1 SSP 2569 of 2025 (“SSP 2569”) was the Husband’s application against the Wife. He sought a Personal Protection Order (“PPO”) as well as a No-Contact Order (“NCO”), a Counselling Order (“CGO”), and a Mandatory Treatment Order (“MTO”).

2 The matter was fixed for hearing before me on the 16th of April 2026. Both the Husband and Wife were self-represented.

3 The Wife did not turn up for the trial. Pursuant to my powers under P 3 r 15 of the Family Justice (General) Rules 2024, I decided to proceed to hear the trial in her absence for the following reasons.

4 For one, reminders about the trial had been sent to the Wife. She had written in to court via email on the 13th of April 2026. It was clear from her correspondence that she was aware of the hearing. Her stated reason for her absence was that she was receiving medical treatment in China and thus could not travel to Singapore for the trial.

5 I could not accept this explanation. The Wife had not furnished any valid medical certificate certifying that she was unfit to travel to Singapore for the trial. She therefore had no reasonable excuse for her absence. In any event, the Wife had also expressly requested, in her email to court, that the hearing be allowed to continue in her absence, and that she accepted any judgment rendered by the Court.

6 After having heard the Husband’s testimony, and considered the various documents submitted by both parties, I dismissed the Husband’s application. These are my reasons.

7 To succeed in his application for a PPO, the Husband had to prove, on a balance of probabilities that:

(a) The Wife had either committed family violence on him, or that she was likely to do so.

(b) It was necessary for the Court to grant the PPO for his protection or personal safety: s 60A(1) of the Women’s Charter 1961.

8 The main incident the Husband complained of took place on 6 December 2025. According to the Husband, the Wife had demanded that he hand his phone over to her. The Wife had wanted to check his phone because she suspected that he had been cheating on her. She formed this suspicion because the Husband had yet to transfer her the payout from the Government Assurance Package. ¹

9 When the Husband refused to hand over his phone, the Wife went to the kitchen, retrieved a 15 cm long knife and pointed it at the Husband. At this point, the Husband’s brother-in-law tried to calm the Wife down and asked her to put down the knife.

10 This tense situation de-escalated when the Husband transferred the money. The Wife also calmed down considerably when she found no evidence of the Husband’s suspected infidelity after having rummaged through the contents of his phone.

11 The Wife then went to take a shower. After her shower, she went into the bedroom with the Husband. According to the Husband, she used three acupuncture needles to “poke” his testicles. ² He said the Wife told him she was doing this to make sure that his penis would not turn black. ³ The Husband recounted that he was terrified by the Wife’s actions, and that it was very painful.

12 This, however, was not the end of the Husband’s ordeal. According to him, the Wife then made him give her a massage. As the Husband was doing so, whenever he “massage[d] the wrong position” or the “wrong point”, ⁴ the Wife would use the massage stick to hit his head and scold him for being “stupid”. ⁵

13 The Husband only went to sleep sometime in the wee hours of the morning (at about 3 – 4 am). He made a police report the next day for his own safety. ⁶

14 In addition to this incident, the Husband also recounted how the Wife would treat him. She was paranoid that he was having an affair with various women, including his stepmother. And whenever she had those suspicions, she would force the Husband to “kneel down on the floor” and “crawl around the house 100 times”. ⁷ The Husband had also made a police report previously when he had been beaten black and blue by the Wife. In addition to this, the Wife would also force the Husband to rush home from work. If he arrived home late, he would be subject to a beating. Further, the Husband had to transfer his entire salary to the Wife every month. He would receive a daily sum of some $4 or $5 from the Wife as his daily allowance for food – and even then, he had to ask her for that sum of money. ⁸ The Husband was also forced to wash the Wife’s clothes every night, and he had to give her a massage. If the massage was not to the Wife’s liking, she would scold and hit him. ⁹ Finally, the Husband also spoke of how the Wife, having had knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine (“TCM”), had threatened to use that knowledge to kill him by piercing his pressure point with an acupuncture needle. ¹⁰

15 Even if I were inclined to fully accept the Husband’s account of these incidents (which, for the avoidance of doubt, I was not), his case fails at the second hurdle – specifically, that he had not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court why the PPO should be granted for his protection or personal safety.

16 It is important to note that these incidents of alleged family violence had all taken place whilst the Husband was living together with the Wife in a flat which belonged to the Wife’s sister.

17 Given that the Husband and Wife were now living apart, and that the Husband had since cut off all contact with the Wife and her side of the family, this, in my judgment, removed the fuel for any further incidents between the two of them.

18 Insofar as the Husband said that he needed the PPO to shield himself in the event that the Wife returned to Singapore and tried to track him down, he had not put any evidence before me to demonstrate the likelihood of this happening.

19 In any event, on the Husband’s own account, he had cut off all contact with the Wife and was no longer living with her. Further, since the incident on 6 December 2025, he had ceased to have contact with the Wife. He was also no longer in contact with her relatives. It was also apparent to me that the Husband had taken precautions to ensure that his current residence remained hidden from the Wife and her relatives. ¹¹

20 Given the aforementioned set of circumstances, I thus concluded that the Husband had not demonstrated the necessity of granting a PPO. His application in SSP 2569 therefore fails.

21 Given that the Husband’s application for a PPO was dismissed, it followed that his application for a NCO, as well as a CGO and MTO must also fail.