Judge denies MSF’s bid for baby boy to be placed in foster care

A judge has denied a bid by the child protection authorities to place a nine-month-old infant, who had been removed from his parents, in foster care.

Instead, the judge ordered the boy to be returned to the care of his mother, under the supervision of an approved welfare officer.

The father’s contact with the child is subject to the officer’s approval.

In written grounds of decision published on June 22, District Judge Chua Wei Yuan concluded that the child needed protection, but was not persuaded that fostering was the most ideal arrangement.

The judge noted that state intervention, especially removing a child from a home, is a measure of last resort.

In the current case, each parent was individually capable of taking care of the child.

“The real concern was that the parents’ relationship was so acrimonious that it would endanger (the child’s) safety to place him around both parents at the same time,” said the judge.

He said it was not unsafe to leave the child in the care of one parent at any one time.

He added that there was common ground between both parents that statutory supervision under the mother’s care was a superior option to fostering.

The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) had applied to place the boy in the care of foster parents for a year, with a court review in six months.

Both parents contested the application.

The boy, who turns one in August, was born with a club foot condition.

A series of physical altercations between his parents led the Protective Service, an agency under MSF, to remove him from the family home.

In one instance, the father allegedly slapped the mother and blamed her for the child’s condition.

In another incident, the mother allegedly punched the father’s shoulder and slapped him while the child was in his arms.

A dispute over the man playing music loudly at home led to a scuffle that also involved the child’s paternal and maternal grandparents.

The maternal grandmother suffered a fractured nasal bone in the fight, during which the baby was passed around the family members.

In September and October 2025, the parents filed for personal protection orders against each other.

During an unannounced visit by the Protective Service in October, the father disagreed with a proposed safety plan that required him to move out.

The man repeatedly returned to the matrimonial home, jamming the door locks or cutting off the electricity supply.

Following an overnight confrontation in which the man barricaded himself and the child inside the home, both parents were arrested for breaching the respective orders against them.

After this incident, the father left the matrimonial home.

MSF had sought a care and protection order on grounds of ill-treatment, emotional harm and medical neglect.

The judge agreed that the incidents of family violence had placed the child at risk of physical pain or injury.

He added that it was fortuitous that the child had not been dropped or struck while the adults were scuffling with one another.

The judge also accepted MSF’s submission that exposing a child to violence between his parents may cause serious long-term impairment of that child’s socio-emotional, cognitive and neurological development.

He noted that MSF’s case for medical neglect was directed at the father alone.

The boy was prescribed a leg brace to be worn for 23 hours a day until he turns four, but his first leg brace was worn for only four days after it was fitted.

The parents blamed each other for this. The mother said the father distrusted the diagnosis, while the father said it was the mother who removed the brace.

The judge noted that the mother complied with the treatment regimen after the father left home.

MSF had cited a precedent case in arguing that returning a child to the care of one parent could reinforce the child’s negative perception of the other parent.

But the judge said the concern did not arise in this case because the baby was too young to form negative impressions of the parent who was not caring for him.

He added that placing the boy in the care of one parent was not intended to send the message that the other parent is unfit to care for him. “It is simply that (the child) is safer in the care of one parent rather than both parents concurrently,” said the judge.

The father has appealed against the judge’s decision.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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