Sarawak farmer’s 115-year jail term reduced to 45
Published on: Wednesday, July 15, 2020
By: FMT
.jpg "Sarawak farmer’s 115-year jail term reduced to 45")
AFP Pic
KUCHING: The Court of Appeal reduced the 115-year jail sentence on a 52-year-old farmer to 45 years for incest with his daughter and molesting her.Court of Appeal judge Yaacob Md Sam, however, maintained the punishment of 20 strokes of the rotan against the man, who committed the offences between 2014 and 2017.
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Yaacob, who sat with judges Lee Swee Seng and Supang Lian, said the bench unanimously agreed with the decision.
The man, from Kabong, Saratok, had pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court in Sri Aman to five charges of incest and one charge of molest against his daughter at different times in a hut, house, hotel and car.
The court was told he was arrested in August 2017 after his daughter, who was then 15, confided to her counseling teacher that she had been raped by her father since she was 12.
The teacher lodged a report at the Saratok police station, which led to the man’s arrest.
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The court sentenced him to 22 years’ jail and four strokes of the rotan on each of the first five charges. In addition, he was sentenced to five years in prison on the molest charge.
The court ordered the sentences to run consecutively despite an appeal for them to run concurrently.
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Today, the Court of Appeal revised the sentences to 10 years’ jail for incest with his daughter, who was then 12, in 2014.
He was sentenced to 15 years on another charge of incest with his daughter in 2015 and another 15 years in 2017.
On the molest charge, which took place in a bathroom in their house between January and July 2017, the man was jailed for five years.
The sentences are to run consecutively.
The farmer’s lawyer, Simon Siah, later told reporters it would have been “unreasonable” for him to be sentenced to 115 years in jail.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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