Kota Kinabalu: A 54-year-old man who committed physical sexual harassment against two girls, while sending and fetching them from kindergarten, was sentenced to a total of 30 years in prison plus three strokes of the cane.
Sessions Court Judge Amir Shah Amir Hassan meted out the sentence to Rusli Japar who maintained his plea of guilty to three charges against him, during the facts and sentencing on Tuesday.
On the first count, Rusli was jailed 10 years and ordered given a stroke of the cane for committing the offence against the five-year-old girl by touching her private parts between March and December 2024 inside a car parked in a village in Tuaran.
On the second count, he was sent to prison for another 10 years plus a stroke of the cane for repeating the offence against the same victim at a house in the same village in Tuaran.
On the third count, Rusli was jailed another 10 years and given one stroke of the cane for committing the offence against another five-year-old girl also by touching her private parts in 2022 inside a car also parked in the same village in Tuaran.
The offence under Section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 provides for a jail term of up to 20 years, and whipping, on conviction.
The court ordered Rusli to serve the sentences concurrently for the first and second charges but consecutively with the third count in which he needed to serve only 20 years in prison.
In meting out the sentence, the judge said he had considered the public interest, the seriousness of the case, the interest of the victims involved in which they were living in the same village with Rusli and such case is rampant nowadays.
The court further said the sentence should be a lesson not only to Rusli but other would be-offender.
Rusli was ordered to serve the jail sentence from the date of his arrest and undergo counselling sessions for two years while serving sentence and to be placed under police supervision for two years after being released from prison.
The court also ordered the car seized, and be returned to the right owner.
During mitigation, Rusli who was not represented, asked for leniency saying that he has a wife and two children who are Thalassemia patients, to look after.
He asked for all the sentences to be served concurrently from the date of his arrest.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Yousof Tahir urged the court to impose a deterrent sentence on the grounds that there were two victims who were only five years old at the time, involved in the cases.
Muhammad also submitted that Rusli had breached the trust given to him by the victims’ parents who entrusted him to send and fetch their children to kindergarten.
He added that due to the offences committed by Rusli, both the victims suffered trauma and that the sentences should be served consecutively.
The court heard that the incidents happened while Rusli was sending and fetching the minors to kindergarten, respectively.
The victims’ parents had entrusted Rusli to send and fetch the victims.
The incident came to light when both the victims told their parents that Rusli asked them to sit on his thigh while driving and touching the victims’ private parts, respectively.
Following a police report lodged by the parents, Rusli was arrested.