VAW v VAX

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tan Zhi Xiang
• Judgment Date: 12 May 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] SGFC 50
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Summons No 2161 of 2020
• Published date: 20 May 2021
• Year: 2021
• Hearing Date: 15 February 2021,08 March 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Both parties in person.
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Family violence,Orders for protection,Continual harassment
• Citation: [2021] SGFC 50

Magistrate Tan Zhi Xiang:

This was an application for a personal protection order by the mother of a child (“the Mother”) against the father (“the Father”). The Mother sought the Court’s protection for both herself and their daughter.

The Mother’s evidence was that the Father had been stalking both her and the daughter. He would appear at the void deck almost daily and outside the residence where she and her daughter lived several times a week. Further, at one time, he had even become a school bus driver at the daughter’s school. In addition, he had called the police on the Mother for no good reason and had sent her threatening and insulting messages. The Mother explained that the Father’s conduct had caused her and the daughter tremendous stress. The Father, on the other hand, admitted to the aforesaid conduct but sought to put them in the context of parties’ relationship. The key plank of his case was that he had only acted in that manner because the Mother had not been complying with access orders and that he had just wanted to spend time with his daughter.

At the conclusion of the hearing, I allowed the Mother’s application and granted the PPO sought. The Father has appealed against my decision.

Background

The parties had been embroiled in acrimonious divorce proceeding since 2014, when the writ for divorce was filed. Interim judgment was granted in February 2016 and orders for ancillary matters were made in the same year. Thereafter, the parties filed many applications relating to the care and control of and access to their daughter. Allegations of sexual abuse were made against the Father but no finding of abuse was ever made. The Father was eventually allowed to resume unsupervised access with the daughter.¹ Perhaps as a result of the daughter’s apparent rejection of the Father, the latest order on access, which was a consent order,² granted the Father supervised weekly access: on Wednesday at 6:45 pm to 8:00 pm for dinner; and on Sunday for four hours between 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and on one Saturday per month (in lieu of a Sunday for four hours between 10:00 am to 8:00 pm).

This was not the Mother’s first application for a PPO. The Mother had previously applied for a PPO for herself and the daughter in 2018, but the application was dismissed. The decision can be found at VAW v VAX [2019] SGFC 104. The Mother filed an appeal against that decision but her appeal was withdrawn after parties reached a settlement at mediation.

I should also add that prior to the first day of trial, the Mother wrote to the Registry to request for leave to withdraw her application. As her request was rather abrupt, I fixed a mention so that I could ascertain the reason for her request. At the said mention, she explained that she could not afford to have her audio and video recordings transcribed. She stated that she would have otherwise proceeded with her application. In the circumstances, I declined to grant leave to withdraw and proceeded with the trial on the day of the mention.

However, given that my decision to proceed with the trial may have taken parties by surprise, I gave parties a further opportunity to submit audio and video recordings (with or without transcription) and fixed a further date for trial. I hasten to add that it is not in every case that the Court will waive the requirement for parties to submit transcriptions of video and audio recordings. This is a decision which I had come to in the unique circumstances of this case.

