SANDAKAN: A primary school teacher in Beluran was yesterday sentenced to 80 years’ jail and 20 strokes of the cane by the Sessions Court here after for raping, sodomizing and molesting eight underage female pupils.
Sessions Court judge Ummu Kalthom binti Abd Samad meted out the sentence on Freddie @ Ampat Unsin, 56, after he was found guilty at the end of defence stage.
Freddie, who was charged with three counts of rape under Section 376 (2)(e) of the Penal Code, was discharged and acquitted on the first count after managing to raise a reasonable doubt on the case.
However, on the second and third counts, he was sentenced to 15 years’ jail and three strokes of the cane and 18 years’ jail and four strokes of the cane respectively. The jail terms run concurrently.
Freddie was found guilty of raping his pupils, aged between 9 and 10, in the teaching aid room of a school in Beluran between 6.30 am to 12.30 pm on November 2015 and between March and July 2016.
The offence carries a jail term of between five years and 30 years and also liable to whipping, upon conviction.
On the other 11 counts, Freddie was found guilty of molesting his pupils, aged between 6 and 10, at the same place and time between January and July 2016.
For these offences, he was sentenced to a total of 40 years’ jail and 11 strokes of the cane.
The offence under Section 354 of the Penal Code carries a jail term of up to 10 years or a fine or whipping or two of any such punishments, upon conviction.
Freddie was also sentenced to seven years’ jail and two strokes of the cane for sodomizing a 10-year-old pupil at the same place at 10 am between June and July 2016.
The charge under Section 377B of the Penal Code carries a jail term of up to 20 years and also liable to whipping, upon conviction.
The prison sentences added up to a total of 80 years’ jail and 20 strokes of the cane.
However, as the sentences run concurrently, Freddie will only have to serve 46 years in addition to 20 strokes of the cane.
Freddie had on December 27, 2017 denied all the charges made against him.
During the prosecution stage, 42 witnesses were called to testify in his trial which commenced on March 19, 2018.
Freddie, who is married with four children, had worked a teacher for more than 10 years, and was teaching in the primary school in Beluran for three to four years.
His counsel Hamida Ambo told the court that Freddie was a good teacher with good performance and a clean record according to his colleagues.
Judge Ummu, however, said the accused, as a teacher, was trusted by the public to teach their children but had betrayed the trust, hence the verdict handed down to him.
Deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Mark Netto who stood in for DPP Dinesh Raja in the case.