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| Mike |
Singer and actor Pirat “Mike” Nitipaisankul is gaining the upper hand in public opinion after battling the mother of his child, Maxwell, over a court case in which he seeks joint custody and legal rights as his dad.
Mike and the child’s mother Italian-Thai model Sarah Casinghini have been slugging it out via the media the past week since news emerged that Mike has asked the Central Juvenile and Family Court to recognise his legal rights as the boy’s father.
He turned up for a hearing last Monday in which he seeks to register the child’s birth with him as dad. At present sole parental rights belong to Sarah as the boy was born out of wedlock.
Maxwell, aged six, lives with Sarah and her family in Phuket. Mike says he pays for the boy’s upbringing but is given little say over the child’s welfare.
He says he has paid almost 10 million baht for the child’s upkeep since his birth but has to contend with hostile public opinion, whipped up by Sarah, that he is an indifferent dad. He said payments to the mother carried on as normal until early this year when she blocked his access to the child and severed contact.
The domestic drama has been front-page news for days, with netizens criticising Mike for his apparent insistence shortly after the child’s birth on a DNA test proving he was the father. Ironically, while he signed the birth certificate at the hospital, he was initially reluctant to register the child’s birth, despite repeated requests by Sarah.
He has since had second thoughts as the child grows to occupy a bigger part of his life. Sarah, meanwhile, now opposes him signing the papers until the child is older and can decide for himself.
More recently the two have argued over where the child should live and be schooled.
While Mike, who works in China, favours Bangkok and proposed paying fees for an international school in the Kaset-Nawamin area which charges 150,000 baht a year, Sarah insisted the child go to an equivalent school in central Bangkok, or if that fails, Phuket.
Max attends an international school in Phuket where fees rise to 700,000 baht a year after the first three years.
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| Sarah |
Mike, whose earnings have been hit by the Covid-19 epidemic, says he can’t afford it. Sarah, however, has pressed her demands, even as she opposes his bid to be legally recognised as the father. The court has called together both sides for another hearing on Nov 2.
“I don’t want to be a father who just pays upkeep,” Mike said, drawing a distinction between his case and delinquent dads who refuse to pay their dues. As well as the child’s school fees, which he had met in the past, he has forked out wages for a driver for her and Max worth 250,000 baht a year.
He also pays Sarah 30,000 baht a month for the child’s upkeep, and 300,000 baht a year for a maid. In the past, Sarah stayed for free in a plush condo owned by his elder brother in Bangkok. The total came to 1.7 million baht a year, not including hospital visits.
In a teary TV appearance last week, Sarah insisted she had made no demands of Mike. “Money is not a problem and I am happy to raise the child as a single mum. I have not denied access; Mike saw Max as recently as the child’s birthday in July.
“The first we knew about his bid for legal rights was when the court papers arrived. Nor have I severed contact with him, though I may be slow in answering messages occasionally,” she said. In a social media message, she said provocatively that she would fight any bid to “wrest” the child away. Giving Mike an equal say as father would diminish Max’s quality of life, she claimed. Mike, she said, wanted them to move into an apartment nearby the school he favours which costs just 4,000 baht a month.
In reply, Mike said he merely sought joint custody and to gain legal recognition as the father. Thai law defaults to the mother if a child is born out of wedlock, meaning the father, while not legally recognised as such, is not obliged to pay for the child’s upkeep either. However, his rights in other ways are limited.
Meanwhile, celebrity lawyer Nitithorn “James” Kaewto, who is representing Mike, dug up an interview from December 2015 in which Sarah admitted the infamous DNA test, which caused so much trouble for Mike in the past, was actually sought by parents on both sides amid suggestions that Sarah was playing around.
Mr James also unveiled a list of six demands Sarah had made, unrelated to Mike’s legal bid to be dad, which cast doubt over her claims that she had not asked him for anything. They helped swing public opinion back in favour of Mike.
Sarah, he said, had asked Mike to pay school fees at an international school or equivalent until Max was able to look after himself, up to “doctorate” level at university. His maintenance payments should last just as long, she said. Sarah had also asked for an increase in her allowance to 50,000 baht a month, and demanded he buy him a condo in Bangkok so Max would have somewhere to stay close to school.