The parties’ cases

The Mother’s evidence was as follows: Abuse: The Father had sexually and physically abused the daughter in 2016.³ For reasons which will become apparent below, I will not set out these allegations in detail. Court applications and complaints: The Father and his mother took out an application under the Protection of Harassment Act against the Mother and the Mother’s mother. In a separate case, the Father’s brother took out another application against the Mother. Both cases were “closed”.⁴ The Father had also threatened to file numerous applications for committal, variation of access orders and for a PPO. He also “continuously wrote to the magistrate, state court and Tanglin police”.⁵ Stalking: The Father had been stalking both her and the daughter. The Father would wait at the void deck in the morning at around 6:30am as that was the time that the daughter would be waiting for the school bus. There was even one time where the Father had followed the school bus in his van.⁶ The Father had also been waiting at the void deck in the afternoon for the daughter to return via the school bus.⁷ Furthermore, on some occasions, the Father approached both the Mother and daughter in public spaces in their neighbourhood to “shout and berate” at both of them.⁸ In particular, there was an incident in October 2020 where the Father “cornered” the Mother and the daughter at the bakery. The Father allegedly “grabbed” the daughter’s hand and told the daughter that the Mother would be imprisoned if she refused to meet him for access.⁹ Furthermore, the Father would go the their residence to “bang on the door” and “stand outside and make noises”.¹⁰ As a result of the Father’s conduct, the daughter had become “scared and stressed” and would “cry once [they] reach home.” The daughter would not let her open the window in the hall of their residence and would “lock the main door from the inside.”¹¹ False reports: The Father lodged a police report sometime in 2020 accusing the Mother of abusing the daughter.¹² The police went to the Mother’s residence to interview the Mother and check on the daughter.¹³ In particular, a police officer “checked [the daughter’s] body”. The daughter was “devastated by the incident” and since then “she refused to go for access”. The Father had also on some occasions lodged reports stating that the daughter was “missing”. ¹⁴ Threats through calls and text messaging: The Father had texted and called the Mother on numerous occasions to threaten her with jailtime through committal proceedings.¹⁵ Incidents at kindergarten: The Mother referred to some incidents involving the Father at the daughter’s kindergarten. For instance, the Father would observe the daughter from the windows of the kindergarten premises. On one occasion, the Father even shouted at one of the teachers.¹⁶ Incident at DSSA: On 11 October 2018, during one of the supervised visitation sessions facilitated by a Divorce Specialist Support Agency (“DSSA”), the Father had threatened the daughter that if she did not stop refusing access, he would send the Mother and the Mother’s sister to prison. Furthermore, while the Mother and daughter were waiting for the taxi (presumably to take them back home), the Father drove past and honked at them, and then parked his van near them and stared at them.¹⁷ Bus driver: Sometime in 2019, the Father somehow managed to secure a position as a bus driver for the daughter’s school. The daughter saw the Father in school and had asked “someone [in school] to help her”. The daughter “started to refuse to go to school”.¹⁸ The daughter’s primary school parents’ gateway: The Father had signed into the daughter’s primary school parents’ gateway to acknowledge some messages that the school had sent.¹⁹ The Father’s refusal to sell the house: The Father had refused to sell the matrimonial home and was still living there at the time of these proceedings.²⁰

The Mother gave evidence that she and her daughter felt “very scared” and would “look… behind [their] shoulder” when walking outside. The daughter would run and get “worked up” every time when going to and returning from school.²¹ The Mother also stated that she was “being pushed to the edge” by the Father.²²

As stated above, the Father did not deny the allegations and indeed had admitted to a number of them. His main point was that he had behaved in that manner because the Mother had denied him access,²³ and that he had only wanted to see his daughter.²⁴ He also explained that the daughter was not afraid of him, and that she would be “happy” to see him, as evidenced by her “eye contact” with him.²⁵ Indeed, it was his evidence that the Mother was the one who “bullie[d]” and “hurt” the daughter”,²⁶ and that sometimes, the daughter would “smile” at him when the Mother was not looking.²⁷ It appeared to be his case that as a result of the Mother’s actions, the daughter stopped talking to him sometime in the middle of 2019.²⁸

The law

The applicable law is clearly set out in the decision of the High Court (Family Division) in UNQ v UNR [2020] SGHCF 21 (“UNQ v UNR”) and I reproduce the relevant parts in the next few paragraphs.

The Court is empowered to make a protection order under s 65(1) of the Charter, which states: Protection order 65.—(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.

There are thus two threshold requirements that must be met before a court may grant a PPO: First, the court must be satisfied that family violence has been committed or is likely to be committed. Second, the PPO must be necessary for the protection of the family member.

Family violence is defined in s 64 of the Charter as follows: “family violence” means the commission of any of the following acts:

(a) wilfully or knowingly placing, or attempting to place, a family member in fear of hurt;

(b) causing hurt to a family member by such act which is known or ought to have been known would result in hurt;

(c) wrongfully confining or restraining a family member against his will; or

(d) causing continual harassment with intent to cause or knowing...