OFF TO PRISON: Salmi being escorted by police after the delivery of judgment.
KUCHING: A youth who yesterday pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court here to sodomising a nine-year-old boy in a public toilet near the city last Monday was sentenced to 10 years’ jail and to be given five lashes.
The accused Salmi Bodul, 22, from Spaoh admitted to the charge before Judge Alwi Abdul Wahap who convicted him under Section 377C of the Penal Code for committing unnatural intercourse.
The Section provides for a maximum 20 years’ imprisonment and whipping upon conviction.
The offence was committed inside a public toilet near Khoo Hun Yeang Road at about 3.10pm on Nov 26.
Judge Alwi ordered Salmi’s custodial sentence to take effect from his date of the arrest — Nov 26.
The father of the victim apprehended the accused inside the toilet after his son came out from the toilet, crying and saying he had been sodomised by the accused.
The father rushed into the toilet, apprehended the youth and handed him over to the nearest police station.
Earlier in his mitigation (being unrepresented), he told the judge he was remorseful and that he was drunk when committing the act.
Police prosecution officer Inspector Austin Patrick Angkon urged the court to impose a deterrent sentence as a lesson to the offender and warning that the court does not take the heinous act lightly, especially when committed on a nine-year-old boy who had been traumatised and mentally scarred by it.