WJV v WJU

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Christine Lee
• Judgment Date: 07 February 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGFC 3
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: SS 844 of 2022
• Hearing Date: 29 July 2022,27 September 2022,01 November 2022
• Citation: [2023] SGFC 3
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Complainant Wife in Person with the assistance of a Vietnamese Interpreter
• Defendant Counsel: Respondent Husband was also in Person
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Personal Protection Order
• Published date: 14 February 2023

District Judge Christine Lee: Introduction

This case involves the Husband’s appeal in DCA 101 of 2022 against my decision under the Court Order in SS 844/2022 granting the Wife’s application for a Personal Protection Order (“PPO”) against him in PPO xxx/2022 dated 1 November 2022.

Background Facts The Parties

The Wife and Husband married on 22nd November 2016 in Singapore. The Wife, aged 32 years, is a Vietnamese citizen but has Singapore Permanent Residency status whilst the Husband, aged 49 years, is a Singapore citizen.

There are two children of the marriage, namely, [A] (f) DOB xxx 2018 aged 4 years and [B] (m) DOB xxx 2020 aged 2 years. At the time of the hearings, the Parties were still married to each other although the Wife had filed divorce proceedings against the Husband.

The Wife’s PPO application

This case arose because the Wife (“the Complainant”) filed a PPO application against the Husband (“the Respondent”) on 24 May 2022 in SS 844/2022 regarding family violence (“FV”) allegedly committed by the Respondent against her on 27 April 2022 at the family residence.

The Complainant’s PPO application was heard by me over three hearing days being, on 29 July 2022, 27 September 2022 and 1 November 2022, whereupon I issued my decision.

Although the Complainant referred to several instances of alleged FV in her Affidavit¹, I based my decision on the FV that occurred prior to her leaving the Matrimonial Home (“MH”) on 4May 2022.

After hearing the Parties’ closing submissions and based on my final assessment of the evidence as well as the testimony of both Parties and the Respondent’s Father, I granted the Complainant’s PPO application against the Respondent.

On 7 November 2022, the Respondent filed an appeal against my decision granting the Complainant’s PPO application against him in SS 844/2022.

The Complainant’s Case in SS 844/2022

I noted that whilst the Complainant had described several instances of alleged FV in her Statement marked as Exhibit C, in the complaint form for her application for the PPO², the Complainant only referred to FV allegedly committed by the Respondent against her on 27 April 2022 and incidents in 2021 and 2020. Hence, the 27 April 2022 date was the date stated in the Summons that was issued against the Respondent dated 24 May 2022.

At the first hearing on 29 July 2022, the Respondent made an application to expunge the additional FV allegations which were not in the Complainant’s PPO application. However, I also noted that the Respondent had filed a Supplementary Statement of an additional 100 pages to respond to these additional FV allegations.

In response to my query, the Complainant explained that at the time she made her PPO application, she did not know that she could write in all these past incidents. That was why she did not refer to them in her PPO application³. These were the past incidents described in paragraphs 11 to 24 (incidents in 2018 to 2020); 32 to 34 (incident on 3 March 2022); and 45 to 51 (incident in the first week of May 2022) of Exhibit C⁴.

As the Complainant submitted that she wished to retain all these paragraphs as part of her case, and the Respondent had had the opportunity to respond to each of these incidents by filing his Supplementary Statement of 100 pages, I was of the view that there was no prejudice to the Respondent and directed that these paragraphs were to remain.

In addition, despite much cross-examination (“XXM”) by the Respondent, the Complainant maintained in her testimony that these instances of alleged FV had been committed against her by the Respondent. The Complainant specifically maintained the incidents that allegedly occurred: (i) in late 2018 (ii) between 2018 to 2020 (iii) in late 2021 (iv) between 1 to 7 April 2022 (v) on 27 April 2022 and (vi) the first week of May 2022, although she was not certain of the exact dates⁵.

The Complainant’s case was that the Respondent caused physical harm to her on each of these instances and that the Respondent’s actions caused her to fear future physical harm from him. The Complainant was therefore relying on FV listed in limbs (a) and (b) of section 64 of the Women’s Charter.

The Respondent’s Case

In essence, the Respondent’s case was that the Complainant’s allegations were all contradictory or fabricated⁶ and did not happen or were self-inflicted. In fact, under XXM of the Complainant and in his closing submissions, the Respondent went through each of the Complainant’s allegations and challenged the dates as being wrong and that FV could not have happened on those dates, or that the Complainant’s injuries were self-inflicted.

The Respondent therefore submitted that there was no imminent danger to the Complainant⁷ and there was no requirement for protection from future harm for the Complainant.

I noted that the Respondent’s XXM of the Complainant was vigorous and extremely detailed as can be seen in the Notes of Evidence⁸. The Respondent also called on his Father to testify. My assessment of the testimony of all 3 witnesses including the Parties themselves, is set out below.

My assessment

My assessment of the Complainant was that although she had difficulty on the issue of the dates of alleged FV that she had provided, she was a credible witness. I accepted her explanation that the discrepancies in her documents regarding these dates were due to the fact that she could not remember the exact dates.

The Complainant also explained that there were quite a few days when everything was the same⁹. I accepted this explanation for the Complainant’s difficulty in not being able to specify the exact dates when the alleged FV incidents took place. The Complainant further explained that she only looked at the calendar for the dates when she had a customer¹⁰ as she needed to attend to them.

I found the Complainant’s explanation to be credible because if the Complainant had wanted to fabricate her case against the Respondent, then she would have checked for the exact dates against the calendar to support her case.

The Complainant also explained that when she made the police report exhibited at pages 27 & 28 of Exhibit C, which stated that the incident happened in the first week of April 2022 and not May 2022 as stated in paragraph 53 of the...