WAG v WAH

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chia Wee Kiat
• Judgment Date: 07 February 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGFC 17
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 25 August 2021,02 March 2021,24 November 2021,10 September 2021
• Docket Number: FC/OSG 84/2020 & FC/OSG 101/2020
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Raymond Yeo (M/s Raymond Yeo)
• Defendant Counsel: Ms Helen Chia (M/s David Nayar and Associates)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Guardianship,Custody,Care and control,Access,Overnight access,Stay of execution
• Published date: 13 February 2022

District Judge Chia Wee Kiat: Introduction

The parties were married on 4 February 2018. They shall be referred to as “the Mother” and “the Father”.

The Mother is a civil servant¹ and the Father a practising lawyer.² The Mother filed FC/OSG 84/2020 (“OSG 84”) on 22 June 2020 and the Father filed FC/OSG 101/2020 (“OSG 101”) on 13 July 2020. These are cross-applications under s 5 of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1934 (“GIA”).

The subject of the intense litigation between the parties is a young boy who turns three in April this year.³ The boy is the only child of the marriage. When the applications first came up for hearing on 2 March 2021, a total of 31 affidavits had been filed.⁴

On 24 November 2021, I made the following orders, taking into account the evidence, submissions of the parties, the Custody Evaluation Report (“CER”) and the Supplemental CER (“SCER”):

Custody

1. The parties shall have joint custody of the child.

Care and control

2. The Mother shall have care and control of the child.

Access

3. The current access arrangement, as set out in the Order of Court dated 14 January 2021, is to continue till 2 January 2022. 4. With effect from the week beginning 3 January 2022, the access arrangement shall be as follows:

Father shall have unsupervised overnight access on the weekend from Friday 6 pm to Saturday 6 pm.

Handovers

5. The Father shall collect and return the child at the time stated at the main condominium entrance of [Home B]. 6. Extended family members shall not be present at handovers. 7. The parties shall not, either by themselves or through other persons or means, photograph or record videos of the handovers.

Counselling Support

8. The parties shall attend such joint and individual counselling and support programme as may be deemed appropriate by the DSSA counsellor to facilitate the implementation of the access arrangement, and help the parties: a. improve communication between the parties as co-parents; b. acquire healthy conflict resolution skills regarding access and parenting matters; c. manage personal stress; d. consider the child’s best interests when making parenting decisions; e. support and facilitate the child’s relationship with the other parent; and f. rebuild trust, confidence and motivation as co-parents. 9. The parties shall cooperate and work with the DSSA counsellor. 10. The parties shall bear the costs of such counselling and support programmes, if any, equally between them.

Step-up Access

11. The access arrangement starting from the week beginning 3 January 2022 shall continue for a period of 6 months to allow the child to adjust to the changes. 12. With effect from the week commencing 27 June 2022, the Father shall have unsupervised overnight access on the weekend from Friday 6 pm to Sunday 11 am.

Taking child out of jurisdiction

13. The parties shall not take the child out of jurisdiction without the prior written consent of the other party or without an Order of Court. 14. The Father is to hand over to the Mother the original of the child’s passport within 7 days from the order herein.

Changes to access arrangements by mutual agreement

15. The parties may, with the help from the DSSA counsellor, work out an access plan that caters to the development needs of the child. 16. The parties may, by mutual agreement, vary any term of the access arrangement set out in this order.

Maintenance & CDA account

17. No order on maintenance for the child and the child’s CDA account with liberty to apply.

Penal Notice

18. A Penal Notice against both parties to be inserted into the order made herein.

Costs

19. Parties to bear their own costs.

As the level and intensity of the inter-parental conflict between the parties is a cause for concern, I sought the assistance of counsel to impress upon their clients that the parents’ responses to conflicts, and their conduct towards each other can have a significant negative impact on the child’s welfare. Both parents need to focus on the child who is not at war with either of them. They need to explore alternative ways to problem solve instead of engaging in litigious behaviours and accusations.

The child is a happy, active and intelligent boy. Despite the dysfunctional relationship with each other, the parents share a common love for the child. It is clear to me that the child shares a close bond with both parents. Both parents share equal responsibility to cooperate with each other to protect the child from the harmful effects of inter-parental conflicts before irreparable damage is done to the child. The parents must come to their senses and stop fighting now.

