VYW v VYV

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Clement Yong
• Judgment Date: 06 January 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGFC 2
• Citation: [2022] SGFC 2
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 12 January 2022
• Docket Number: SS 320 of 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr. Tay Choon Leng John (John Tay & Co.)
• Defendant Counsel: The Respondent in Person.
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Family violence,Orders for protection
• Hearing Date: 22 September 2021

District Judge Clement Yong: Introduction

This was an application by the Complainant-Wife (the “Wife”) for a personal protection order (“PPO”) against the Respondent-Husband (the “Husband”) pursuant to section 65(1) of the Women’s Charter (Cap. 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (the “Woman’s Charter”).

Parties appeared before me on 22 September 2021 for the hearing. After rejecting the Husband’s last minute request for an adjournment, I proceeded to hear the matter. Being satisfied that family violence had been committed by the Husband on the Wife, and that it is necessary for the protection of the latter, I granted the PPO. As the Husband has appealed against my decision, I now set out my grounds of decision.

Facts Table of key timelines

I shall begin by setting out below some relevant and important dates to these proceedings in the table below:

S/N	Date(s)	Remarks
1.	20 May 2009	The Parties got married.
2.	8 July 2019	The Wife alleged that the first incident of family violence took place.
3.	19 February 2021	The Wife alleged that the second incident of family violence took place. On the same day, the Wife moved out of the matrimonial flat with her four children and has since been living separately from the Husband.
4.	24 February 2021	The Wife took out the present PPO application. An Expedited Order (“EO”) was granted to the Wife.
5.	26 March 2021	The Wife filed a Writ of Divorce against the Husband.
6.	After 24 February 2021	The Wife alleged that the Husband continued to commit family violence against her.
7.	22 September 2021	The matter was heard before me and I granted the PPO.

Background of the parties

At the time of the hearing, the Wife was a 37 year-old homemaker. The Husband was a 54 year-old freelance management consultant. The parties have four children, all of whom are minors and of school-going age.

Preliminary issue – Husband’s application for adjournment

Before I go any further into the case, I deal with a preliminary issue relating to the Husband’s application for an adjournment of the hearing and why I rejected the request.

The Husband had on the morning of the hearing itself, applied for an adjournment of the hearing for the reason that he wants to engage a lawyer² by the name of Mr. Murthy to represent him. Being an undischarged bankrupt, the Husband therefore required the consent of the Official Assignee (the “OA”) to engage Mr. Murthy to act for him in this matter. The Husband informed me that he had written to the OA in the middle of August 2021 to seek permission³ and urged me to allow him more time to engage Mr. Murthy.

If this was true, I would have no hesitation in considering the application favourably. However, the Wife’s counsel brought to my attention a letter from the OA dated 9 September 2021, where in respect of this matter the letter stated: [6] We understand that the bankrupt had informed the Court that he was waiting for the Official Assignee’s permission to engage “Mr Murthy” of M/s Murthy & Co. to represent him in [SS no. xxx]. Based on our records, the bankrupt has not informed the Official Assignee that he is seeking M/s Murthy & Co to represent him in [SS no. xxx] and we have not heard from M/s Murthy & Co in respect of this matter.

[Note: SS number has been redacted]

Given that the Husband’s claim of having sought permission from the OA had been thoroughly debunked by the OA’s letter, I found that granting an adjournment on the day of hearing would be overly prejudicial to the Wife, who objected to the adjournment application. I note that she had taken out the present application in February 2021 and has had to wait for an unusually long period of seven months to have her matter heard. Looking at the case history, I was satisfied that the interests of justice required that no further adjournments be granted as seven case conferences⁴ had already been held, during which time the Husband asked for time to engage counsel and to file his documents. As at the date of hearing, he had done neither, not even writing to the OA for permission to engage Mr. Murthy for this matter. There were therefore no merits in the Husband’s application, and I ordered that the hearing proceed as scheduled.

The Wife’s case

Turning now to the Wife’s case, she filed an affidavit stating that the Husband had committed family violence on her twice, which led to her filing for a PPO. Even after she was successfully granted an EO on the same day she applied for the PPO, the Husband continued to stalk her, harass her, and use physical violence on her in blatant disregard of the EO. The Wife therefore submitted that a PPO should be granted based on these incidents of family violence committed on her.

