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SINGAPORE: A man who fractured his wife's nose and rib in separate arguments linked to his affair was sentenced on Thursday (Mar 26) to 11 months' jail and one stroke of the cane.
The 45-year-old Singaporean man pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntarily causing grievous hurt.
Another four charges, including harassment and voluntarily causing hurt, were taken into consideration.
Both parties cannot be named due to gag orders on their identities.
THE CASE
At the time of the offences, the accused was married to a 33-year-old woman. They lived together in a house with their three children.
On Dec 11, 2018, the man returned home drunk in the wee hours and asked her why she had not attended a family event.
His wife was angry at him because she had just found out that he was having an affair.
The argument turned physical and the woman tried to defend herself and hold on to her husband.
The accused swung his leg up and struck his wife's nose with his knee, causing it to bleed and swell.
As his wife was a nurse, she could stop the bleeding on her own. She went to a hospital where she was attended to at about 1am.
She initially told the doctor that she had hit her nose against a door, as her sister-in-law had instructed her to say she had hurt her nose in a fall "so as not to make things worse".
The attending doctor did not believe her and the woman eventually told him that she had gotten into a fight with her husband.
The doctor advised her to lodge a police report, but she declined at the time.
She was diagnosed with a nasal bone fracture and given outpatient leave along with a follow-up appointment. When she visited a specialist outpatient clinic at the hospital on Dec 31, 2018, she reported that her nose had changed shape and felt "shaky".
A physical examination showed that she had an external nasal deformity where the middle and lower thirds of her nose were deviated towards the right.
The victim was diagnosed with a closed nasal bone fracture and explained that a type of surgery was the only available option but she decided not to undergo it.
After the incident, the accused moved out and stayed with his mother.
The victim initially looked into getting a divorce, but they reconciled in mid-2019. She and her children then moved to stay with the accused and his mother.
Sometime around Jun 20, 2019, the victim received a call from her husband's mistress. The mistress said she had just slept with the victim's husband.
When the man returned home later that day, the victim confronted him, but he denied cheating on her.
He was angry and embarrassed as the confrontation had taken place in front of his mother.
The victim grabbed her husband's shoulders and asked why he had cheated on her again, after telling her that he wanted to get back together.
She shook his shoulders while crying and asking why he kept doing this to her.
The man then pushed her and kicked her in the chest, causing her to fall onto a bed.
The victim continued crying and called her father. The altercation ended only when the victim's father appeared and the accused apologised to him.
The victim felt breathless and had pain in her chest and sought medical attention.
She told the doctor that she had slipped and fallen while taking the stairs and hit her chest against a metal pole.
She did not tell the truth as she wanted to give her husband a second chance and did not want her husband to get into trouble.
The accused had also called his wife while she was in hospital and pleaded with her not to tell the doctors the truth.
An X-ray revealed that the victim had suffered a broken rib.
The prosecutor said that the couple finalised their divorce in 2022 and they are presently co-parenting their three children.
LASTING IMPACT ON VICTIM: PROSECUTION
She sought 11 to 13 months' jail and at least two strokes of the cane, saying the nose fracture was in a vulnerable and critical part of the body.
The injury has had a lasting impact on the victim and resulted in a nasal deformity, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicole Tay.
She said the violence took place in the couple's marital home where they were living with their children.
The man also had other charges taken into consideration for causing hurt to his wife and using abusive words.
The charges altogether show a pattern of physical and verbal abuse against the victim between December 2018 and February 2022, stopping only when the divorce was finalised, said Ms Tay.
The attacks that formed the subject of the two proceeded charges occurred during altercations arising out of the accused's own infidelity, she added.
Despite this, the victim had twice attempted to give him another chance.
"The abuse of trust and interdependency which has occurred in this case, and the corresponding vulnerability of the victim, cannot be overstated," she said.
For voluntarily causing grievous hurt, the man could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined or caned per charge.
