THE Court of Appeal today upheld the sentence of 18 years’ jail and 10 strokes of the cane on a contractor for raping his stepdaughter.

The court’s three-member bench comprising Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and M. Gunalan dismissed the 56-year-old man’s appeal against his conviction and jail sentence on the first charge.

The court, however, upheld the high court’s decision to discharge and acquit the man of the second rape charge.

The court also dismissed the prosecution’s appeal to increase the jail term for the first charge and its appeal against the man’s acquittal of the second charge.

Karim, who chaired the bench, in delivering the court’s unanimous decision, said the 18 years’ jail term imposed by the high court on the man was sufficient.

The man had been charged with raping the girl, who was then 15 years and seven months’ old, in a house in Kota Baru, Kelantan on June 9, 2014 and on the second charge, he was accused of committing the same offence in June 2016 in a house in Bachok, Kelantan.

According to the facts of the case, the man had committed the offence when the victim’s mother, who is his second wife, was in hospital to give birth to the youngest child.

The sessions court had in 2019 acquitted and discharged the man of the two charges but on appeal by the prosecution, the high court convicted him on the first charge and upheld his acquittal on the second charge.

Lawyer Shukri Mohamed represented the man while deputy public prosecutor Wong Poi Yoke appeared for the prosecution.

Meanwhile, in another case, the same bench ordered a district assistant education officer to serve 12 months’ jail for outraging the modesty of a teacher almost five years ago.

Justice Karim allowed the prosecution’s appeal to reinstate the magistrates’ court decision, which found Ahmad Zaini Bakar guilty of outraging the modesty of the woman, who was then 32, at a hotel room in Pulau Ketam, near Klang, on May 20, 2016.

The court had set aside the 2019 high court’s decision to acquit and discharge Zaini. 

Justice Karim, however, allowed the prosecution’s appeal to increase the jail term against Zaini, 58, from seven months to 12 months and issued a warrant of committal for Zaini to be sent to prison to serve his sentence.

The magistrates’ court had in 2018 convicted and sentenced Zaini to seven months’ jail and ordered him to pay a RM4,000 fine.

Lawyer Ahmad Ishrakh Saad, who represented Zaini, told reporters his client would lose his gratuity and pension as a jail sentence has been imposed.

Deputy public prosecutor How May Ling prosecuted. – Bernama, March 16, 2021.