Soon after reaching home and reeking of alcohol, he got into an argument with his wife, then aged 41, and hit her. She called the police at around 2.45am and two officers arrived at their home.
“Just as the police officers were leaving at about 3.30am, the accused closed the door to the unit and slapped the victim on her right arm, causing her to scream,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh said. Hearing the slap and scream, the officers arrested the husband.
The incident happened while the wife was under a personal protection order issued against the accused by a court on March 10 last year. Court documents did not mention what led to the protection order being filed.
A few months after the drunken assault, the victim’s older brother and sister-in-law called on September 15 to tell the wife that her husband had sent the brother photos of her, including one showing her topless.
“The photographs were accompanied by messages from the accused stating that the victim was a ‘pig’s child’, ‘a prostitute’, and that she came from a ‘characterless family’,” Koh said.
“The victim felt humiliated, degraded and harassed. Her face was visible in the photograph showing her with her breasts exposed.”
The topless photo was taken during a video call that the couple had a month earlier. While the wife had consented to baring her chest during the call, she did not consent to her husband taking a screenshot of her or sending the picture to anyone else.
The victim felt humiliated, degraded and harassed. Her face was visible in the photograph showing her with her breasts exposed
Later, on November 25 last year, the husband was caught at about 2.15am driving a van while drunk.
He had consumed about three to four glasses of whiskey during a night of drinking with his friends, the court heard. A breathalyser test found that his breath contained 87 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath, far exceeding the maximum legal limit of 35mcg per 100ml.
After pleading guilty to distributing a voyeuristic image, breach of a personal protection order and voluntarily causing hurt, the accused was sentenced on Monday last week to six months and four weeks’ jail, ordered to pay a fine of S$7,500 (US$5,500), and disqualified from driving for 42 months.
He also pleaded guilty to a charge of drink-driving on a separate occasion. Three other charges were taken into consideration during the sentencing.
For voluntarily causing hurt, the husband could have been sentenced to a jail term of up to three years or fined up to S$5,000, or both.
For distribution of voyeuristic images or recordings, he could have been jailed for up to five years, fined or caned, or been given a combination of these punishments.
Contravening a personal protection order attracts a fine not more than S$2,000 or up to six months in jail, or both.
For drink-driving, the penalty is a fine of between S$2,000 and S$10,000, a jail term of up to 12 months, and disqualification from driving.