Father-of-four pleads guilty to 16 charges of raping own daughter since January last year
The accused being led out of the courtroom by policemen.
SARIKEI: A father-of-four was sentenced by the Sessions Court here yesterday to a total of 480 years’ imprisonment and 18 strokes of the ‘rotan’ after he admitted to having raped his daughter from January last year till this month.
For each of the 16 charges framed against him under Section 376A of the Penal Code punishable under section 376(D)(1) of the same code, the 38-year-old accused was slapped with a jail sentence of 30 years.
However as the court ordered the sentences to run concurrently, he is required to serve only 30 years behind bars.
The court ordered that the accused be whipped twice for each of the first six charges, be whipped once for each of the next six charges and sparred of the ‘rotan’ for the last three charges.
According to the brief facts of the case, the accused was arrested by the police on Sept 6 after they were informed by a doctor of Sarikei Hospital of an alleged rape case.
The doctor informed the police that a 13-year-old student of a secondary school here who was sent by her teacher to have a medical examination, had confided to have been raped by her father on numerous occasions between January last year and September this year.
An examination conducted by the doctor discovered old tears on the girl’s hymen and fresh abrasion on her private part believed to be caused by penetration of blunt object.
The victim had claimed that her father raped her for the first time on the night of Jan 6 last year when she, three other siblings and her mother were sleeping in the same room at their longhouse.
Since then till last December, her father raped her almost every night, she added.
Her father continued to commit the heinous deed on her this year; albeit rarely as she stayed in the school hostel, the victim confided. She told police that this year, she was raped several times when she returned home during weekends.
That happened in July, early and late August and the last time was on Sept 5 before she returned to her hostel, she said.
Prosecution was conducted by Insp Siti Afwah Ismail before Judge Maris Agan, while the accused was not represented.