[2026] SGFC 136

in the FAMILY JUSTICE Courts of the republic of singapore

[2026] SGFC 136

SSP 284 of 2026

Between

	YKE

… Applicant

And

	YKF

… Respondent

grounds of decision

[Family Law — Family Violence — Orders for Protection]

This judgment is subject to final editorial corrections approved by the court and/or redaction pursuant to the publisher’s duty in compliance with the law, for publication in LawNet and/or the Singapore Law Reports.

YKE
v
YKF

[2026] SGFC 136

Family Court — SSP 284 of 2026
Magistrate Soh Kian Peng
13 May, 29 June, 6 August 2026

13 October 2026

Magistrate Soh Kian Peng:

1 SSP 284 of 2026 (“SSP 284”) was the Mother’s application against the Father. She sought a Personal Protection Order (“PPO”) as well as a Domestic Exclusion Order (“DEO”) for the study room in the flat at [XXX].

2 I heard the trial over two tranches. The Father was self-represented. The Mother, on the other hand, was represented by Mr Jeeva Arul Joethy (“Mr Joethy”). After hearing the evidence of the witnesses, I called for written submissions. Judgment was handed down on 6 August 2026 where I dismissed the Mother’s application.

3 These are the reasons for my decision.

4 For the Mother to succeed in her application, s 60A of the Women’s Charter 1961 makes clear that she must establish the following two elements on a balance of probabilities. First, that the Father had committed family violence on her or that he was likely to commit family violence on her. Second, that it was necessary for the order to be made for her protection or personal safety.

5 I found that the Father had indeed committed family violence on the Mother in the following incidents.

6 The Father had admitted to adding the Mother to a group chat with her family members. He then removed her from the group chat and sent her explicit photographs on the group chat. These were explicit photos of the Mother and her lover which the Father had obtained from her handphone.

7 The Father did not deny doing this. He explained that he did so because he wanted to make it clear that he was not the one that was sabotaging their relationship. He explained that he wanted to make clear that it was the Mother who was cheating on him.

8 There was another similar incident where the Father had created a group chat with the Mother’s supervisor. He had added the Mother to the chat and then removed her. The Father claimed that he never sent her explicit photographs on that group chat. He testified that while he was very angry in that moment, he managed to master his emotions and to take a step back.

9 The Father’s acts in both these incidents, in my judgment, amounted to emotional and/or psychological abuse (see s 58B(4) of the Women’s Charter 1961). For one, even accepting the Father’s account that he did not send any of the Mother’s explicit images on the group chat that he had created with her supervisor, that, in no way, lessened the torment or distress that the Mother felt. The Father’s actions – in both incidents – of adding her to the group chat and subsequently removing her, pointed to an attempt at maximizing the torment or distress inflicted on the Mother who would then be left completely in the dark as to what had been sent on the group chat.

10 This also presented the Mother with an impossible choice. She could either ask her family members and her own supervisor as to what the Father had sent on the respective group chats, or let uncertainty gnaw away at her mind. To my mind, being put in such a position would only have served to further increase her torment and distress.

11 Having found that the Father had committed an act of family violence against the Mother, I went on to consider whether it was necessary to grant the order for the Mother’s protection or personal safety.

12 The jurisprudence of the family court has made clear that in considering the necessity of ordering a PPO, the court must consider the likelihood of family violence being committed on the person sought to be protected under the order in the future: XFL v XFM [2024] SGFC 103 at [19].

13 To this proposition of law, I would also add that it must be remembered that the grant of a PPO represents state intervention into, what would ordinarily be, the private affairs of parties. Disagreements and heated arguments between family, friends, and lovers are part and parcel of everyday living, and indeed, of any relationship. But for any relationship to survive – and thrive – parties must learn how to navigate such stormy waters and chart a path back to calmer seas. It is only in situations where the behaviour of one party has crossed the line and become unmanageable that state intervention, in the form of protective orders, is warranted.

14 In this connection, I was not satisfied that it was necessary to order a PPO for the Mother’s protection or personal safety in the present case. I must emphasise, however, that my conclusion that a PPO should not be granted in the present case should not be interpreted as condoning the Father’s actions. That is because the PPO regime does not exist to right wrongs between people (which is, at least on one view, the function of private law), or to punish wrongdoing (which is generally the province of criminal law). As was noted in WSD v WSE and another matter [2024] SGFC 1 at [1], the PPO regime exists to protect people, namely, those who find themselves trapped in the cycle of abusive domestic relationships.

