AFFIRMATION OF WONG KEAN LI IN SUPPORT OF SUMMONS

I, WONG KEAN LI 黃安鹏 (formerly黄兆璿and 黄建理) of 14D Hollywood Centre, 77-91 Queen’s Road West, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong do hereby solemnly sincerely and truly affirm and say as follows:-

• I am the Petitioner herein. Unless otherwise stated all of the facts and matters referred to herein within my knowledge and are true to the best of my knowledge information and belief.


• I make this Affirmation in support of my Summons filed herein seeking orders for :-
  
  
  • The Petitioner do have interim access to the daughter of the family, namely FW Wong (hereinafter “the Child”, or “our Daughter”) at least once a week every Sunday from 11am to 3pm or as may otherwise be agreed between the Petitioner and the Respondent, and any additional access to be agreed;
  • The Petitioner be allowed to take FW back to the Petitioner’s hometown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a period of no less than 7 days during the 2018 Chinese New Year holidays;
  • The Respondent do encourage and promote FW’s access to the Respondent and will undertake not in any way to prevent or restrict FW from contacting or visiting the Petitioner in any reasonable manner (including by telephone call, emails, or messaging) at any reasonable time, and shall not in any way coerce or encourage the Daughter not to make such contact or visit;
  • Any such other direction(s) as the Court deems fit; and
  • The costs of and incidental to this Summons, be provided for.


• I have not had any real or meaningful access to our Daughter since April 2017 and I am seeking the Court’s assistance to help me get access.


• Since we arrived in Hangzhou as a family in December 2013, I had been the primary caretaker of our Daughter. Apart from the Respondent spending Saturday evenings with her, and sometimes sending her to school in the morning and seeing her after returning from work at around 10pm at night, in general I would be the one taking care of her for the rest of the time when our Daughter was not in school.


• I first started to hardly be able to see our Daughter starting from around August 2016, when the Respondent would have our Daughter go straight to the Respondent’s workplace (classroom) after school right untill the Respondent finished work, typically around 10pm, and when they returned home, our Daughter would go to bed soon thereafter. Even weekends had to be spent at the Respondent’s classroom, despite our Daughter’s wishes to spend time with me. (See Appendix 1).


• From December 2016 onwards, the Respondent and our Daughter moved to another residence (to which I was not welcomed), and at the same time, sent me a lawyer’s letter demanding that I pay child support of RMB15,000 a month and that I sign a “Maintenance Expenses Agreement” to that effect (hereinafter the “Maintenance Agreement”). I agreed to sign it after modifying the agreement to include guarantees, such as: I would be able to see her at least once a week (every Sunday); our Daughter would not be prevented from communicating with me; the Respondent would cease to involve our Daughter in our marital problems, etc. etc.


• Please note that I agreed to make such payment even though I did not believe I had any obligation to do so, as I had been the one paying for our Daughter’s necessary expenses, and in particular the international school fees for 2016-2017 (approximately RMB160,000) as well as an advanced payment of her school fees for 2017-2018 which was transferred for safekeeping to the Respondent’s mother (approximately RMB170,000).


• After making the required payments, I was then able to regularly see my daughter, and we started having a great relationship again (from end of December 2016 to end of March 2017), despite her still holding many false and distorted beliefs about me.


• During that same period, the relationship between the Respondent and our Daughter was not good. Our Daughter would often seek consolation from her maternal grandmother (the Respondent’s mother, hereinafter “Grandma”) and myself after arguments with the Respondent. It resulted in our Daughter contacting me and Grandma more and more (although it was forbidden), which in turn resulted in more arguments between her and the Respondent, as well as bringing the relationship between the Respondent and Grandma to such a point that Grandma had to file another police report (there had been more before that, as early as 2014) against the Respondent for violence against her and other abusive behaviour.


• In the month of March 2017 things were becoming particularly bad between the Respondent and our Daughter, as well as the Respondent and Grandma. There were more than two occasions when our Daughter would call me and asked to be ‘rescued’. One such evening was on 5th March 2017. Our Daughter had had another argument with the Respondent and called me to ‘save her’. She was hiding from the Respondent in a nearby café and feared for her personal safety. Later that evening, after some assurances from the Respondent, our Daughter agreed to go home to the Respondent, but later that night at around 10pm, our Daughter calls me again to ask me to pick her up, saying that the Respondent had disowned her and wanted her out of the house. Grandma also called me to report on the situation, and I coordinated with her to pick up our Daughter, which I then did. However, after sending our Daughter downstairs to me, Grandma found herself locked out of the flat in her pyjamas, and so I had to return to retrieve her back to my place (the reason I describe this in this affirmation will be apparent later on).


• After that incident (on 6th March 2017), the Respondent (over Wechat) stated that our Daughter would stay with me from then on, so along with other repeated breaches of the Maintenance Agreement, I exercised my right to terminate the agreement. On 8th March I told the Respondent that I would only be willing to continue paying the monthly RMB15,000 amount on condition that we sign a new amended “Family and Maintenance Expenses Agreement”, which was based on the previous version but had an additional two clauses, one safeguarding our Daughter’s mental and physical wellbeing, and another safeguarding Grandma’s physical wellbeing and basic living rights.


• The Respondent refused to sign the new agreement, and said she would sue me for reneging on the Maintenance Agreement.


