Jail for man who hit daughter on the head, harassed wife and threatened to harm her mother

SINGAPORE — For over a year, a father carried out what a state prosecutor described as a “campaign of terror” against his family.

Among other things, the man hit his then 13-year-old oldest daughter on the head five times, harassed his wife at her workplace and threatened to harm his mother-in-law.

On Tuesday (May 9), the 48-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to a total of about seven months' jail, including four months for a charge of unlawful stalking and 12 weeks for three charges of causing harm and contravening an expedited order.

He had pleaded guilty to these charges on Feb 16. Another seven charges of similar nature were taken into consideration during the sentencing.

At the time of his offences, he was subjected to an expedited order, which prohibited him from committing family violence against his wife, a Singaporean in her 40s.

An expedited order is a temporary personal protection order that restrains the respondent from committing family violence against the applicant or other family members.

Due to the Children and Young Persons Act, none of the family members in this case can be named in order to protect the identity of the three children involved.

WHAT HAPPENED

On Sept 11 in 2020, the man's wife called the police after her husband had threatened her in a phone call, court documents showed.

Investigations later revealed that a few days before the call, the man had returned home from his quarantine at a hotel here.

This was during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which required travellers returning from overseas to quarantine for 14 days.

While he was quarantined, the man tried contacting his then 13-year-old daughter, but she did not answer any of his calls.

He questioned her after he returned home and was given an explanation. It was not stated in court documents what the daughter's explanation was.

Angry with his daughter, he hit her five times on the right side of the head, while also threatening to punch and kill her if she were to repeat her behaviour.

Around the same period after he had returned home from quarantine, the man asked his wife to return him a sum of S$10,000 that he had given her to renovate her shop. 

Despite his wife telling him that she would return the money, he tried to punch her but she managed to block his blow. 

As she tried to remove herself from the situation, he pulled her by the collar of her dress, choked her while holding onto her neck, and pushed her against the wall.

His wife later managed to break free and ran out of their home.

Both the wife and daughter sought medical attention at the National University Hospital on Sept 11. 

On June 30 in 2021, she decided to move out of their family home to stay in a church with her daughters and a week later on July 8, she made a police report about her husband's incessant harassment.

These included calling other members of the church, visiting the church and his wife's workplace, harassing his wife at her workplace, trying to gain entry into the church, and asking a security staff member at the church to photograph his daughters if he saw them.

The wife filed another police report on Sept 12, 2021, after he continued to hound her via phone calls and made threats to her family in Indonesia.

During one call, he repeatedly asked her to give him another chance and to "go back home", but his wife refused and hung up the phone.

Undeterred, the man continued calling her repeatedly.

His wife then tried to block his calls that were made using various different phone numbers, but he used an online spoofing tool to bypass this, and continued to contact her a total of 141 times.

Determined to get him to stop harassing her, she used their daughter's mobile phone to call him.

However, the man got angry during the conversation and threatened to "pay people" in Indonesia to cause serious bodily harm to her mother in Indonesia. 

The wife blocked his number again but he continued to contact her using a spoofed foreign phone number to send her screenshots of a threatening WhatsApp conversation. 

The screenshots were of a conversation between the man and an unknown individual whom he had purportedly engaged to "carry out" the threats he had made the day before.

A photograph of his wife's mother's home in Indonesia was also exchanged in the chat along with the man's instructions to the unknown individual "to standby".

He also sent another message to the wife later in the day to tell her that arrangements have been made to "hurt her parents". It was not mentioned in court documents if he followed through with the threat.

The man was eventually arrested on Sept 13, 2021.

WHAT THE PROSECUTION AND JUDGE SAY

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Teo Siu Ming said that the man had sought to characterise his behaviour as the "acts of a desperate father" who was trying to save what remains of his familial ties, but he failed to acknowledge that he was the "author of his own misery".

DPP Teo added that the man's wife had "exhausted" every legal avenue to protect herself and her children, and that the man’s "campaign of terror" against his family must end.

He also said that the man's persistent refusal to respect the wishes of his family and a court order restraining him from committing family violence must have "consequences".

In delivering his sentence, District Judge Kessler Soh said that given the serious nature of the threats made by the man, and how he had hurt his daughter and wife, a fine would not be an “appropriate punishment”.

The judge added that such acts of family violence cannot be “tolerated” and must be “deterred”.

Turning to the man, District Judge Soh told him to speak to a court counsellor to see if there is any help he can receive while serving his sentence.

Court documents stated that the man and his wife are undergoing divorce proceedings.

Anyone found guilty of wilfully contravening a protection order or an expedited order can be jailed for up to six months or fined up to S$2,000, or both.

Anyone found guilty of unlawful stalking can be jailed up to 12 months, fined up to S$5,000, or both.

If convicted of voluntarily causing hurt, an offender can be jailed up to three years or fined up to S$5,000, or both.

On Tuesday, the Government introduced proposed changes to the Women's Charter with the aim to strengthen the authorities’ ability to intervene in high-risk cases of family violence.

One of the proposed changes is the use of immediate emergency orders to stop someone from harming another person in domestic violence cases where there is imminent danger to victims.