SINGAPORE: A man was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail on Monday (Feb 19) for assaulting his wife, after years of what the judge called a “tumultuous marriage” marked by verbal and physical abuse on both sides.
The assault, which resulted in the woman suffering a facial fracture and double vision to this day, prompted two of their daughters to call the police.
The marriage later ended in divorce.
The 54-year-old man, who cannot be named due to gag orders imposed by the court preventing the publication of his identity as well as the identities of his now ex-wife and one of his daughters, pleaded guilty to one count of voluntarily causing hurt.
The court heard that the offender, a Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident, lived with his then wife and their four children at the time.
The couple had a tumultuous marriage, being physically and verbally abusive towards each other.
The woman lodged four police reports against her husband over a span of 10 years from 2005, while her husband lodged one against her over family violence.
On one occasion, the man breached a personal protection order his wife had obtained against him.
On Dec 13, 2021, the man returned home from golf. He had drunk wine, and he picked up his 14-year-old daughter on the way home.
When the man got home that night, he went straight to the bedroom he shared with his wife without speaking to anyone.
After dinner, his wife went up to the bedroom and saw her husband lying on the bed using his tablet.
She scolded him for not talking to his family members or spending time with them. The man did not respond.
The woman left and returned for bed later and found her husband asleep.
She hit him to wake him up. The man began retaliating and punched the woman’s face, shouting: “Why do you always hit me? Why? Why?”
He pulled his wife’s hair and hit her face with his tablet, cracking its screen.
His wife screamed for help. Their youngest child, a 13-year-old girl, entered and shouted at her father to stop.
Their 14-year-old daughter also went in and saw her father on top of her mother, pulling her mother’s hair and slapping her face.
The teen also saw her father hitting her mother’s head on the bedside table.
Alarmed, the teen told her father that she would call the police.
Although her father told her not to do it, the girl went ahead and did so in her own room.
When the teenager returned and saw her father hitting her mother’s head on the floor, the girl told her father that she had called the police.
It was only then that the man ceased his assault.
The woman, whose age was not revealed in court papers, was taken to hospital and admitted that same day.
She suffered bruises on her scalp and forehead and had a facial fracture with restriction of eye movements.
She underwent reconstruction of her left orbital floor under general anaesthesia. She continues to experience slight double vision.
SENTENCING ARGUMENTS
The prosecution sought eight to 12 weeks’ jail, with Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Pei Wei saying she had taken into account what the victim had said – that she had forgiven him and that the sentence he got would aggravate her distress.
The offender was represented by: Mr Gregory Vijayendran, a former president of the Law Society of Singapore; his colleague Ms Meher Malhotra; Mr Asoka Markandu, a former prosecutor; and Ms N K Anitha. The former two are from Rajah & Tann, while the latter two are from Anitha & Asoka.
They asked for a conditional discharge, a short detention order or a fine for their client.
They argued that this was a “one-off aberration” and cited the victim’s forgiveness and his persistent depressive disorder, among other factors.
District Judge Jasvender Kaur said that it was “an uphill task” at the outset for the defence to seek its suggested sentences.
She found the psychiatric report supporting their stance “deficient”, noting that the offender’s depressed mood did not impair his ability to function and work.
Instead, he was active in the community, holding positions in neighbourhood committees and being involved with school advisory committees.
The man also has three past traffic-related convictions, with the most recent being for drink driving.
The defence also argued that the man had been provoked by the victim as she had continued with her “modus operandi” by making jibes about him hiding in the room.
Judge Kaur said: “I do not find this constitutes provocation.”
The lawyers also argued that the assault was the direct result of the man’s pent-up anger at the victim’s alleged behaviour of hitting him and their children.
Judge Kaur noted that the man had sustained only slight injuries although it was his then wife who sparked the encounter.
“His sense of aggrievement did not justify the continued attack in a particularly violent manner,” she added.
The prolonged nature of the assault was also evident from the fact that his daughter made three calls to the police within the span of 10 minutes, said Judge Kaur, calling his response “unwarranted and disproportionate”.
While the couple have since divorced, the man’s ex-wife wrote three letters on his behalf.
She asked for the proceedings to be stayed and for the complaint against him to be retracted, citing their emotional and mental impact on her children.
“A jailed father, no matter for how long the jail term, will detrimentally affect the family,” wrote the woman, who highlighted that her second daughter has selective mutism, a type of anxiety disorder.
However, Judge Kaur said that sentencing “is not a private matter between victim and accused”.
She cited a Court of Appeal decision which stated that “there is little place for forgiveness in the field of criminal law, which punishes offenders on the basis that they have committed criminal acts against the state”.
She added that forgiveness “cannot determine the type of sentence to be imposed”.
“There will rarely be a case where the sentence imposed will not have consequences on children,” said the judge, adding that the courts therefore apply a “stringent test” in that the impact must be exceptional.
Those convicted of voluntarily causing hurt face up to three years in jail, a fine of up to S$5,000, or both.