HE IS the shirker ex-husband.

Not only does this 43-year-old man not help his ex-wife look after their four children, aged 6 to 15 years old, he also wants to reduce the maintenance allowance he pays them.

On top of that, he left his ex-wife to bear the brunt of the business and credit card debts he had incurred, and she is facing legal proceedings for them.

At one stage, he stopped supporting all of them and had more than $32,000 in arrears.

Now, the former businessman thinks the $1,000 he pays for his children is too much as he is still an undischarged bankrupt.

However, District Judge May Loh, who sits in the Family Court, was of a different view.

She ordered that he has to pay $1,800 for his children from this September onwards.

She explained that the monthly $1,000 he now pays was just a 'temporary' revision of his maintenance, so that he could pay the arrears he had accumulated.

But, she said, the period for which the court ordered that he pays only $1,000 a month is up in September.

And as such, he has to go back to paying his children's maintenance of $1,800 a month.

The court heard that the couple were married in June 1991.

About 12 years later, in 2003, they separated.

In 2006, the wife asked for a divorce on the ground of his unreasonable behaviour, and it was finalised in January last year.

After the couple had separated in 2003, the wife took out maintenance proceedings against the husband.

At that time, he had a steady income from his family's business of more than six household provision stores.

During their marriage, the couple lived in a landed property and had two cars at their disposal. They also had more than one maid.

The wife helped to look after the children and did not work.

But after she started the ball rolling on maintenance proceedings, the husband sold all his businesses and became a bankrupt.

He apparently works as a delivery driver, earning $1,200 monthly.

His estranged wife went from a lady of leisure to working as a postal worker to support their children.

She bought a four-room Housing Board flat and is financing the housing loan on her own.

She wants her husband to pay her alimony of $400 and $1,800 for their four children.

She said that she has to pay a monthly instalment of $300 to the Housing Board (HDB), as a result of her husband's business debt.

He had used her name to register a partnership to operate a household store, but it closed down and he was owing HDB rental payments.

HDB took legal action against her and as a result, she has to pay off his debt.

Also, she had to borrow $5,200 to pay his credit card debt, incurred by his OCBC Prestige card.

However, he claimed that he could not afford the alimony payments to his wife and children.

His excuse was that he is already paying $500 monthly for the arrears in maintenance payment he owed her.

However, Judge Loh said that the husband's argument is 'flawed'.

'The husband is effectively shirking off his duty in law, as determined by previous courts, on top of conduct that demonstrates no desire to honour those judgments, as seen in the hefty arrears accumulated.'

The judge said that relying on the $1,000 ordered for his four children in the previous hearing was 'a misrepresentation of the order made by the court and an abuse of the mercy extended by that court'.

As for the wife's alimony, the judge ordered that he pays her $200 a month, even though she was earning her own income of $1,500 a month.