Court won't annul marriage that man says wasn't consummated

Denturist married to much younger woman from Cambodia claims she used him to enter Canada

Gerry Bellett,

Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008

A 53-year-old Surrey denturist who went to his native Cambodia to find a wife and married a 19-year-old in 2006, only for her to run away within a week of arriving in Canada, has failed to have the marriage annulled.

Chhun Lim testified in New Westminster B.C. Supreme Court that his marriage to Mouy Chhung Teav was a sham and that she had used him to immigrate to Canada.

He testified the marriage was never consummated and sought an annulment and damages from her for misrepresentation.

But Justice Carol Ross dismissed the action and awarded legal costs to Teav.

Lim told the court that he had immigrated to Canada in 1982 after his family died while Cambodia was controlled by the Khmer Rouge.

He had never married and was keen to start a family when he visited his native country in September 2006, with the intention of finding a wife. He was introduced to Teav on Sept. 10 and after negotiations with her family it was agreed they would marry.

The couple were married on Dec. 9, but Lim told Ross that the marriage was never consummated and that his bride slept with her sister on the wedding night.

However, his wife disputed that, and denied that the only reason she married Lim was to move to Canada.

Lim returned to Canada and she joined him on May 23, 2007.

According to his evidence, when he met her that day he asked why she was so skinny and she replied she had AIDS. She also said she didn't want to have sex that night.

But she denied making any comment about having AIDS and said her resistance to having sexual relations that night was because she was tired. When Lim persisted, they had intercourse despite her wishes.

Two days after her arrival, the pair argued about her using the phone to talk to her relatives. Teav testified that Lim slapped her face and told her he wanted a divorce and to send her back to Cambodia. He demanded she write a letter promising to pay him back in full, she said.

She was also told to sleep on the floor, she said.

When Lim left home to attend a three-day convention on May 31, she got in touch with a Cambodian association in Toronto that gave her advice. She called the police then she was taken from Lim's apartment and placed in a women's shelter.

Ross found that Teav's evidence was the more credible and that she didn't tell him she had AIDS.

"I find that Mr. Lim invented this allegation in an effort to bolster his case," the judge wrote in her reasons for her decision.

"It is clear from the testimony of both Mr. Lim and Ms. Teav that their expectations of each other were disappointed

. . . The result was a destruction of the very slender foundation on which this relationship rested," Ross said.

She found that Lim did not establish the necessary grounds for an annulment nor did Teav make any misrepresentation to induce marriage.

gbellett@vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008