Cancer-stricken woman gets fine instead of one week's jail

Judicial mercy granted to mother convicted of contempt of court in divorce-related case

The apex court has made a rare ruling to grant judicial mercy to a woman with terminal cancer by converting her jail term of one week for contempt of court to a $5,000 fine.

The mother of two took her case to the Court of Appeal after she was found guilty of breaching court orders to not involve her children in an "extremely ugly" divorce case.

The woman has Stage 4 breast cancer, is wheelchair-bound and weighs only 30kg.

She was found by prison medical staff to be unfit for jail time given the severity of her illness.

Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang, who delivered the grounds of decision earlier this month, said: "The exercise of judicial mercy, while not unprecedented, has only been done in exceptional circumstances. For the court to exercise mercy, there must be exceptional circumstances from which humanitarian considerations arise, outweighing the public interests in having the offender punished for what he had done wrong against the law."

Lawyer Dorothy Tan explained that in cases where judicial mercy is granted, the consideration of humanitarian reasons, such as terminal illness, overrides the need to make the appropriate sentencing measures befit the crime.

Justice Phang said the case was an extremely ugly one where the mother waged an all-out war against her former husband, despite being diagnosed with breast cancer after she started divorce proceedings.

The judge said: "This included employing a scorched-earth policy (a military strategy that seeks to destroy anything that could be useful to the enemy) that involved utilising the two children of the marriage as pawns in attacking their father."

He cited an earlier judgment of Family Justice Courts Presiding Judge Debbie Ong, who noted that the children used to have a loving relationship with their father.

But the mother had "relentlessly polarised them against their father to such an extent that any repair of the relationship was not practically feasible".

The couple, who are in their late 40s and early 50s, have two children - a daughter, 15, and a son, nine.

The woman's male colleague, who her former husband accused of being her lover, moved in with the woman and her children, purportedly to help her with cancer treatment.

Justice Ong found that the woman had actively allowed her colleague to manipulate the children against their father.

The father took his former wife to task for contempt of court for breaching court orders. These included getting both parents to not make disparaging remarks about the other parent to the children, and not involve the children in the divorce litigation, such as showing or discussing with them any court documents or correspondences related to the case.

Yet, their daughter had posted a series of allegations on social media which were "already proven to have been unfounded", Justice Phang said.

In her posts, the daughter named her father, and accused him of being a "mega pervert" who had affairs and sexually groomed his children.

Justice Ong found that the woman had intentionally breached court orders not to disclose to the children information relating to the case in court.

The woman appealed against the decision.

In his grounds of decision, Judge Phang said: "Having considered the facts and the evidence as a whole, we found that the appellant had deliberately acted in order to prejudice and harm the husband's reputation, as well as to drive a wedge in the relationship between him and the children."

He noted that the mother was previously fined for contempt of court, after refusing to hand the children over to their father for him to spend time with them as directed by the court. But she refused to pay the $3,000 fine and the court ordered that the sum be taken out of her share of the matrimonial assets.

The woman's lawyers for the appeal were Mr Ushan Premaratne and Mr Lim Toon Joo.

The father was represented by Ms Luna Yap.

Besides the $5,000 fine, the Court of Appeal also ordered the woman to pay her former husband $21,000 for the cost of the appeal.

Veteran family lawyers, such as Ms Ellen Lee and Mr Koh Tien Hua, said that, as far as they know, this is the first divorce-related case where judicial mercy has been granted.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 27, 2020, with the headline Cancer-stricken woman gets fine instead of one week's jail. Subscribe