KOTA KINABALU: A local farmer, who had raped his daughter since she was a kid, was jailed for 14 years and ordered to be given 10 strokes of the cane by the Sessions Court yesterday.
High Court deputy registrar Noor Hafizah Mohd Salim who presided as a Sessions Court judge, held that the offence serious and imposed the sentence on the 39-year-old father of five after admitting to the rape charge framed under Section 376 (3) of the Penal Code.
The provision provides for a jail term of up to 30 years and also liable to whipping, upon conviction.
The court ordered the accused to serve his jail term from the date of his arrest on June 18 this year.
According to the facts of the case, the undefended accused had raped his 17-year-old daughter at a house in a village in Kota Belud on June 16. On June 18 this year, the victim had lodged a police report stating that she was raped by his father.
The victim revealed that the rape committed on June 16 was not the first, for she had been raped by her father since she was six years old.
An investigation revealed that the victim and her father lived under one roof with her mother and four siblings.
Before the last rape, her father had tricked the daughter by asking her to hold a torchlight as he wanted to repair their toilet outside their house.
While inside the toilet, the accused grabbed the victim’s hand and forced her to take off her clothes and later raped her.
On June 18 this year, the victim related her ordeal to her teacher and asked her teacher to bring her to the police station to lodge a report against her father.
She was also sent to a hospital for examination with the result showing an old tear to her vagina.
In pleading for a lenient sentence, the accused said that he had admitted to the crime and his children are still small, adding that his wife is also suffering from asthma.
The accused drew Noor Hafizah’s attention as he cried in the dock but was instead rebuked and warned that it was not time for crying but to mitigate before sentence was passed.
Deputy public prosecutor Aida Jaafar Mad Ariff who pressed for a deterrent sentence, submitted that for the sake of the public, a heavy sentence would serve as a lesson to would-be offenders in the future, and said that as a father, the accused should not have raped his own flesh and blood, but should have instead afforded her protection.
Aida further submitted that the victim had been traumatised by the rapes.