WJO v WJP
| Judge | Goh Zhuo Neng |
| Judgment Date | 17 January 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] SGFC 1 |
| Citation | [2023] SGFC 1 |
| Court | Family Court (Singapore) |
| Published date | 26 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | FC/D 4797/2021, HCF/DCA 93/2022 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Mr Malcus Poh (M/s Chung Ting Fai & Co) |
| Defendant Counsel | Ms Natasha Choo (M/s AC Shone & Co) |
| Subject Matter | Ancillary Orders,Division of Matrimonial Assets |
| Hearing Date | 03 October 2022 |
This was an ancillary matters hearing between the Plaintiff mother (“Mother”) and the Defendant father (“Father”). The parties had two children aged 9 and 6 this year, who I will refer to respectively as Child A and Child B, and collectively as the “Children”).
Parties had already resolved the issue of the division of assets by a consent order dated 1 April 2022 (“Consent Order”). So in this hearing I addressed the issues of custody, care and control of the children, and maintenance for the children and the Mother.
Both parties were represented by counsel at the hearing on 3 October 2022. After hearing parties, I made the following orders:
On 15 October 2022, the Father filed a Notice of Appeal against all of my orders. The full grounds of my decision are set out in below. The Mother did not appeal against my decision not to grant her maintenance, so I will not be addressing that in my decision.
CUSTODY CARE AND CONTROL AND ACCESSUnder the Women’s Charter 1961, section 125(2), the court can make orders as to the custody, care and control and access to the Child, taking into account what is in the best interests of the child’s welfare, which is the paramount consideration.
Parties agreed that they would both have joint custody of the Children. They differed on who should have care and control of them.
The Father claimed that he should have care and control of the children, with the Mother’s access being supervised because the Mother had been diagnosed by the Institute of Mental Health (“IMH”) as suffering from delusions. This condition affected the Mother’s ability to parent, which was made worse as the Mother had refused to complete her courses of medication prescribed by IMH. He pointed out several incidents [since period] where she had arguments and altercations with third parties, and he was very concerned about how she had led Child B to believe that she was being bullied in school. In this regard, the Mother had advised Child B to look out for the bullies, and even opposed sending Child B to the same primary school as Child A. the Mother was also allegedly alienating him from Child A, who had refused to speak with him since September 2021.
The Mother agreed that she had been diagnosed by IMH as suffering from delusions. However, she disagreed that she had refused to complete the course of medication prescribed by IMH, as she had been told to take the medication only when required. The Mother also insisted that Child B was being bullied.
I took the view that the Mother’s condition did not impair her from caring for the Children. It should be pointed out that she was the primary caregiver of the Children throughout the marriage. She worked part time as a tutor while the Father worked full time. I inferred that the Father’s working hours caused him to come home late, as it was only in his affidavit of assets of means (“AOM”) dated 27 June 2022 that he informed that he had “recently” switched his working hours to be at work from Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 6.00pm.
As for the Mother’s medical condition, this was a recent diagnosis and certainly did not negate her contributions as caregiver. There was also no indication from the Mother’s course of medication that this was an issue that required long term or life time medication. An examination of the Mother’s medication as exhibited by the Father in his AOM (pages 64 to 67) showed that one course of medication was prescribed to be taken for 1 week. The other course was prescribed on the basis it be taken as necessary. So I do not agree with the Father that she should be medicating herself constantly, or that she had departed from the recommendations of the doctor.
On the issue of the Mother’s behaviour, I took the view that the Father was focusing too much on recent events that did not really have a strong bearing on the Mother’s ability to care for the children. The incidents with third parties were not verifiable, and even if proven, did not involve the Children at all. There was insufficient evidence to verify if Child B was actually being bullied, but that one issue alone was at worst a disagreement between parties on whether the Child was being bullied and not enough for me to justify giving care and control to the Father.
As for the Father’s concerns that Child A was being alienated from him, he was not able to provide any evidence of actual alienation apart from Child A’s refusal to speak with him. This made exact cause of Child B’s refusal to speak with him difficult to identify or attribute to the Mother.
Having given care and control to the Father, I decided that he should have regular weekend and weekday access to the Children. This would be from Saturday (6.00pm) to Sunday (6.00pm), and one other weekday access from 6.30pm to 8.30pm to be agreed between the parties. This would give him one full day with them on the weekend, and he would also have the flexibility to take access on one weekday, depending on his schedule.
CHILD MAINTENANCEChild A was currently in primary school, and Child B would start primary school in 1 January 2023. This meant that from 1 January 2023, the expenses of both Children would be the same and follow that of Child A. Prior to that, both Children’s expenses would be different, mainly because Child B was attending childcare.
My assessment of Child A’s expenses is set out below.
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