Man who cheated on wife jailed 1 week for lying to court that she refused to consummate marriage
SINGAPORE — A 25-year-old man was on Tuesday (Dec 22) sent behind bars for a week after he lied several times in his divorce petition that his wife had refused to consummate their marriage.
![Daryl Lim Chun Leng told his wife Wang Ke Chen that it was cheaper to annul their marriage, so that they could avoid being branded as divorcees. Daryl Lim Chun Leng told his wife Wang Ke Chen that it was cheaper to annul their marriage, so that they could avoid being branded as divorcees.](https://onecms-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/s--Kn4hsLdG--/f_auto,q_auto/c_fill,g_auto,h_622,w_830/v1/tdy-migration/20201222_ltannul_unsplash.jpg?itok=M1rQpvBD)
Daryl Lim Chun Leng told his wife Wang Ke Chen that it was cheaper to annul their marriage, so that they could avoid being branded as divorcees.
- Daryl Lim Chun Leng had an affair barely six months into his marriage
- He got his wife to agree to an annulment to save costs and time
- He lied to the family court that she wilfully refused to have sex after their marriage
- Yet they continued having sex after filing for the annulment
SINGAPORE — A 25-year-old man was on Tuesday (Dec 22) sent behind bars for a week after he lied several times in his divorce petition that his wife had refused to consummate their marriage.
Daryl Lim Chun Leng, a Singaporean, tied the knot with Chinese national Wang Ke Chen in early 2017.
Barely half a year had passed when Wang, 24, discovered that he was having an affair.
Lim then told her that it was cheaper to annul their marriage, so that they could avoid being branded as divorcees.
An annulment would also void the marriage immediately.
Lim pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to one charge of fraudulently making a false claim before a court of law.
THE CASE
Lim and Wang got married on Jan 19, 2017. They had consensual sex several times between January and July that year.
Wang found out in the middle of June 2017 that her husband was cheating on her.
The next month, Lim approached her with a proposal to annul their marriage on the basis that it had not been consummated.
He also promised to keep up appearances in front of Wang’s parents and help her with future requests if she consented to the annulment.
After she agreed, Lim instructed his lawyer to start annulment proceedings on July 19, 2017.
He filed documents for a divorce petition, including a statement of claim in which he said that Wang had refused to have sex after the marriage.
On this basis, he sought an order that the marriage be declared null and void.
In another document submitted to the family court, he stated that on their wedding night, he tried to initiate physical intimacy.
He said that Wang “wilfully refused to consummate the relationship, as she said that she was ‘not in the mood’ and went straight to sleep”.
Based on this, a district judge in the Family Justice Courts ordered an interim judgement for annulment to be granted on Aug 18, 2017.
Investigations later revealed that the couple, however, continued having consensual sex in August and October 2017. Lim made this admission during investigations.
The annulment was finalised in November 2017.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jaime Pang sought two weeks’ jail for Lim.
The prosecutor said that while there were various allegations of violence between Lim and Wang, the prosecution did not have evidence of that.
Lim should have “gone through the divorce route instead”, and he had benefited from the change in his legal status, DPP Pang added.
In mitigation, Lim’s lawyer Chong Xin Yi said that while Lim did not file any police reports during his marriage, the police had been called to an incident where Lim was “placed in an extremely difficult situation and had been desperate to get out of that”.
She did not give more details.
Ms Chong also argued that Lim was only 21 at the time of the offence and, apart from this matter, has a clean criminal record.
When District Judge Carol Ling asked about the status of the couple’s marriage, Ms Chong said that Wang had left for China permanently.
Lim will begin serving his sentence on Jan 4 next year.
He could have been jailed up to two years and fined.