She also insisted he not try to make money from the boy’s name by having him work in the industry or posting his image to social media, a demand that particularly riled Mike’s fanclub, as he consistently turns down such offers. “The quality of life is not related to the cost or size of a condo. My place is just 44 sq m,” Mike responded, suggesting he scrimps to save money for his son.
Mike, who looked miserable in his TV appearances, admitted he could find no happiness in life. In a clip released to the media, he burst into tears after his studio interview with TV presenter Kanchai “Noom’’ Kamnerdploi, who admitted he himself had grown up with a father who did not declare himself legally as dad, with the result Noom had to fight over his will in court.
Actor rues drunken melee
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| Pan |
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| Pan and his Mum |
Channel 7HD said it had parted ways with actor Surakiat “Pan” Bunnag, 27, after a Sept 8 incident under the expressway near Wat Bua Kwan in Bang Khen, Nonthaburi when his white Mazda grazed a pickup.
Pan started arguing with the pickup driver, who suspected he was drunk and called Rattanathibet police. Pan refused police requests that he take a breathalyser test or leave his vehicle. Police say he made various calls during the four-hour standoff, at one point telling an officer to talk to a man he identified as his father, a senior army soldier.
The soldier apparently told the officer that if they did not cooperate and let the young man go he would have the whole station transferred to minor posts. Police, however, were insistent that Pan should blow in the breathalyser bag. Later, when his mother turned up, she demanded to know why police were harassing her son.
Pan, meanwhile, quietly moved to his mother’s car, and still refused to budge. Eventually police tired of the drama and forced him out of the vehicle, provoking resistance from mother and son. At the height of the drama, caught on video, both Pan and his mother were locked in a tussle on the ground with police.
Pan asked police to go easy on his mother, who was screeching and grappling at police as they tried to subdue the young man. “You have no right!” she said.
Despite his mother’s efforts, police managed to cuff him behind his back. Pan finally agreed to the test, while warning onlookers against filming the incident. A breathalyser test at the station showed his blood-alcohol level was over the limit at 196 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood. They charged him with driving under the influence and dangerous driving, as netizens praised police for refusing to succumb to his father’s threats.
The Nonthaburi District Court later sentenced Pan to three months in jail suspended for three years, ordered he perform community service, and fined him 11,000 baht.
Pan apologised and offered a homily against drink driving, while urging netizens not to criticise his mum. Channel 7HD, which says it campaigns against drunk driving, said it was discharging him from his contract as a show of social responsibility.
‘Motorsai’ dishes dirt on Tik
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| Tik |
Actress Kanissarin “Tik” Patcharapakdeechot, whose marriage to actor Sornram “Noom” Theppitak ended in a sea of debts she ran up, says wealthy men have come forward with offers to take her under their wing.
They will clear her debts if she agrees to sleep with them and be their “kept woman”, she disclosed last week.
However, Tik, who was married to Noom for 18 months before he sought a divorce in January after her debt problems grew too big to handle, said she would rather fix her problems herself. “I want to be able to look our child in the eye knowing I did the right thing,” she said, even as new tales emerged of her debt problems.
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| Noom |
Ending months of speculation about their marriage, Noom declared this month that he and Tik were now divorced and living apart. After initially refusing contact except through lawyers, Noom has now softened his tone, agreeing to let her visit their young child.
Earlier, a motorcycle taxi operator whom Tik knows, called May, revealed in a social media post that Tik had fallen behind in payments to an underground lender she helped her find. May, who has known Tik for eight years, and insists she raised the alert as a concerned friend, took Tik to meet the lender. Tik had earlier claimed that unless she discharged a debt to Noom he would not let her back home.
She borrowed 50,000 baht including 10,000 baht interest with a pledge to pay it back by the end of this month. Tik, she said, had made just one repayment before sending nothing for days. The lender, May said, had now started calling at May’s home and watching her motorcycle stand even though she was a mere bystander in the drama.
May left a post at Noom’s FB site asking for help. Noom said he sympathised but was no longer responsible for Tik’s debts. Appearing on TV, Tik said the loan was a short-term agreement and she had since paid back 20,000 baht. “I don’t know why May felt the need to publicise the matter,” she said.
Tik admits she still owes 3.5 million baht debt, partly to Noom, even after he bailed her out of previous debts amounting to millions of baht, She had now returned to work as an actress. One day she hoped to prove to Noom that she was worthy of resuming her role as mother to their young daughter.
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