VSF v VSG

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Darryl Soh
• Judgment Date: 31 August 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGFC 68
• Citation: [2022] SGFC 68
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 06 September 2022
• Docket Number: Divorce 1141 of 2020
• Plaintiff Counsel: Godwin Campos and Vathany Raveentheran (M/s Godwin Campos LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Devadas Naidu and Jonathan Sam Weiyi (M/s Metropolitan Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Family law,Ancillary matters,Care and control
• Hearing Date: 20 June 2022,27 January 2022

District Judge Darryl Soh: Introduction

This matter concerns ancillary reliefs arising from divorce proceedings between the Plaintiff-Wife (“Wife”) and the Defendant-Husband (“Husband”) (collectively referred to as the “Parties”). The issues before the court for adjudication were confined to the care of their child. The factual circumstances of this case were rather exceptional, and the prima facie limited range of contested issues deceptively understated the underlying tensions and conflict brought about by the Husband’s family. After hearing Parties on 27 January 2022, I granted them joint custody of their child. I subsequently granted them shared care and control and made other consequential orders on 20 June 2022. Both Parties appealed against the orders made on the latter date. My grounds of decision hereafter will focus on those orders.

Background Facts

The Wife is an Australian citizen and Singapore permanent resident. She is a business owner operating out of Singapore. The Husband is a Singapore citizen. He is a director of a company trading commodities and he works for his father. The Parties were the product of an arranged marriage and are now in their 40s. They were married on 12 December 2008 in Singapore after a short long-distance courtship between India and Singapore. The Wife thereafter moved in with the Husband and his family in Singapore. The Parties are blessed with one child (“Child”). Their daughter is 8 years old and is attending Primary School as at the time of the judgment.

The Parties have been separated since 1 March 2016. According to the Wife, the breakdown of the marriage started after the Child was born. She was the Child’s main caregiver but the Husband’s sister and mother aggressively asserted their views on the Parties’ marriage and how the Child was to be raised on account that the Child belonged to the Husband and, in turn, the Husband’s family.¹ It was during that time that the Husband was discovered to be in an improper association with another woman, which was subsequently confirmed by a Private Investigator.²

After divorce proceedings were mooted, the Husband and his family became abusive towards the Wife. The Wife averred that the Husband’s family was concerned with the negative effect of divorce proceedings on their reputation.³ The Wife subsequently made the painful decision to leave the Husband’s family home without their Child, so as to shield the Child from further family discord.⁴ Thereafter, the Husband’s family exercised excessive gatekeeping and limited the contact that the Wife could have with the Child, under their supervised terms. The Husband’s family would cause a ruckus whenever the Wife wished to have private contact time with the Child. The Wife subsequently decided to leave Singapore in October 2016 to regroup financially and emotionally in Australia. The Wife only returned to Singapore on a permanent basis at the end of 2019. Even when the Wife was away, she continued reaching out to the Husband and his family to request for contact time with the Child. Throughout, the Husband’s family embarked on calculated and disingenuous efforts to facilitate contact between the Wife and the Child – it was arguable that the objective of those efforts was to compel the Wife to give up hope of seeing the Child.⁵

Meanwhile, the Husband failed to intervene in this unsavoury and toxic state of affairs caused by his family. In the divorce proceedings, the Husband rejected the accusations made by the Wife but those rejections were against the weight of the supporting evidence provided by the Wife wherein he empathised with the Wife after the marriage broke down. Over time, the Husband became increasingly aligned with his family, which could not be said to be surprising as it would be in his interest and the path of least resistance, especially since he is living under his family’s roof and is under their employ.⁶ That said, it may very well be that the acrimonious positions put forward in the Husband’s case may not have originated from him and may not be reflective of his true sentiments in the ostensible dispute with the Wife. Even in those dark moments, the Parties’ communication strictly vis-à-vis each other was extensively documented and it was evident that they could communicate and co-parent between themselves when the attention and pressure of the Husband’s family was not at the immediate fore.⁷

I have made a deliberate decision to broadly summarise the challenging circumstances of this case since providing particulars will only lead to deepening the acrimony amongst all who are concerned.

The Wife commenced divorce proceedings against the Husband on 9 March 2020. After a significant delay arising from protracted negotiations between the Wife and the Husband and his family, the Parties’ divorce subsequently proceeded on an uncontested basis and the marriage was dissolved on 28 June 2021 on account that the Parties lived apart for a continuous period of at least four years immediately preceding the filing of the Writ.

