Sex abuse teacher’s jail term enhanced

Kota Kinabalu: A 50-year-old teacher, who was jailed a total of 11 years and ordered to be given two lashes of the cane for two counts of committing physical sexual assault on two underage girls, saw his imprisonment sentence enhanced to 14 years.

High Court Judicial Commissioner Datuk Duncan Sikodol allowed the prosecution’s appeal against the inadequacy of sentence imposed by the Sessions Court on the respondent, Dunip Kundangau.

On May 20, 2020, the Sessions Court sentenced Dunip to four years’ jail from the date of his arrest on Nov 15, 2019 and ordered him to be caned once for caressing an eight-year-old girl’s private parts in a classroom of a primary school between the middle of August in 2019 and end of August the same year in Kota Belud.

On the second count, Dunip was handed seven years’ jail also from the date of his arrest and ordered to be given one stroke of the cane for touching the thigh of a 15-year-old girl and trying to fondle her breasts inside a moving car at 5pm on Oct 30, 2019, also in Kota Belud.

Dunip was also ordered to be placed under  police supervision for two years after serving his jail term.

Each count under Section 14 (a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 provides for a jail term of up to 20 years, and whipping, upon conviction.

On Wednesday, Duncan enhanced the sentence of four years jail to seven years and maintained the sentence of seven years jail and ordered both  sentence to run consecutively.

Duncan maintained the sentence of one stroke of the cane on each count.

Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor Megat Mahathir Megat Tharih Afendi submitted that the two cases involved different victims and time.

Megat Mahathir applied for the four years jail sentence to be enhanced by submitting that the current trend of sentencing for such offence was above six years jail adding that it was a very serious offence.

He also appealed for both sentences to be run consecutively. 

Dunip, who was not represented, requested for his sentence be maintained and to be run concurrently as he has dependants.