The First Incident

First, the Wife highlighted an incident which took place on 8 July 2019 (the “First Incident”)⁵ where in the course of an argument, the Husband grabbed her shoulders and forcefully tried to push her out of the study room. When she tried to fend off these physical attacks, he grabbed her wrists and, in doing so, the Wife suffered multiple cuts on her neck, forearms, and wrists. To this end, the Wife went to a clinic and even though she did not obtain a medical report, she adduced photographs taken contemporaneously showing the said injuries which she suffered.

The Second Incident

In the second and more recent incident (the “Second Incident”)⁶ relied upon by the Wife for the present PPO application, she informed that parties had an argument on 19 February 2021. During that time, the Husband had grabbed her arm forcefully and pushed her backwards whilst shouting verbal insults at her. The Wife filed a police report and adduced photographs taken two days later showing bruises on her left arm arising from the altercation during the Second Incident. On the same day, following this incident, the Wife left the matrimonial home with the four children of the marriage.

Events after the PPO was filed on 24 February 2021

The Wife gave evidence that after she filed for a PPO, and in the context of her having already moved out of the matrimonial home, the Husband had tried to track her whereabouts and was in essence stalking her (the “Stalking Incidents”)⁷. Specifically, on 25 February 2021, the Husband showed up at one of the children’s school to pass a bag to the Wife which he claimed contained the children’s belongings and a mobile phone, which was installed with a tracking application that enabled a user to track the location of the mobile phone as well as record all sounds and images in the vicinity. The Wife discovered this and disabled the application. Two days later, the said bag changed hands between the parties when the Husband took it for an outing with the children. After the outing, the Husband returned the said bag containing the same mobile phone to the Wife, and she noticed that the tracking application had been re-activated. She immediately disabled the tracking application on the mobile phone.

In another series of incidents (the “Kallang MRT Incidents”)⁸, the first time on 12 March 2021, the Husband located the Wife at Kallang MRT station and tried to follow her and their son for breakfast. The Wife approached police officers for assistance and the matter ended there. The second time happened on 29 March 2021. On this occasion, the Husband again located the Wife at Kallang MRT station and approached her whilst she was taking an escalator up to the platform level. The Husband then snatched the Wife’s mobile phone from her, and she struggled to retrieve her phone. In her attempt to do so, the Wife sprained her shoulder and scratched herself against the steps of the escalator. She also nearly fell down during this incident. Thereafter, the Wife made a police report the next day and the Husband was arrested. I note that at the time of this incident, the EO granted against the Husband was in force.

Next, the Wife informed that after she left the matrimonial home due to the Second Incident, the Husband had continually harassed her by sending multiple WhatsApp messages to her and calling her when she did not respond to his messages (the “Harassment Incidents”)⁹. By the time the Wife filed her affidavit on 9 April 2021, she had received an incessant number of missed calls and messages from the Husband even though she had informed him that she did not want to meet him in light of the EO. The Wife neatly set out details of these missed calls as follows: 20 February 2021 – 56 missed calls; 22 February 2021 – 16 missed calls; 23 February 2021 – 22 missed calls; 24 February 2021 – 8 missed calls; 25 February 2021 – 9 missed calls; 26 February 2021 – 4 missed calls; 27 February 2021 – 7 missed calls; 6 March 2021 – 38 missed calls; and 7 April 2021 – 5 missed calls.

In addition to these missed calls, the Husband had also sent numerous test messages to the Wife which she stated were calculated to cause her harassment, alarm, and distress. For example, he had accused her of not being mentally stable, not being able to control her temper, and being guilty of mistreating the children, all of which the Wife claims are false allegations. In giving oral evidence, the Wife took the court through each of these specific messages sent to her by the Husband which she felt had caused her harassment. I have reproduced these messages in Annex 1 below.

Finally, the Wife highlighted one more incident which took place on 7 April 2021 (the “School Commotion”)¹⁰ at one of the children’s schools whilst she was there to pick up the child. On that day, the Husband had also gone to the school and coincidentally, the court process server was there to serve divorce papers on the Respondent. The Husband then threw a fit and caused a huge commotion, calling the Wife an “animal” and accused her of causing his...