The whereabouts of a nine-year-old girl, at the heart of an ongoing custody battle, is currently unknown to both her American father and the authorities in Singapore, according to a judgement published on Jul. 25.

The girl's mother, 48, is a Singaporean citizen and was issued a warrant of arrest in May for her “blatant defiance” of the court.

The girl’s parents were married in March 2013.

The father is a U.S. citizen, working as a specialist doctor there.

The mother holds a master’s degree from an American university, and was formerly the owner of an online tutoring business and a part-time account manager.

The girl, born in March 2014, is dual citizen of Singapore and the U.S.

She lived in Florida with both her parents until early 2016, when her mother left her father and took her to live in Hawaii.

Relocated to Singapore in 2018

There, the mother filed for divorce in an American court in September 2016.

However, in 2018, before the case was concluded, the mother relocated to Singapore, and the American court dismissed the case due to a lack of jurisdiction.

The mother then commenced divorce proceedings in Singapore.

In June 2020, the court gave joint custody to both parents.

Finding that the mother “was more suitable to be the primary caretaker” of the daughter, she was given care and control of the girl.

As part of the custody arrangements, the father had the right to maintain access to his daughter, which was ordered to be a hybrid of supervised and unsupervised access, to facilitate the "cultivation of the father-daughter relationship".

This included:

• video access thrice per week
• three weeks of access during the girl’s summer holiday when he travels to Singapore
• Christmas access every other year when the mother brings the girl to visit him in the U.S.

However, in November that year, the matter was once again raised in court, with the father alleging that the mother had been violating the video access orders by, among other things, hanging up the call on him and pressuring his daughter to do so as well.

Calling the mother’s actions “parental alienation”, he claimed that the video access sessions had “[deteriorated] to the point where [the girl] doesn’t talk at all anymore”.

The court then amended the details of the custody arrangements to mandate the days, time, and duration that the father was to have video access sessions with his daughter.

The father, unsatisfied with the access orders, took the matter to court again in October 2022, where Justice Choo Han Teck heard the case.

Mother allegedly turned off microphones and speakers, hid daughter's face

The father would claim in a later hearing that the video access sessions were “practically meaningless” as the girl's mother had turned off the microphone and speaker so he and his daughter could not speak to each other.

He also said he couldn’t even see his daughter’s face because her mother would use her hair to cover it.

Justice Choo ordered the mother to bring the girl to Florida to visit her father between December 2022 and January 2023.

He also asked to see the child in Feb. 8, 2023.

However, the mother did not comply with any of Justice Choo’s orders, and turned up on Feb. 8 alone to see the judge, claiming her daughter did not want to see him.

When the judge gave her a second chance to bring the child to see him the next day, the mother maintained that her daughter did not want to, adding that the girl “is American and knows her rights”.

Justice Choo requested the girl’s parents to appear in court for a hearing on May 8.

The father had been asked to appear by the judge so that he could temporarily take care of his daughter in the event that the mother was held in contempt of court.

Did not appear in court, arrest warrant issued

However, on the day of the hearing, the mother did not show up.

She had emailed the girl's father five days earlier to inform him they were going to France, and then claimed to the court that her daughter was ill, and they were unable to return to Singapore.

She did not provide any details or evidence of this illness, and Justice Choo adjourned the hearing to May 12 and issued a warrant of arrest, placing the daughter under the care and control of the Child Protection Services (CPS) until further arrangements could be made.

On May 12, the mother was once more absent from court, repeating the excuse that her daughter was still ill.

Justice Choo then ordered that CPS would have custody of the girl upon her return to Singapore, saying he had no choice but to call for the mother’s arrest.

The judge said “no court should ignore or condone a blatant defiance of its orders, for the court is a public office in service of society".

"The judge is not pampering his own ego by punishing the offender. He is upholding the honour of the office and maintaining respect not so much to him but that office. I was thus left with no alternative but to order a warrant for the Mother’s arrest,” the judge added.

Mother "remains a fugitive of her own volition"

Since then, neither daughter nor mother have returned to Singapore, though they remained contactable via email and remote video access.

The mother has not disclosed their location.

The mother used her outstanding arrest warrant as justification to remain overseas, which Justice Choo took as evidence that she was intentionally evading arrest.

In a virtual hearing on Jul. 21 with both parents present, Justice Choo granted the girl’s father sole custody, care, and control of his daughter, and adjourned the case until both mother and daughter returned to Singapore.

Had the mother returned to Singapore with her daughter, Justice Choo said, it was likely that an application to rescind her arrest warrant would be granted.

He added that the mother was still at liberty to apply, and until she does so, she "remains a fugitive of her own volition".

Top photos from Unsplash.