UDG v UDF and another matter [2019] SGCA 24

The Respondent informed this Court in her three e-mails dated 5 April 2019 (sent just prior to this hearing) that she would not be able to attend the hearing of the appeal in person and asked that this Court take into account what she presented in her e-mails in her absence (together with a letter responding in detail to the Appellant’s case as well as his recent application to this Court to adduce further evidence). In coming to our decision, we have carefully considered the Appellant’s written and oral submissions and the Respondent’s e-mails as well as letter to the court.

We allow the Appellant’s application to adduce further evidence, although in coming to our decision, we have not (as we shall elaborate upon in a moment) found the additional evidence to be of much assistance.

We will deal with the second and third issues first.

In so far as both these issues are concerned, we agree with the reasons as well as decisions arrived at by the Judge. In our view, the Judge had not erred in law or exercised her discretion wrongly. She also had not taken into account irrelevant considerations or failed to take into account relevant considerations.

In the Appellant’s appeal, he seeks generally for overnight and overseas access to be subject only to the child’s agreement, and specifically for a specified duration for such access.

It is axiomatic that the lodestar principle is that this Court must have regard to the welfare and the best interests of the child (here, the child of the present marriage), and much will depend upon the precise facts and circumstances of the case. And one important aspect relating to the best interests of the child in this case must surely be that she be permitted the widest possible latitude to bond with both of her parents. On a related note, there is nothing in the evidence on record that demonstrates that it would now be detrimental for the child to spend more time with the Appellant and/or that, on the whole, the child herself does not wish to spend more time with the Appellant. It is true that the Judge did proffer a negative view of the Appellant as a father and this was apparently based, amongst other things, on her interview and e-mail communications with the child. Having perused the interview notes as well as e-mail communications, we are of the view that whilst the Appellant could be more flexible in his relationship with the child, his conduct is not unusual and (more importantly) his current relationship with his daughter may well be the product of a vicious cycle in which he has been deprived of the opportunity to bond with her; put simply, the “water” that gives life and refreshment to the bond between father and daughter has in this case simply been depleted, with the inevitable result that the relationship will die upon the vine if that vicious cycle is not, instead, turned into a virtuous one. In any event, as we shall elaborate upon in a moment, there is no reason in principle why the child should not be afforded the opportunity to decide when and under what conditions she would like to meet with the Appellant – and this is a point to which our attention now turns.

Another closely related point is that, even when she was younger (specifically, when she was 14 years old), the Judge herself noted (in an earlier judgment (in UDF v UDG [2017] SGHCF 17 at [29])) that the child was capable of expressing her wishes and of deciding for herself (in that particular instance, in the context of her education and whether or not she wished to come to Singapore for her 2017 summer vacation). Indeed, she is now 16 years old and there is every reason to be optimistic that she is even more mature with the further passage of time.

At this juncture, we should state that the Appellant has filed document after document as further evidence for the appeal. Whilst not dismissing the value/weight of these documents or reports out of hand, we note that they emanate from a source which cannot be assumed to be the model of objectivity. This is understandable but we also have to adopt a practical as well as fair approach in the context of such a situation – especially since the Respondent has not filed anything in response (save for the three e-mails as well as letter which she sent just prior to this hearing).

We affirm the remaining orders of the Judge in relation to the care arrangements for the child. In particular, we remind the Appellant that he has (pursuant to para 2.3.1 of the Judge’s order) to give eight days’ notice to the Respondent and the child when he seeks reasonable non-overnight and non-overseas access to the child on weekdays, weekends and school holidays, subject to her school and extracurricular schedule.