Man granted protection order against ex-wife, who tracked down his former boss about 'black magic'
The woman also sent her ex-husband a photo of a man in bed, saying: "I sleep with a man."
Magistrate Soh Kian Peng found that the woman's actions had caused her ex-husband distress and amounted to emotional or psychological abuse and granted the requested order.
According to a judgment made available on Thursday (Jul 3), the man complained that his ex-wife had engaged in "a pattern of conduct that caused him no small amount of stress and grief", despite his attempts to move on.
MAN COMPLAINS OF ABUSE BETWEEN 2012 AND 2025
The man, who has since remarried, said he had suffered emotional and psychological abuse from his ex-wife's behaviour in several incidents.
First, his ex-wife applied for a personal protection order against him in 2012, even though he could not have committed family violence against her as he was on reservist training.
The case was dropped, but the man said he suffered "significant stress and fear" of the woman's "unpredictable behaviour and random baseless accusations".
In 2017, the woman tracked down the man's former boss, known only as C in court documents.
She told C that her ex-husband and his mother had been using black magic on C's wife. This supposedly caused C's wife to fall ill and die.
She purportedly told C that "your wife actually passed away" due to her ex-husband's late mother.
C testified at the trial and confirmed that this had happened. He said his wife had been bedridden for almost eight years at the time.
"(The woman) told me that the reason why my wife was bedridden was because (my ex-employee) and his mother put a black magic spell ... on my wife, which I ... found very strange, but I didn't want to say much," he said.
At the time, he knew his ex-employee was not in Singapore, so he sent him a message to call him straight away.
"So he called me ... and I told him about the whole thing. And that was where he told me that his uncle or ... some relative was also contacted along the same lines to basically just to mention negative points about (my ex-employee)," said C.
He showed the court a text message from the woman, who identified herself and said her ex-husband had performed black magic on C's wife, in order to "take revenge" on C.
C said he did not make a police report because his ex-employee decided not to.
The third incident occurred in 2021, when the man received a message from his ex-wife saying she had slept with another man, along with a photo of an unknown man on her bed.
The latest incident was on Valentine's Day this year, when the man received a summons to attend court. His ex-wife had applied for a personal protection order against him, which he said caused "significant emotional and mental stress" to him and his current wife.
THE COURT'S FINDINGS
The magistrate found that the woman had indeed contacted C to spread false rumours, which falls squarely within the definition of emotional or psychological abuse.
The conduct had caused her ex-husband distress. However, the magistrate found that the woman's filing of a personal protection order against her ex-husband did not amount to emotional abuse, as parties are entitled to file their complaints.
There are safeguards to minimise the filing of frivolous or meritless complaints, said the magistrate.
He found that the woman had committed family violence on her ex-husband and was likely to continue causing emotional or psychological abuse to him.
He added that there is evidence that the woman has an undisclosed psychiatric condition, which she was receiving treatment for at the Institute of Mental Health.
In her testimony, she described dreaming of her ex-husband and his family members regularly, and seeing him in places she frequented, leading her to believe she was being followed.
She had filed police reports and applications for personal protection orders against her ex-husband.
Her overall behaviour demonstrated "a clear pattern of conduct" on her part, continuing to harass him despite the man resolving to go his separate way after their divorce.
The magistrate said it was necessary to order the personal protection order against the woman for her ex-husband's personal safety.
"It was clear to me that the present case was one where (the woman's) conduct had impacted (her ex-husband's) living circumstances and thus exacted a toll on him," he said.
"The way (she) had acted was clearly affecting (his) personal life, as well as his professional relationships."
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