Court grants personal protection order against mother who repeatedly cursed at daughter during writing exercise
In an audio recording played in court, the woman could be heard calling her daughter "f***ing stupid" and threatening to stab her in the eye.
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SINGAPORE: A woman who repeatedly cursed at her daughter while correcting her writing, calling her "stupid" and threatening to stab her in the eye, is now subject to a personal protection order (PPO).
The father of the girl, whose age was not revealed in a judgment made available on Friday (May 15), had applied for the PPO and provided an audio recording.
The magistrate said it was clear that the girl was tormented and distressed by her mother's "verbal lashings" and that the mother's actions had crossed the line and amounted to emotional and psychological abuse.
Newly expanded laws include emotional or psychological abuse under the definition of domestic violence. Before January 2025, such violence was limited mostly to physical harm, with no express reference to emotional or psychological abuse.
At the same time, the magistrate declined to grant the mother PPOs she sought for herself and her two children against her husband. He said there were no risk factors that made such an order necessary for the children and that the mother was not "the battered wife that she sought to portray herself to be".
THE CASE
Magistrate Soh Kian Peng said the audio recordings bore out the "excruciating nature of the verbal abuse" endured by the daughter, who could be heard sobbing in some clips.
In one recording made in February 2025, the mother asked her daughter, who was around seven years old, to write a capital S in a sentence.
As the child wrote, there was a sound of something dropping and the mother spoke in a louder voice: "Do not f***ing drop your pencil. Pick it up! Every time you drop it, you break the lead."
She later said: "God, I'm f***ing going to stab you in the eye with this. Alright. I'm so f***ing (sic) with your s***. Just get it right. Everything is f***ing wrong."
The mother then asked her daughter how she spelt "Singapore", and when the girl replied wrongly, the woman said: "Wrong! Say it again."
The audio captured her making a "frustrated sound", and the woman said: "Who write like that. For God's sake ... why, you f***ing c***-eyed, is it? ... What the f***!"
She continued to call the girl "f***ing stupid", saying this was "un-f***ing believable" and "you are wasting my time".
The woman then asked the girl to write: "Her birthday is in June."
She berated her daughter, asking her how many "f***ing birthdays" she had gone for and that she was not going to let her go for them anymore unless she could finish "birthday".
"You went to how many f***ing happy birthday parties. You still don't know how to spell birthday," says the mother.
The woman is heard shouting louder and louder: "BIRTHDAY. Now write it. You so f***ing gundu (a term used to call someone an idiot). How many f***ing birthdays have you been to? You still can't f***ing get it right."
The woman screamed louder in the audio while cursing, and the audio ends with the woman shrieking vulgarities in succession and a sound of slapping while the child began to cry.
The magistrate said the audio recordings spoke volumes as to the intensity and duration of the mother's tirades against the daughter.
"It must also be remembered that (she) is a young girl - at her tender age, the views and opinions of her parents must weigh greatly in her mind," said Mr Soh.
"One can therefore only imagine the torment and distress that she must have felt at being labelled 'useless', and at the vulgarities hurled at her, in her mother's relentless scoldings."
He found that the mother had committed family violence against her daughter and that it was necessary to order a PPO for the daughter's personal safety or protection.
"While raising a child can bring joy, it also brings with it its own unique set of stressors," said Mr Soh.
"In this vein, it was clear to me that the mother did not have a healthy way of coping with stress (especially stress arising from the course of work), and this had resulted in her venting her frustrations on (her daughter)."
The magistrate limited the PPO for a period of three years until November 2028, saying that the mother did recognise that the way she had acted was out of bounds, and she was willing to change for the better.
He ordered the mother to go for counselling, along with the father, so he could "equip himself with the necessary skills to support the mother".
Mr Soh said his ruling should not be taken as an indictment of the mother and her capability as a parent, as his task was to judge whether the daughter required protection and not to judge the mother's worth as a parent.
As for the woman's PPO applications against her husband, Mr Soh said it was clear that they had not been taken out with the intention of seeking protection.
Instead, the woman thought that having an application of her own would not only preserve the power dynamic in the relationship between herself and the father, but thwart any attempt by him to weaponise the PPO to prevent her from caring for her daughter.
The woman cited an incident in March 2025 where she alleged that the father had picked their son up in a fit of rage and thrown him on the floor.
The father had said that the two children had been playing roughly with each other, resulting in the daughter hitting the son.
The magistrate found that the mother had not established that her account was true - the father was tall and well-built, and would have caused serious injuries if he had thrown the boy to the ground. There was also no immediate medical attention.
The woman also claimed that her husband had pushed her down a flight of stairs and forcefully yanked her bag, causing her spectacles to gouge a wound on her cheek.
The magistrate found that the woman had not established that the man had committed family violence against her. The former incident was a quarrel where the man refused to give way to his wife, who was headed up the stairs. The second involved a heated argument and an ensuing scuffle that did not fall within the definition of physical abuse.
Mr Soh said the fact that the mother can be heard in some of the recordings yelling and berating the father spoke volumes as to the true dynamics within the family.
Mr Soh told the couple that there was much unhappiness between them but hoped that they would use this opportunity to start on a blank slate and move on with their children.
"You both owe it to them to give them a happy family and the best possible future. That, however, cannot happen if the both of you are constantly bickering and fighting with each other," said Mr Soh.
"I hope that the both of you can find it within yourselves to leave these unhappy incidents behind, to forgive each other, and in time, rekindle the love you once had. To that end, let me leave you with the words of Max Ehrmann, in his poem, Desiderata – I trust that you will find some wisdom, strength, and encouragement in his words."
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