SINGAPORE — A doctor has lost overnight access to his 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son after his former wife submitted transcripts of audio recordings in court to show his sexual promiscuity and "unhealthy obsession" with pornography and sex with underage girls.
The transcripts included several conversations between the 43-year-old doctor and his close friend, a teacher who taught him when he was in junior college.
In one conversation, the friend was introducing two 14-year-old girls — one of whom was a student in his class — to the doctor, so the latter could have sex with them.
In another, the doctor laughed after the friend said: "If it is 18, it will be okay... but you are still in for 14 and 15."
The friend even offered to take care of the doctor's two children, to which the father replied "okay".
In written grounds of decision issued on Tuesday (Oct 24), Senior Judge Chan Seng Onn said that having reviewed the relevant transcripts, he was satisfied that some of the mother's assertions were sufficiently borne out by the evidence such that the removal of the father's overnight and overseas access to his children was justified.
He agreed with the mother that there was a risk of harm to the children posed by the father's negative influence, and by his discussion with his friend for the friend and another man to take care of the children from time to time.
Justice Chan said the transcripts showed that the father's lustful desire extended not just to prostitutes and pornography, but also to underage girls.
He said that putting aside whether the father's predilection for underage girls would amount to a crime, the evidence at least established that the man had been open to the possibility of placing his children in the care of two men who had been encouraging him to have sex with underage girls.
Justice Chan rejected the father's argument that his words were intended to be merely "jokes" or "locker room talk".
The judge said this argument lost all force when he considered that in one conversation, the friend mentioned that the father had actually met up with at least one underage girl, and in another conversation, the man had asked the friend for the contact details of another girl.
He added that he could not see how the conversation relating to the possibility of putting the children in the care of two men could be a joke or "locker room talk". "There was nothing funny in that conversation," he said.
The couple married in June 2006. The woman, a 43-year-old teacher, filed for divorce in June 2021. Interim judgment for the uncontested divorce was granted on in October 2021.
Following mediation sessions, the parties consented for the father to be given access to the children from Thursdays to Sundays, as well as during school holidays. The father was allowed to have overnight access within the stipulated days and the right to take the children overseas during the school holidays.
On Aug 30, 2023, Justice Chan heard the mother's request to reduce the father's access to the children, together with matters relating to the division of matrimonial assets and maintenance.
According to the mother, the father spent very little time with the children and reverted to his promiscuous lifestyle by checking into "sleazy" hotels on the weekends he was supposed to have access to the children.
She said he watched obscene videos without using headphones. He would even watch pornography in the car before visiting his mother, after dropping off his friend and before picking the children up.
She also alleged that he had paid for sex on multiple occasions with women, including employees of a local public hospital, and that he left condoms and other sexual objects around the house in places easily seen by the children.
She claimed that he was outsourcing the care of their children to the same friends who not only encouraged his sexual escapades but also introduced underage girls to him.
Justice Chan was not persuaded that the mother proved that the father had left sexual objects around the house.
But he said that from the transcripts, the father's appetite for pornography was plain to see. In a particularly egregious instance, it appeared that the father had even watched pornography right after sending the children to their room.
"Whatever the father's pornographic tendencies, this was generally a matter falling within his private life. The same applied to the father's alleged patronage of the services of prostitutes. Obviously, the father was no saint. Although the law would not go so far as to expect him to live up to saintly standards, the law would expect the father not to place his children in harm's way," said the judge.
The judge rejected the father's argument that even if the allegations were true, these audio recordings were known to the mother at the time she consented to the access orders.
He said the mother had consented to the father's request for generous access, as she believed it would have been in the interests of their children to spend meaningful time with the father. However, the father reverted to his old ways.
The judge said that even if the mother had both known of and accepted the father's lasciviousness, the court could not stand idly by in the face of evidence pointing to a real risk that the children might be placed in harm's way.
The father has appealed against the decision.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
