YBC v YBD

Facts

A wife applied in the Family Court (SSP 2397 of 2025) for a Personal Protection Order against her husband under s 60A of the Women's Charter 1961. Both were unrepresented. They married in July 2024 and lived in his family's flat with his parents, a brother and a domestic helper; their son was born on 11 April 2025.

She relied on three incidents. On 3 February 2025, when she was seven months pregnant, he allegedly shouted at her over her use of his sister's room. On 6 May 2025, during a dispute about the water temperature for the baby's formula, he allegedly kicked a footrest aside, snatched her phone and threw it onto the sofa, and shouted at her. On 30 September 2025, as she reached to take the crying baby from him, he kicked her while she wore the baby carrier; that night she left with the child for her mother's home, and she made a police report on 14 October 2025. The husband said the kick was to stop her snatching the sick child and that May was an ordinary argument, and he described her conduct as emotional manipulation.

The application was among the first to turn on the new definition of emotional or psychological abuse in s 58B(4), in force from 2 January 2025. The husband has appealed to the High Court.

Issues

1. Whether the test for emotional or psychological abuse under s 58B(4)(a) is subjective, objective or something else.
2. Whether coercive control is a threshold requirement for emotional or psychological abuse under s 58B(4).
3. Whether the husband's kick on 30 September 2025 was physical abuse or fell within the self-defence exception.
4. Whether the May and February 2025 incidents were proved to be family violence, and whether a protection order was necessary.

Holding

Magistrate Allen Chong allowed the application and granted a Personal Protection Order restraining the husband from committing family violence against the wife. He found physical abuse under s 58B(2)(a)(i) for the September incident and emotional or psychological abuse under s 58B(4)(a) for the May incident, but no family violence proved for the February incident. Of the court's own motion, he also made a counselling order under s 60E(2)(a) read with s 60E(3)(a) directing both parties to attend counselling.

Reasoning

On the law, the magistrate read s 58B(4) as having two independent limbs: limb (a), conduct that torments, intimidates, harasses or distresses, which looks at the nature of the conduct; and limb (b), conduct that causes or may reasonably be expected to cause mental harm, which looks at its consequences. Using the purposive approach and the parliamentary materials, which stress harm rather than intent, he adopted what he called the Contextualised Objective Approach for limb (a): whether the conduct, seen in its full relational context, would objectively distress or intimidate a person in the complainant's position. A purely subjective test gave no notice of prohibited conduct and would blur the two limbs; a purely objective test ignored the context that gives such abuse its character. Within limb (b), whether harm was actually caused is a backward-looking factual question, with the gravity of the statutory examples of suicidal or self-harm thoughts as the safeguard; the forward-looking branch uses the contextualised objective test. Intent is unnecessary, and the conduct must go beyond the ordinary friction and unhappiness of relationships. He held that coercive control is not a threshold: a single act can be abuse, Parliament dropped any intent requirement, and its examples, such as spreading false rumours, go wider. Coercive control is instead relevant context and bears on necessity.

On the facts, the husband admitted the kick in his affidavit and under cross-examination, a message to her apologised for kicking her, and his own psychologist's letter recorded it. Self-defence failed: she was reaching for her own child without force, posing no genuine threat, and the force was disproportionate. For May, he gave only a general denial against her detailed and consistent account; kicking furniture, the controlled throw of her phone and the shouting, seen together, would intimidate and distress a reasonable person in her position, though nothing reached the level of mental harm under limb (b). The February accounts were irreconcilable and uncorroborated, so the burden was not met.

An order was necessary because the conduct escalated, he still denied and minimised it and blamed her, voluntary therapy carried no accountability, and the parties must keep co-parenting.

From the judgment