15 In the paragraphs that follow, I explain why I have not found it necessary to order a PPO in the present case.

16 For one, the Father had exhibited several videos which, in my judgment, spoke volumes as to the true dynamics between him and the Mother. In these videos, both the Father and the Mother can be seen engaging in heated quarrels with each other. Whilst the Mother has made much of the fact that the Father had said many unpleasant things about her, in front of their son during these quarrels and how that would amount to (at least in her view) emotional abuse, what these videos show is that the Mother was more than capable of standing up to the Father and holding her ground. That much was clear from how she not only raised her voice at him, but also returned similarly unkind remarks about him in front of their son.

17 Second, although I have found that the Father had committed an act of family violence on the Mother, I note that those incidents, which took place in 2023, are rather dated. Although the Mother alleged in her affidavit that the Father had recently been sending her “family and employer spiteful messages”, there was no evidence of the same exhibited in her affidavits.

18 Third, I did not agree with the points raised by Mr Joethy – specifically, that the fact that parties would continue to have future interactions (as they have to sell the flat which they jointly own, and coparent their children) spoke to the necessity of ordering a PPO in the present case.

19 For one, while parties did have an acrimonious relationship, I did not think that this necessitated granting a PPO to prevent any further arguments between them as attempted to sell the flat. If either the Father, or the Mother, could not tolerate being in each other’s presence, then they must use a good measure of common sense and carve out a sale arrangement together with their property agent that would minimize the need for them to interact.

20 As to Mr Joethy’s point that the coparenting arrangements would bring parties into close proximity with each other, and that this made it necessary for the court to grant the PPO, I noted that the Mother had taken out an application for child orders. That being said, the Mother had not put any evidence before me in relation to the coparenting arrangements, or that the coparenting arrangements would indeed result in her being subject to further family violence as a result of having to interact with the Father.

21 Fourth, although Mr Joethy made the argument that the Father was “altogether unapologetic for the family violence committed”, I did not think that was entirely accurate. The Father had admitted to sending the Mother’s explicit photographs to her family (see above at [6]). The Father had also, in his testimony, admitted to being verbally abusive to the Mother. He explained that that was because he was angry. It was also clear to me that the Father was committed to turning his life around and doing better for the sake for the children. This was what he had said:

Court: Alright. So just to be clear, the minimum occupation period is up in December of this year.

Witness: Yes.

Court: Whose name is the flat in?

Witness: Half-half.

Court: I see. Okay. So the intention is to sell the flat?

Witness: Yes, and move on with life, yes.

Court: So you intend to go your own separate way? From [the Mother]?

Witness: Yes.

Court: And I suppose the only remaining connection then would be the children.

Witness: Kids.

Court: But that’s subject to any orders made by the Court.

Witness: Yes, that’s why we are in the midst of the custody hearing.

Court: I just want to pick up on something you said a few moments ago. You said there was no need to be verbally abusive. Are you admitting that you were verbally abusive to [the Mother]?

Witness: Due to anger, yes, Your Honour.

Court: And what do you make of your behaviour then, looking back on it, from where you’re at now?

Witness: I think after shifting out of the house, the mind became clearer. I didn’t have to handle so much turmoil that she created. The boys are more focused on their studies because they’re not seeing their mother for a while. So it made me realised it wasn’t worth it to go through all this anger because of her. So yah, my focus is just on the boys now.

Court: And, [the Father], can you help me understand how you come to this realisation?

Witness: If I compare myself now and then, where I was so stressful, I couldn’t get a proper job and then I had to handle so many things at the same time, and then now where the kids are, I trained them to have a system to study and everything and they followed by it. And I have a proper job. So it came to conclusion that the reason why I was acting like that, it was because I was in the house. I was always, every other day, having arguments and fights. And then when I shifted out, it’s just a smoother life, per se. So I feel that, yah, there’s no need for me to go back into being that person and help my boys to settle what they are feeling now. Their emotions, they cannot control. They don’t know how to vent it out, the reason why he ran away from class and ended up outside the school by the roadside. So yah, the focus is just on them now.

22 From the Father’s testimony, it was evident to me that he had reflected on the stressors that caused him to behave in the manner that he did. He understood that what he had done was wrong, and had arrived at the conclusion that he no longer wished to live in that way. Further to that, he had also taken concrete steps to change his life such as finding a stable job and committing himself to the children.

23 To sum up, for the reasons I have set out above, I concluded that it was not necessary to order the PPO for the Mother’s protection or personal safety. Her application in SSP 284 must therefore fail.

24 Given that neither party sought costs, I made no order as to costs.

Soh Kian Peng
Magistrate

Jeeva Arul Joethy (Regal Law LLC) for the Mother;

The Father in person and unrepresented.