Crime & Courts

Farmer gets 22 years' jail, 20 strokes for raping underage daughter

BETONG: A farmer was sentenced to 22 years' jail by the Sessions Court here today for committing incest and molesting his underage daughter over the past three years.

Judge Jason Juga also ordered him to receive 20 strokes of the rotan after he pleaded guilty to six charges involving his daughter who is now 15.

The 49-year-old farmer was charged with having sexual intercourse with his daughter

* at a hut in an oil palm plantation near a village in Kabong, Saratok, near here in September 2014;

* inside a bedroom of his house at the same village between January and December the following year;

* at his house in the same village in January this year;

* at a hotel in Saratok at about 8pm on May 31;

* in a car by the roadside near Kampung Sebuyau in Sri Aman near here at about noon two months later; and

* outraging the modesty of his daughter inside the bathroom of his house between January and July this year.

On the first five charges Jason sentenced the accused to 22 years' jail and four strokes of the rotan for each offence.

On the sixth charge he was sentenced to five years' jail, the sentences to run concurrently from the date of arrest.

The accused, who was unrepresented, pleaded for leniency on the grounds that he was the sole breadwinner of his family and he had to take care of his sick wife.

Prosecuting officer Assistant Superintendent Jessica Unchi in urging the court to impose a deterrent sentence said the first incident took place when the victim was only 12.

"The irresponsible action by the accused has traumatised the victim and caused her severe depression," she said, suggesting that the sentences should run consecutively.

Jason in his ruling said the court observed the serious nature of the offences which called for deterrent punishment.

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