Man gets 16 years’ jail, five lashes for sexually assaulting niece

KOTA KINABALU: A man was sentenced to 16 years in jail and five strokes of the rotan by the Sessions Court here after he was convicted of two sexual assault charges against his niece.

Sessions Court judge Elsie Primus delivered the verdict during the sentencing for the 49-year-old accused on Friday (July 28).

The man, from Melaka who worked as a part-time runner, was ordered to enter his defence last Feb 3 after the court held that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against him.

The court had, for the first count, ordered for the accused to serve a seven-year jail sentence as well as two whippings for sexually assaulting the 14-year-old niece, who is now 18.

He was accused of committing the offence in a store of a house located at a village in Manggatal near here at the end of 2019.

The court subsequently sentenced him to another nine years in jail and given three whippings for committing a similar offence against the same girl at another house in Manggatal.

The man, who was granted bail pending the cases’ disposal, was ordered by the court to serve his custodial sentence from Friday (July 28) which was the date of conviction.

The court also ruled for the jail sentences to run consecutively.

In addition to the punishments, the court also instructed the accused to be put under rehabilitative counseling within the period of his detention at prison pursuant to Section 26 of the Sexual Offences Against Child Act 2017.

On completing his sentences, the man would also be put under police supervision for the next three years.

During mitigation, the accused’s counsel Sylvester Kuan requested leniency for his client, telling the court that the accused, among others, had two children and that he was the family’s breadwinner.

The accused, he said, also cooperated throughout the case besides having no prior conviction report.

The prosecution called seven witnesses to testify while the defence brought four witnesses to the stand during the trial, which was conducted by deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Mas Izzaty Lokman.