentially, the father wanted an order to allow him to bring the child back to Denmark with him. He was due to leave Singapore for Denmark at 9.40 p.m. the next day on 25 July 2000. I refused and ordered that the child shall remain in Singapore until the hearing of the main SIC. However, I also ordered that during the period when he was in Singapore, he would have care and control of the child and during the period when he was not in Singapore, the mother would have care and control of the child. He has appealed against these orders.

Order on 28 July 1999

2 The custody, care and control of the child was granted to the father on 28 May 1999 by District Judge Emily Wilfred. The orders were as follows:

(1) the father shall have custody, care and control of the child forthwith with reasonable access to the mother

(a) four weeks in summer commencing July 2000;

(b) two weeks in winter commencing January 2000;

(c) one week in December commencing December 1999;

(2) the father shall bring the child back personally to Singapore for the access by the mother at his own expense;

(3) on arrival and departure to and from Singapore, the child shall be taken to a doctor to be examined at the father’s own expense;

(4) every Sunday, the child shall be permitted to speak to the mother at 6 pm Singapore time;

(5) the father shall provide his residential address and contact number in office and home in Denmark to his counsel, the mother’s counsel and the Court and the mother’s counsel to undertake not to disclose the said particulars to the mother;

(6) progress report of the child shall be provided by the school to the Court and to the mother every three months for the first year of custody.

Child brought to Denmark

3 The father took the child right after the court hearing and subsequently brought the child to Denmark. The child had weekly telephone conversation with the mother as ordered by the court. The father taped the conversations and produced a transcription. Assuming the contents of the transcript reflected correctly the conversations, the father was present whenever the child spoke to the mother and was monitoring the conversation. There was also evidence that the mother had tried to ask the child of their whereabouts, when the order of court dated 28 July 1999 did not allow her to have that information.

4 The father was to bring the child to Singapore for access by the mother in December 1999. The mother repeatedly asked during the telephone conversation when the child would be back. The father claimed that he could not obtain the air tickets. He informed the mother during the telephone conversations and told her that they would come back only in July 2000.

5 In April 2000, the child was taken away by the mother abruptly from Denmark. The mother was resourceful. She flew to Germany, supposedly to visit her fianc, a German citizen, who just had an operation. They then obtained from the Registry of Danish nationals the address of the father. They drove to that address and waited for the child. When they saw the child outside the house, they took the child and drove him away in the car and subsequently brought him back to Singapore from Germany. Not knowing the whereabouts of the child, the father alerted the Interpol. The matter was widely reported in the press. It was subsequently found that the child was with the mother in Singapore.

The main SIC

6 On 8 May 2000, the mother filed the main SIC seeking a variation of the order of court dated 28 July 1999 and asking for the custody, care and control of the child with supervised access to the father. The matter was first heard by me on 17 May 2000. It was adjourned as the application had not been served on the father. At that hearing, I ordered that the child shall not be brought out of Singapore until further order.

7 The matter came up for a further hearing on 30 May 2000. The father’s counsel accepted service of the SIC on that day. He asked for four weeks for his clients to file an affidavit. Upon being asked about the care arrangement of the child in the interim, the mother’s counsel asked for interim custody. The father’s counsel informed the court that no order was sought by his client and his client would observe the court order made on 17 May 2000 not to take the child out of jurisdiction. However, the father would like to see the child for four hours a day when he was in Singapore. He had no objection to the child staying with the mother when he was not in Singapore.

8 Accordingly, the following orders were made pending the hearing of the main SIC or until further order:

(1) when the father is not in Singapore, the care and control of the child shall be with the mother;

(2) when the father is in Singapore, he shall have the care and control of the child for four hours a day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the mother shall have the care and control of the child for the other hours of the day;

(3) the child shall be fetched from and returned to the Bukit Merah Neighbourhood Police Post; and

(4) the father shall for the period when he has the care and control of the child surrender al his passport and all the passport of the child to his counsel for safekeeping.

The five SICs

9 The father then filed three applications (SIC 751270-2/2000) on 3 July 2000 and another three applications (SIC 751363–5/2000) on 20 July 2000. I heard five of them on 24 July 2000 and adjourned one of them for a month. The five applications heard by me on 24 July 2000 were as follows:

(1) SIC 751270/2000 – for the mother to surrender her passport to the court or her counsel;

(2) SIC 751271/2000 – for the child to return to Denmark pending hearing of the main SIC;

(3) SIC 751272/2000 – for a penal notice to be endorsed on the order dated 30 May 2000;

(4) SIC 751395/2000 – for the mother to produce the child to court and return the child to the custody, care and control of the father;

(5) SIC 751396/2000 – for the mother to disclose the name and details of the school the child was attending in Singapore.

10 The full orders made by me were as follows:

SIC 751395/2000

(1) the father shall have the care and control of the child forthwith until 4 p.m. on 25 July 2000;

(2) during the subsequent period,

(a) when the father is in Singapore, he shall have care and control of the child 3 hours after he arrives in Singapore provided his counsel has given the respondent’s counsel one week’s notice prior to his arrival; and the mother shall have access to the child as follows:

(i) on or after the 8th day, every Wednesday 9 am to 5 pm and every Saturday 12 noon to Sunday 12 noon;

(ii) three days before the hearing date of the main SIC, every day from 3 pm to 7 pm; and

(iii) during the first 7 days when the mother has no physical access to the child, telephone access every day at 6 pm Singapore time for 5 minutes;

(b) when the father is not in Singapore, the mother shall have care and control of the child and the father shall have telephone access every Saturday and Sunday at 6 pm Singapore time for 5 minutes;

(3) during the duration when each party has care and control or access of the child, their passports and any passport(s) of the child in their possession (whether alone or endorsed in any other passport) shall be held by their respective counsel who undertake not to release them to their clients for the duration;

(4)...