SINGAPORE, Nov 27 — They have been married for about four years, but during their time together, the husband was verbally and physically abusive towards the wife, and on one instance, even threatened to kill her.

Yesterday, Singaporean Seah Kian Beng, 47, was jailed two months and four weeks after he pleaded guilty to eight counts of various offences, including assaulting his Vietnamese wife Truong Bich Hue, 48, and contravening a personal protection order she took up against him.

Another eight charges for similar offences were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Seah, a former mechanical engineer, had on three occasions infringed a personal protection order that had been in force since September 2017.

Details on why the order was filed and the conditions specified were not disclosed at the hearing or in court documents.

During some of the abuses that occurred when the order was in force, the couple were reported in court documents as living together.

Before the order was filed, one instance of domestic violence happened on October 17, 2016.

Seah had returned to the couple’s Bukit Batok home that day and started shouting and scolding his wife for no reason, so she went downstairs to the void deck of the housing block, but could not shake him off because he followed her.

Running back home, she tried to hide in her room, but he caught up with her and punched her on the cheek. He also twisted her hand and shoved her.

As she tried to get hold of her mobile phone to call the police, he locked his arm over her neck, choking her.

When he eventually let her go and left, she locked the door to her room, but he stood outside the window of her room, along the common corridor, holding a penknife in his right hand.

He pointed it at her and said in Mandarin: "I will kill you and throw you down the building.”

Hue then made a police report.

This year in April, Seah breached the personal protection order against him on two occasions.

Once was when Hue went out for lunch with her colleagues and he called her several times on her phone because he did not want her to lunch out.

She did not pick up the calls and when she returned home, the couple started quarrelling and he pushed her with both hands.

Another time was later that month, when she refused to eat fruits that he had bought for her.

He flew into a rage and hit her on her face and arm.

He also pulled her by the hair to prevent her from leaving the flat.

Alcohol-fuelled abuse 

On at least three other occasions this year, Seah also assaulted his wife after consuming alcohol.

On April 27, he drank three cans of beer while waiting for her to finish work in Chua Chu Kang.

After she met up with him, they had an argument and he slapped her once on her cheek.

Less than a month later, the couple were shopping for groceries at night when Hue noticed that Seah appeared drunk.

He tried to start an argument with her but she ignored him.

Back home, he continued to berate her, and tried to block her way as she went to take a shower.

He demanded for money to buy cigarettes, but she refused to give him any.

Enraged by this, he pushed her twice and she fell twice in the bathroom.

On September 10, after he consumed alcohol, he got into a fight with her and scratched her forearm, claiming that she pushed him first.

‘Recipe for disaster’

In mitigation, Seah, who was unrepresented, said that he was under stress and "heavy financial burden” because he had to service monthly housing loans with high interest rates.

Speaking through an interpreter, he pleaded for leniency, and said that he and his wife were worried that their flat would be "repossessed”.

District Judge Eddy Tham, in his sentencing remarks to Seah, said: "Turning to drinking or alcohol… culminating in violence… is clearly a recipe for disaster as far as family life is concerned.

"You need to change the way you handle stress.”

The judge, who ordered a counsellor to speak to the couple, took into account Seah’s four weeks in remand earlier when meting out the sentence. — TODAY