The Kaohsiung District Court ruled that the act of a woman who tried to sever the cable connection for the house television to force her mother-in-law to leave is domestic violence.
The woman, surnamed Lee (李), was sentenced to 40 days in prison, commutable to a fine, the ruling added.
Lee had a physical altercation with her 80-year-old mother-in-law and was under a restraining order since 2021, and the mother-in-law mostly stayed in her room on the second floor, passing her time by watching television, the ruling said.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
The mother-in-law lived with her son, grandson and Lee at the same residence, it said.
To force her mother-in-law to move out, Lee contacted cable operators to sever all cable connections within the residence.
The mother-in-law had been forced to call her daughter to handle the issue, the ruling said.
The daughter had contacted the cable company to restore the service, but the ruling read that Lee had again severed the service.
The daughter had attempted to make the situation public by telling the cable company that they had witnessed the misdemeanors of her sister-in-law, the ruling said.
Lee was quoted by the ruling as saying during the trial that the disconnection was to prepare for the installation of another company’s services, adding that she was not in contact with her mother-in-law due to the restraining order and was unaware that she had such needs.
The presiding judge ruled that the daily lives of the elderly often included watching television, adding that in this case, it was especially so, as the mother-in-law did not have meaningful interaction with the daughter-in-law and her family.
The attempts to remove cable service from the residence are therefore considered an act of domestic violence, as it removed the mother-in-law’s primary source of entertainment and emotional support, the judge said.
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