M Kunasundary said this was especially so for offenders who were in a position of trust over underage victims who needed their guidance and protection.
“If a girl cannot be in the safe hands of family members, where else can she be?”
Kunasundary said incest was on the rise as more of such cases were being registered in the courts. There were also cases where the victims bore children, who were later classified as illegitimate.
She said the courts must give effect to the will of Parliament which had enhanced punishment for such offences.
She said the minimum jail sentence of six years was raised to 10 years and the maximum punishment could go up to 30 years for incest under Section 376B of the Penal Code.
Kunasundary said the legislature had also passed the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 to protect minors from being sexually exploited.
The judge said this in her written grounds, made available last week, to justify why she had sentenced a man to 1,050 years for repeatedly committing incest with his 12-year-old stepdaughter from 2018 until last year.
The man, who married the victim’s mother in 2015, was also ordered to be whipped 24 times, the maximum allowed under the law.
Kunasundary handed down the sentence on Jan 27. The man sexually assaulted the minor 105 times over the two-year period.
The judge ordered the accused to serve 10 years in jail and undergo two strokes of the rotan for each charge, with the sentences to run consecutively from the date of his arrest on Jan 20. He will have to serve 1,050 years.
The man committed the offence at a house in Sungai Way, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, from Jan 5, 2018 till Feb 24, 2020.
The man, who is serving the prison term at the Kajang prison, has filed an appeal to set aside his conviction and sentence.
Kunasundary said the facts of the case revealed that he had been making sexual advances on the girl since 2018 and threatened her not to tell anyone after each act, the last being early last year.
“It cannot be denied that the stepfather, who was supposed to protect her, had traumatised the victim for the rest of her life.”
Medical evidence also proved that the girl had been sexually violated repeatedly.
Lawyer KA Ramu, who is handling the case on a pro bono basis, said he would file the petition of appeal this week after going through Kunasundary’s verdict.
Lawyers interviewed by FMT had earlier expressed reservations over the sentence, with one describing it as “ridiculous”.