The housewife said she acted in porn only prior to meeting the man. She said he suffered from an addiction to porn and was unfaithful to her. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

A 45-year-old British man who wanted to divorce his 39-year-old Japanese wife last year told the Singapore Family Justice Courts that her behaviour caused their marriage to break down.

He claimed that she acted in pornographic films, had borderline personality disorder and mental health issues, and was prone to violence.

The housewife, who initially contested the divorce, said she had acted in porn only prior to meeting the man, a financial advisor. The woman, who used to also work in management consulting jobs, said the man suffered from an addiction to porn and was unfaithful to her. The couple have a young daughter.

In her grounds of decision last Wednesday (31 October), for the court’s decision on 7 August on ancillary matters, Family Court Judge Jen Koh said, “Instead of allowing the antagonism and acrimony to escalate and build up, the parties would do well to re-consider their hair-trigger reactions to one another for the sake of the child – a child I have no doubt they both love deeply.

“I ask parties to be bigger, wiser and kinder and to be civil to each other for the sake of the child; they are, after all, the child’s immediate role models,” she added.

In all, more than 40 affidavits were filed in relation to the heated divorce, including ancillary matters, with numerous exhibits including compact discs, photos, videos, audio recordings and statements from various third parties such as friends, relatives and school counsellors. The details of these exhibits were not elaborated in the judge’s decision grounds.

Couple applied for PPOs

The couple, who were not named in the decision grounds, met in Tokyo sometime around 2006 to 2007 and got married in 2008. In 2010, they relocated to Singapore with their two-year-old daughter. The husband commenced divorce proceedings in May last year, which the wife initially contested, and interim judgement was granted in September last year.

Between April and May last year, the husband and wife filed five cross applications for personal protection orders (PPOs), whether for themselves or on behalf of their child, who is now about nine years old.

Judge Koh dismissed all the applications, saying the couple had not proven their respective cases, or that they needed a PPO “for the true purpose and spirit of such an order”.

“The concern I had was that if granted, the PPOs would be used by the parties for their personal agendas in perpetuating police reports and recordings and calling of the authorities for every incident between them. The grant of the PPO would escalate the already heightened emotiveness of this case,” said the judge.

“In the bigger context of this case and after considering the evidence, I was not minded to grant the PPO as I was not satisfied that family violence had been committed and that the PPO was necessary for their protection,” she added.

Personal vendettas placed over child’s welfare

The couple had a mediated settlement in August last year, with regard to shared care and control of the child. Variation to handover times and days were made via a court order by the judge in May this year, after she heard from both parties and reviewed a custody evaluation report by a neutral evaluator.

But at the hearing for ancillary matters six weeks later, in June, the couple sought to vary the court order. The man claimed the woman was violent towards the daughter, and had slapped the child. He also said the woman molested the child by applying a cream on her crotch so that he could not travel with the girl.

Meanwhile, the woman claimed the man was on a war of attrition against her and continued to denigrate her, maligning her to friends, neighbours, school teachers and counsellors. She also said he was buying the child’s affection with trips and by spending money on the girl, and that he was adopting an acrimonious approach to destroy the shared care and control they had of the child.

“If indeed the violence was inflicted, this was not borne out in evidence and it was also not borne out in the observations of the relationship between the child and the wife by the counsellors in the custody evaluation report,” said Judge Koh.

Referring to the court order in May on custody, care and control of the child, the judge added, “The parties appeared to be hell-bent on ensuring the unworkability of the orders and clearly did not seem to have placed the child’s welfare above their personal vendettas against each other.”

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