• Another incident similar to what happened on 5th March happened again on 12th March, but this time, our Daughter was not able to escape and was forcibly dragged back into the flat by the Respondent. Part of this incident was captured on video – see Appendix 2.


• The last incident happened on 26th March 2017, where upon our Daughter’s request I had brought her back to my place and the Respondent was furious that she had left to see me. A phone conversation between the Respodent and our Daughter was very revealing in terms of how our Daughter was being prevented from seeing me (see Appendix 3).


• The Respondent thereafter blocked off all communications with me, and proceeded to sue me in Hangzhou Area court for not paying her under the Maintenance Agreement.


• After that, any attempts to communicate with our Daughter (in person) would be cut-short by the Respondent, and our Daughter also then started telling me that she no longer wished to see me, in order to ‘punish’ me for not paying child-support (seemingly not realizing or accounting for my payment of her school fees for 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, and ignoring all the problems she had had with the Respondent previously). How far it truly reflected her wishes is hard to tell, but sadly, in a short span of time and not seeing me, it did seem that our Daughter’s attitude towards me had significantly changed for the worse.


• I had sought the assistance of the local police in Hangzhou, but they informed me it was difficult for them to get involved, as this was a family matter, and I should have the right to see her anyway as the Respondent and I were still legally married. They said that ironically, where a couple is divorced and there is a court order regarding custody or visitation, that is when they would be more able to help. And it was with that primarily in mind that I decided to file for divorce in Hangzhou, but this matter has now been brought to Hong Kong as the Hangzhou court turned down the case citing lack of jurisdiction.


• Since not having had any meaningful access to my daughter starting from April this year, I have seen my daughter’s attitude towards me grow more and more negative. Earlier, it was clear she wanted to see me but was reluctant to go against the Respondent’s wishes, but now, it seems like her beliefs are such that she truly does not want to see me. In the very few emails which she has sent me (she has since stopped), she also said she hates me as she believes that I cheated the Respondent of money, that I have another woman, as well as other things which simply are false or distorted.


• I am therefore asking the Court to grant me reasonable access to our Daughter on a regular basis. The Respondent has stated that she is asking for sole custody of our Daughter but is willing to give me reasonable access, so presumably the Respondent should grant her full cooperation now, given that right now I am supposed to have joint custody of our Daughter as of right. It also seems that the Respondent is now claiming that she has never prevented my daughter from seeing me and it is our Daughter who does not want to see me, but even a cursory examination of evidence will show very clear mental coercion by the Respondent on our daughter, as well as undue influence over her beliefs about what’s going on.


• It is also clear that regardless of my daughter’s apparent wishes (whether or not made under coercion), the Respondent has the power to facilitate our daughter seeing me if only the Respondent so chooses, as evidenced by the time I was allowed to see her after paying her the monthly payments she was asking for – before that she had also claimed (and our daughter also told me) that it is our daughter’s wish not to see me.


• Lastly, let me address my request to take our Daughter back to Malaysia over the Chinese New Year holidays. Ever since our Daughter was born, our Daughter has followed me back to Malaysia over the Spring Festival holidays almost every year, and without fail over the past 6 or more years, except for last year, when the Respondent was already restricting my access to her. Our Daughter has always had a wonderful relationship with her relatives from Malaysia, and in particular, with her cousin of the same age, Wong Wen-Li. However, after having had her computers and internet access taken away or restricted last year, they have ceased all communications. A visit by her paternal grandmother (my mother) late last year also resulted in our Daughter being turned against her grandmother. I therefore feel it is highly important that our Daughter has the opportunity to restore her relationships with my Malaysian relatives, who have always loved and adored her immensely.


• I am attaching the following documents to this affirmation to support the most important parts of my statements above:
  
  
  • Appendix 1  –  Transcript of an audio recording made on 20th November 2016, showing how our Daughter wanted to persuade the Respondent to grant me ‘visitation rights’ so that she could spend time with me, but was threatened by the Respondent with being disowned and humiliation at school. Respondent also brandished a knife during the process.
  • Appendix 2  –  Transcript and screenshots of a video recording made on 12th March 2017, showing our Daughter being prevented from leaving the flat to be with me, and being dragged back in, as well as screenshot of a Wechat conversation between Grandma and me just before that incident.
  • Appendix 3  –  Transcript of a call recording between the Respondent, our Daughter, and myself dated 26th March 2017, which took place shortly before our Daughter was convinced or coerced not to see me. This conversation clearly shows the Respondent using threats and coercion to prevent the Child from seeing the me until she has “won the lawsuit against [me]”.


• Please note that for the sake of reducing the amount of evidence submitted, I have not included evidence which is not central to the current issue, such as:
  
  
  • Letter by our Daughter’s head teacher from her school (2013-2016) submitted to Hangzhou court showing that I was the main caretaker of our Daughter until around July 2016;
  • Skype conversation showing that I was not welcome in the Respondent’s new residence;
  • Other message threads showing more threats and coercion by the Respondent on our Daughter.
  • Details of the Maintenance Agreement showing the original signed version and what was requested to be amended by me for the protection of our Daughter and Grandma.
  • Evidence of violence against Grandma, including a police report made by Grandma.

However, such evidence can be provided if the Court should so request.