VBG v VBH

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Lo Wai Ping
• Judgment Date: 31 October 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGFC 109
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce No. 3256 of 2018, HCF/RAS 31/2019 & HCF/RAS 32/2019
• Year: 2019
• Published date: 08 November 2019
• Hearing Date: 17 May 2019,17 June 2019,28 June 2019,05 April 2019
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Anna Oei with Ms Deannie Yap (M/S Tan, Oei & Oei LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Defendant in person.
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Interim Access,Interim Maintenance
• Citation: [2019] SGFC 109

District Judge Lo Wai Ping: Introduction

The plaintiff (“Mother”) and the defendant (“Father”) were married in 2006 and they have two children, a daughter and a son (the “Children”) who are presently 13 years old and 8 years old respectively. On 5 March 2019, the parties obtained interim judgment for divorce (“IJ”) on their claims of unreasonable behaviour against each other.

Following the IJ, I heard the Father’s application in SUM 3365/2018 (“SUM 3365”) in the divorce suit. He was seeking interim orders for joint custody and shared care and control of the Children (amongst other things). I also heard the Mother’s application in SUM 3222/2018 (“SUM 3222”) for interim maintenance. These are my grounds of decision for the orders I had made on 28 June 2019 giving the Father interim access to the Children and dismissing the Mother’s application for interim maintenance. I will deal with the interim access orders first.

Background OSG 225 /2017 - Consent Order dated 1 February 2018

Prior to the commencement of the divorce suit, there were separate proceedings between the parties in OSG 225/2017 (“OSG 225”) in relation to the custody, care and control of the Children. A consent order dated 1 February 2018 (“Consent Order”) was recorded in these proceedings on the terms that the parties were to have joint custody and the Mother was to have care and control of the Children.

On the issue of access, the Consent Order stated that the Father was to have interim access to the Children every week pending divorce proceedings with effect from 6 February 2018 and the terms of the Father’s interim access were as follows: He was to have access to the Children twice a week as follows: Once on a weekday (“Weekday Access”) For this access, the Children were to go to the Father’s residence after school until 8.30pm every Tuesday. For the Son, the Father was to pick up the Son from his school. For the Daughter, she would be dropped off at 4.30pm at the Father’s residence by the Mother. Once during the weekend (“Saturday Access”) For this access on Saturday, the Father was to do the following: pick up the Son at 1.15pm from Venue XX, pick up the Daughter at 4.30pm from Venue YY, bring the Son for his tennis class at 5pm and pick him up when it ends at 6.30pm, bring the Children for dinner at 7pm and return them to the Mother’s residence by 9pm. He was also to have FaceTime access to the Children once on a weekday (Thursday) for half an hour (9pm to 9.30pm) (“FaceTime Access”).

However, about 3 months later, in May 2018, despite the Father’s objections, the Mother cancelled his Weekday Access and his FaceTime Access with the Children. The Mother’s position was that the Father was only entitled to his weekend access on Saturday.¹ Shortly thereafter, in July 2018, the Mother commenced divorce proceedings against the Father. The Father contested the divorce and filed SUM 3365 in September 2018. The Mother’s SUM 3222 was also filed in September 2018. Thereafter, the parties proceeded for mediation. Eventually, in January 2019, parties agreed to proceed with the divorce on an uncontested basis and IJ was granted on 5 March 2019.

SUM 3365 - Interim Access Orders

I heard SUM 3365 on 28 June 2019 after parties had obtained IJ. At the time of the hearing, the Children were living with the Mother (in her rented unit) whilst the Father was living alone in the matrimonial home (“Home”). The parties agreed to have joint custody of the Children and argued on the issues of care and control and access. The Father was acting in person whilst the Mother had counsel.

The Mother did not deny that she had refused the Father of all his Weekday and FaceTime Access to the Children since May 2018. Her main argument then was that these changes were necessary and justified because of the changes in the Son’s schooling schedule and extra-curricular activities with his move from kindergarten to his new school (“J School”) in April 2018.

The Father did not agree with the Mother’s actions and regarded her unilateral restrictions of his access rights under the Consent Order as breaches of the said order. In his view, the Mother was abusing her ‘care and control’ powers by reducing the frequency of his access to the Children and she was doing this intentionally to alienate the Children from him. The Father stated that before the Mother left the Home with the Children, he was a hands-on father and he wanted to be able to continue playing his role in actively engaging the Children and caring for them.