The events following the dissolution of the marriage were procedurally eventful. The Parties filed and exchanged their Affidavits of Assets and Means and the Husband filed his Reply Affidavit. As I had observed during the Case Conference on 1 November 2021, both Parties blatantly failed or disregarded their obligations to make full and frank disclosure of their assets. The evidence adduced by the Parties were deficient and there was insufficient evidence for me to make any fair decision on the division of matrimonial assets. Accordingly, I made no order on the division of matrimonial assets. For the avoidance of doubt, this was a final order and neither Party appealed. The Wife filed her Reply Affidavit on 20 December 2021.

The hearing before me on 27 January 2022 for ancillary reliefs was consequently confined to care issues pertaining to the Child. After hearing the Parties’ submissions and considering the evidence adduced, I granted both Parties joint custody of their Child. Neither Party appealed against the custody order. The other issue that was adjudicated, quite robustly I might add, was the care and control of the Child. After hearing both sets of counsel, I ordered for a welfare report to be prepared and I reserved my decision. The report was a thorough report that gave much needed insight into the Child’s living environment, her well-being, her interaction with each of the Parties, and the Parties’ attitudes towards parenting.

Care and Control Orders

The issue of care and control was and is a deeply divisive issue, made especially complicated by the Husband’s own family. I will provide a brief summary of the interim care and control orders made, a summary of the submissions made during the hearing of the ancillary reliefs, and the full grounds of my decision.

Interim Orders

On 4 April 2020, the Husband filed FC/SUM 1115/2020 seeking, amongst other things, a mandatory order that the Child be returned to her habitual residence in his parents’ home and an interim injunction to restrain the Wife from removing the Child from Singapore without his written approval. The Wife had taken the Child on 12 March 2020 to live with her in her apartment in Singapore after an enrichment class without informing the Husband. On 3 June 2020, the Wife filed FC/SUM 1327/2020 seeking, amongst other things, interim orders for the Parties to have joint custody of the Child, and for her to have care and control of the Child.

On 15 January 2021, the learned District Judge Lo Wai Ping (“DJ Lo”) granted the Parties joint custody and shared care and control of their Child, the terms of which took effect from 17 January 2021. I shall hereafter refer to the following orders made by DJ Lo as the “Interim Care Orders”: a. The Wife shall pick the Child up from the Husband’s residence every Sunday at 9.30am. b. The Wife shall have care and control of the Child from 9.30am on Sundays to 6.00pm on Thursdays, where the Wife shall drop the Child at the Husband’s residence at 6.00pm. c. The Husband shall have care and control of the Child from 6.00pm on Thursdays to 9.30am on Sundays. If the Thursday happens to be a non-school day (i.e. school holiday / public holiday), the Husband shall have care and control of the Child from 9.30am on Thursdays to 9.30am on Sundays and the Husband shall pick the Child up from the Wife’s residence. d. During the Wife’s care period, the Husband shall also be entitled to access time with the Child on Tuesday nights for 2 hours. The Husband shall give the Wife 1 day's advance notice if he intends to meet the Child on Tuesday, and the timing for this meeting shall be mutually agreed between the Parties. e. Parties are at liberty to agree on any additional or alternative arrangement for their shared care and control of the Child. f. Neither party shall remove the Child from Singapore in the absence of a prior written agreement or by court order. g. The Wife’s solicitors shall hold the Australian passport of the Child and the Husband’s solicitors shall hold the Singapore passport of the Child.

DJ Lo’s full Grounds of Decision in respect of SUMs 1115 and 1327/2020 can be found at VSF v VSG [2021] SGFC 58 (“the Interim Decision”). The Husband appealed against the care and costs orders by way of RASes 4 and 5/2021, though he subsequently withdrew his appeals on 22 June 2021.

Parties’ Respective Cases

During the hearing of the outstanding ancillary reliefs on 27 January 2022, each party sought sole care and control of the Child in their respective favour.

The Husband submitted that the objective evidence leans in his favour being granted sole care and control. The Husband made the following arguments: The availability of a stable support network and the element of continuity if the Child were to reside with the Husband and his family; The Child’s school is within two...