In sentencing, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng said this appears to be the first case that considers a spousal relationship and whether it gives rise to the abuse or breach of trust in sexual offences.
She cited past court judgments which illustrated various principles: For example, a woman who is raped by someone they know suffers greater harm than if they were raped by a stranger.
However, the court concluded in that case that the effect of any prior relationship between parties will depend on the circumstances of the case.
Therefore, a prior relationship can be treated as a neutral factor as a starting point, before becoming aggravating or mitigating depending on the circumstances of each case.
In this particular case, Justice Hoo said she agreed with the prosecution that the victim had placed some degree of trust in her husband.
For example, she allowed him to return to their matrimonial flat and stayed in the master bedroom alone with him despite the "strange" and tumultuous nature of their marriage at that time.
However, the judge said the abuse of trust was not of the highest severity or most egregious, compared with relationships between a parent and a child or a teacher and a student.
Justice Hoo said a power imbalance was "absent here", but clarified that it is not to say that power imbalances can never be present in spousal relationships.
Justice Hoo said the couple had "a pattern of using sex to resolve their marital issues", and that at the time of the offence, the wife was leaning more towards a divorce while the husband wanted to repair the marriage.
She said the man's actions were "atypical" and that she accepted the defence's case that the man had likely engaged in the offences in a "misguided attempt" to repair their relationship.
Even though the couple had been separated for several months at the time, they would meet and have sex, the judge noted.
She said that while the offender's conduct was reprehensible, she did not find that the abuse of his wife's trust particularly heightened his culpability.
