Kota Kinabalu: A 53-year-old man, who was sentenced to a total of 90 years jail and 80 strokes of the cane on eight charges of raping his two underage daughters, saw his sentences reduced to 43 years jail and 20 lashes of the cane.
Court of Appeal Justices Datuk Ravinthran N. Paramaguru, Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali and Datuk Dr Choo Kah Sing on Tuesday made the decision after hearing the appeal by the man’s counsel and the prosecution as respondent.
The appellant was on July 9, 2021 pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court to five counts of raping his younger daughter on five occasions sometime in 2017 (when she was 12 years and eight month old), Sept 27, 2018; middle of August 2019, Sept 10, 2019 and Oct 11, 2019; and another three counts of raping the elder sister on April 16, 2014 (when she was 12 years eight months old), Oct 5, 2014 and Nov 23, 2015 at a village in Tambunan.
Each charge was framed under Section 376 (3) of the Penal Code which carries a jail term of between eight years and 30 years and whipping of not less than 10 times, on conviction.
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Some of the jail sentences were ordered to run concurrently and some consecutively, which means the man would serve 90 years behind bars.
The man was also ordered to be caned 10 times on each count.
On Tuesday, the court ordered the 15 years imprisonment sentence on the first count to run consecutively with the sentence of 28 years on the eight count and all other jail sentences of the other charges to run concurrently with the first and eighth charges.
This means the appellant would only be serving 43 years in jail from the date of his conviction.
On the whipping sentence, the court affirmed the 10 stokes of the cane on each of the first and second charges and set aside all the other whipping sentences as it contravened Section 288 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Earlier, counsel Nabila Norsahar, representing the appellant, appealed for the sentences be reduced as they were manifestly excessive.
“The Sessions Court Judge has breached Section 288(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) when she imposed a total of 40 strokes of whipping sentence to the appellant,” said Nabila, among others.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Aida Khairuleen for the prosecution as respondent submitted trend of sentencing in terms of imprisonment and agreed that the whipping order exceeded Section 388(5) of the CPC.
The man’s appeal to the High Court against the sentence was dismissed on Sept 15, 2022.
He was not represented in the Sessions Court and High Court.
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