KOTA KINABALU: The High Court yesterday ordered a local man to be given 20 strokes of the cane for two counts of raping his daughter.
High Court Judicial Commissioner Lee Heng Cheong allowed the application by the prosecution for a criminal revision for whipping to be imposed on the unrepresented 42-year-old respondent.
In his reserved ruling, Lee held that the lower court had erred in not imposing the minimum whipping sentence on the respondent and exercised his revisionary power and ordered the respondent to be whipped 10 times for each charge.
The Sessions Court had on March 6, this year sentenced the respondent to eight years’ jail for the first count of committing incest with the girl, then 14 years and 10 months old, at a hut in a rubber estate in a village in Keningau in July 2008 about 1am.
On the second count of committing incest with the girl at an unnumbered house in another village in Keningau, the respondent was jailed for another 10 years.
The lower court ordered the custodial sentences to run consecutively.
Each of the charges under Section 376 (3) of the Penal Code provides for a jail term of between eight and 30 years and whipping of not less than 10 strokes of the cane on conviction.
In pleading for leniency, the respondent pleaded for the minimum sentence to be imposed and expressed regret over his misdeed, adding that he has a back pain and he also has to look after his children.
In her rebuttal, deputy public prosecutor Uma Devi Balasubramaniam urged the court to use its revisionary power to impose whipping on the respondent, saying that the latter had used violence towards the victim while committing the offences.
She submitted further that having committed the offence twice did not reflect remorse on the part of the respondent.
Balasubramanian also drew the court’s attention that the incidents occurred in 2008 and the victim lodged a police report in 2011 after the respondent wanted to sell her (the victim’s) younger sister.
She also pointed out that the respondent has a previous conviction of possession of a weapon and was jailed for 12 months.