In SUM 3365, the Father prayed for interim shared care and control of the Children with the Mother. Specifically, he wanted the Children to stay with him during weekends (overnight from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon) and he wanted to spend time with each child during the weekday (once a week). He wanted the Children with him for half of the school holidays and public holidays, with leave to take the children overseas during his half of the holidays. He also wanted to have make-up access on Sundays for all the access time he had been denied by the Mother since May 2018.

The Mother argued that she should continue to have care and control of them, with the Father having access to them only on Saturdays (to reflect the Children’s current schooling schedules and available timeslots for access). She denied that there was any intention on her part to alienate the Children from the Father. She had only their safety and well-being in mind and the Father had not demonstrated himself capable of caring for them properly.

After hearing the parties and considering the evidence filed before me including the 2 reports (the Supervised Access Summary Report in September 2018 and the Specific Issues Report in May 2019), I ordered that it was in the welfare of the Children that the Mother was to continue to have interim care and control of the Children pending the ancillary matters (“AMs”). It was noted that the AMs were very likely to be heard before the end of this year (2019) as the parties had by May 2019 already filed their affidavits of assets and means.

On the issue of interim access pending the AMs, I made orders that essentially gave the Father more contact time with the Children each week, on a regular basis. I did not grant the Father any overnight access. In brief, I ordered that, in addition to his existing Saturday Access, the Father was to have the following: One (1) weekday access (Tuesday) with the Son (from after school which ends at 3.40pm to latest, 9.15pm and in between the Father was to fetch the Son to and from his soccer class at 5-6.30pm); One (1) weekday access (Wednesday) with the Daughter (from after school (art club) which ends at 4.15pm to latest, 9.15pm); half of all public holidays, on an alternate basis (from 9.30am to 8.30pm); half a day for special occasions such as each child’s birthday, subject to school timings (if applicable), and FaceTime access with the Son on one weekday (between 6pm to 6.30pm or such other timing as may be agreed between the parties). There was no order on this for the Daughter as the Father was able to contact her directly on her mobile.

Whilst I did not grant the Father’s prayer that he be given access to compensate for all the access he had earlier been denied by the Mother since May 2018 (under the terms of the Consent Order), I did allow for the provision of make – up access moving forward. I ordered that the Father was to be provided make – up access if he should miss any of his access sessions (from the effective date of my orders on access) and for this make-up access, parties were to arrange for the equivalent make-up in terms of time missed with the Children, on a Sunday or any other day as may be agreed between the parties.

Concurrent with my orders on access (which were to be effective from 1 July 2019), I also made orders that the parents and the Children were to go for counselling at the Divorce Support Specialist Agencies (“DSSA”).

The Mother has appealed only against my (additional) access orders set out in paragraphs 12(a) to 12(d) and paragraph 13 and these are my reasons for these orders.

Reasons for the Interim Access Orders

I begin with the incident that had led to the Mother leaving the Home with the Children on 18 October 2017. In brief, it was an incident between the parties in their bedroom at Home in the early hours of about 2.00am on 18 October 2017 (“the Incident”) when the Father tried to have intimate relations with the Mother. I noted that the Children were not involved in the Incident and when the Mother left the Home at about 5.00am with the Children, the Father was asleep. About 9 days later, Mother applied for a personal protection order (“PPO”) against the Father for herself as well as for the Children, alleging that the Father had committed family violence against them. The Father contested the PPO applications.

There was a full hearing of the PPO applications and this concluded in May 2019 and before the hearing of SUM 3365 on 28 June 2019. The PPO applications in respect of the Children were dismissed and there were no appeals against the dismissals.

Next, I considered the proceedings in OSG 225 which had led to the Consent Order of 1 February 2018.

The Mother filed OSG 225 on 1 December 2017 seeking sole care and control of the Children and supervised access for the Father. This was whilst the PPO proceedings were pending against the Father. On 7 December 2017, the Father filed an urgent application (SUM 4246/2017) for interim supervised access to the Children (amongst other things). According to the Father, he had done this in the interest of seeing the Children sooner rather than later (even though his position was that supervision was unnecessary) as by then (7 December 2017), he had not seen or spoken to the Children for 50 days due to the Mother’s refusal to grant...