PUTRAJAYA: 182 charges down, 449 more to go tomorrow.
Three hours certainly wasn’t enough for the Special Court for Sexual Crimes against Children to hear a total of 631 charges read out, in the case of a 36-year-old man accused of sodomising and raping his daughter over 600 times.
The session, which was originally slated to begin at 9am today, only started at 2.50pm as the prosecutors and investigating officer had spent the whole morning counting the charge sheets to enable the proceedings to begin.
Judge Yong Zarida Sazali had ordered for all 631 charges to be read out in court today.
The task of reading out the charges went to court interpreter Nur Azera Zulkefli, 32. Despite her best efforts to read out the charges in a speedy manner, with two breaks in between, it still took her a total of three hours to complete a whopping 182 charges.
As this was going on, the accused was made to stand in the dock. As the proceedings wore on, the accused appeared to grow visibly tired. Two hours into the charges, he was seen holding on to the dock’s barrier.
Deputy public prosecutor Nordalina Ali eventually told the court that the registration of the charge sheets have not been completed. The proceedings ended at 6.10pm.
The remaining 449 charges will be read out tomorrow morning.
The accused, who works as a unit trust agent, was facing charges under the Penal Code, Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 (SOACA), and Child Act 2016.
He was alleged to have sodomised, raped and sexually abused his 15-year-old daughter for a period of two years.
On certain occasions, he was alleged to have committed the offence three times a day for a whole month.
He had been under police remand since his arrest on July 26. His arrest was prompted by a report lodged by the girl's mother two days earlier.
It was reported that the accused had been committing the atrocities since he divorced his wife in 2015. After the divorce, the victim came under his custody while his ex-wife cared for their other daughters.
It was learnt that the girl had only revealed her ordeal to her mother when she learnt that her father had wanted to take her two younger sisters to live with them.