It is my hope that the parents would carry out the orders made with a supportive and cooperative spirit. However, both parties have filed appeals to press on with the litigation. That is of course their prerogatives as litigants, but it would also mean that the conflicts between the parents will continue to fester, and this cannot be good for the well-being of the child.

The Father’s appeal was filed on 7 December 2021 vide HCF/DCA 158/2021 (“DCA 158”). The appeal is against part of my decision as follows:

Clauses (4), (11) and (12) of the Order of Court dated 24th November 2021.

On the same day, the Mother filed HCF/DCA 159/2021 (“DCA 159”) to appeal against part of my decision as follows: 1. The current access arrangement, as set out in the Order of Court dated 14 January 2021, is to continue till 2 January 2022. 2. With effect from the week beginning 3 January 2022, the access arrangement shall be as follows:

Father shall have unsupervised overnight access on the weekend from Friday 6 pm to Saturday 6 pm

3. The access arrangements starting from the week beginning 3 January 2022 shall continue for a period of 6 months to allow the child to adjust to the changes. 4. With effect from the week commencing 27 June 2022, the Father shall have unsupervised overnight access on the weekend from Friday 6 pm to Sunday 11 am. 5. Each party is to bear his/her own costs.

Although the parties have sought a variety of prayers in their respective OSG applications, the appeals are confined to my orders made in respect of access and costs. My grounds of decision (“GD”) will focus on the matters relevant to the parties’ appeals and traverse into other areas only when they are necessary to provide a fuller context to explain my decision.

Background

The parties were married on 4 February 2018. Following the marriage, the Mother moved to the Father’s family home located at [Home A], a three-storey semi-detached house where his parents reside. They have two domestic helpers, one employed by the parties and the other by the Father’s family. ⁵

In October 2018, the Father’s sister [P], her husband and their 6-year-old son moved into Home A as they intended to renovate their own apartment.⁶ According to the Father, the Mother was not happy with the move. After the first five months, she became incensed by their continued stay as she felt that her space was infringed.⁷

In April 2019, the Mother gave birth to the child.⁸

The Father says that the Mother would instigate him to speak to his father to have him force P out of the house.⁹ The Father’s relationship with P started to deteriorate as a result¹⁰ and the Mother’s instigations led to huge arguments in the family.¹¹

In November 2019, the Mother moved with the child to her family home, [Home B] where her mother resides. According to the Mother, this was the agreed arrangement with the Father since her maternity leave had ended. The arrangements were for her to reside with the child at Home B during the weekdays and they would return to Home A only for the weekends.¹² The Mother wanted her mother to take care of the child while she was at work.¹³

The Father says that he did not agree with the arrangement but gave in to the Mother in an attempt to stop the fighting between the parties.¹⁴ The arrangement resulted in the child being able to see and spend time with the Father only during the weekends.¹⁵

The Father says that the Mother’s behaviour has been erratic. The Mother is obsessed about cleanliness and doing all things in a manner as she pleases.¹⁶ She would wash her hands obsessively and believe that everything is infected with germs.¹⁷ She would wrap every item that she owned or belonged to the child in multiple layers of plastic bags.¹⁸ She was obsessed with washing the child’s clothes, utensils and other items, directing the domestic helper to rewash the child’s clothes if she found a speck or noticed a discoloration in the clothes.¹⁹ She would not touch the light switch with her fingers or turn the door handles with her hands, preferring to use her elbows even though these items have been wiped and cleaned.²⁰

The Father says that the Mother would not allow the child on the ground even though it had been cleaned by the domestic helper.²¹ She would continually wash the child’s hands and face after the Father’s parents or sister had played with the child.²² She would not sit on the sofa in the bedroom because she believed the sofa set was not cleaned, even though it was rarely used and the domestic helper would vacuum, and apply an extra sheet over the sofa set.²³ She would eat every meal in the bedroom after the child was born, not allowing anyone else to care for the child during her mealtimes.²⁴

The Father says such behaviour created a lot of tension between parties and the Father’s family members who were struggling to understand the Mother’s behaviour, particularly because they were not able to spend time with the child in a manner that they were used to with their other grandchildren.²⁵...