Court cuts doctor's access to his children after ex-wife accuses him of sex, porn obsession
Transcripts produced by the ex-wife showed the man talking about sex with underage girls, and revealed his obsession with pornography, which he consumed "at any moment of the day", the court found.
File photo of the Family Justice Courts. (Photo: CNA/Lydia Lam)
Lydia Lam
24 Oct 2023 04:29PM (Updated: 24 Oct 2023 04:41PM)
SINGAPORE: A court has cut a doctor’s access to his children as sought by his ex-wife, who claimed the man had an unhealthy obsession with pornography and sex with underage girls.
All parties were not named in the judgment released on Tuesday (Oct 24) by the family division of the High Court.
The couple, a teacher and a doctor both aged 43, had married in 2006 and had two children together - a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son.
The mother began divorce proceedings in 2021 and an interim judgment was given granting the divorce.
The father was also granted certain access to his children as part of these arrangements.
However, the mother filed an application asking the court to limit her ex-husband’s access to the children, including to stop him from having any overnight or overseas access to their kids.
She argued that her ex-husband had not used any of this access granted anyway, and that he spent very little time with the kids.
THE MOTHER'S ALLEGATIONS
She claimed that the man’s true intentions in seeking generous overnight access were to reduce his maintenance liability to them.The woman also claimed that her children were placed at risk of the negative influence of their father’s “promiscuous lifestyle”.
According to her, the man had “reverted” to this lifestyle by checking into “sleazy” hotels on the same weekends he was supposed to have access to the kids.
She said her ex-husband even appeared to be “proud” of his sexual escapades by referring to her as a person who was “asexual with low libido”.
She claimed her husband had an obsession with underage girls and would watch obscene sex videos without headphones on, even while waiting in the car for their kids.
She alleged that he had procured the sexual services of other women, including employees of a local hospital, and discussed his “conquests” of underage girls with his former junior college teacher, referred to as E.
Her ex-husband would also leave condoms, sexual stimulation pills and lubricants around the house in places easily seen by his children, she alleged.
The judge found that the mother had not proven her allegation of her ex-husband leaving sex-related items around the house, which the man denied.
However, the judge found that transcripts of audio recordings obtained by the mother of her ex-husband “spoke for themselves”.
JUDGE'S FINDINGS
Justice Chan Seng Onn said the man’s appetite for pornography was “plain to see” in the transcripts.“It appeared that the strength of his appetite was such that his pangs of hunger for pornography could strike at any moment of the day,” said Justice Chan.
“There were various instances where the father had been recorded to have indulged in pornography. For instance, while he was in the car on his visit to his mother and right after dropping off a friend. In a particularly egregious instance, it appeared that the father had even watched pornography right after sending the children off into their rooms.”
Justice Chan said while the father was obviously “no saint”, and the law “would not go so far as to expect him to live up to saintly standards”, the law would expect him not to place his children in harm’s way.
He reviewed transcripts of the father’s conversations with his friends, produced by the mother, which she said showed how the father was outsourcing the care of their children to his friends.
She claimed that these friends had encouraged her ex-husband to go on sexual escapades and introduced underage girls to him for sex.
Justice Chan said these were very serious allegations and found that some of the woman’s assertions were made out, such that there was a risk of harm, especially to her daughter.
One conversation given as evidence by the mother was a discussion of two 14-year-old girls between her ex-husband and E.
E was recorded telling the father to have sex with two girls.
Justice Chan said the implications of the words exchanged showed that the father's "lustful desire extended not just to prostitutes and pornography - it even extended to his desire to have sex with underage girls".
It appeared that one of the girls was from E's class.
The judge said it would be "a dereliction of this court's duty" to turn a blind eye to the potential risk that placing the children under the care of E would pose to their safety.
Counsel for the father tried to explain away the recordings, saying the words had been "taken out of context" and that the words were either a joke or mere "locker room talk".
The judge rejected these explanations, saying "there was nothing funny in that conversation".
He found that the overall change in circumstances justified a termination of the father's overseas and overnight access to the children.
However, he said this did not mean that his access should be entirely denied.
"Although I was mindful of the risk to the children's safety, this risk ought to be counter-balanced by the children's interest for the father to be granted some opportunity to fulfil his fatherly role to the children," said Justice Chan.
He said access is the right of the child to spend time and to maintain a consistent relationship with the parent who does not reside with them.
He allowed the father to retain access to his kids during the daytime or stipulated days of the week, as well as special occasions.
Source: CNA/ll(zl)
