Delivering its decision, a three-member bench chaired by Justice Hadhariah Syed Ismail admonished the 37-year-old man and other sexual offenders for the heinous act of abusing members of their own family.
Hadhariah said cases of fathers and grandfathers committing such crimes were rampant despite deterrent jail sentences imposed by the courts.
“These people are not bothered or afraid of the law even though we send them to prison,” she said when dismissing the unemployed man’s final appeal for a reduction in jail time.
Sitting with Justices Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Azmi Ariffin, Hadhariah told lawyer KA Ramu the court was not convinced the accused was remorseful.
The lawyer, who is handling the case pro bono, suggested that his client be given a 30-year jail term so he could return to society sooner.
“What type of stepfather is he to rape the victim? Even (if he did it once), he cannot be forgiven, what more 105 times?” she said.
Ahmad Zaidi said the man was lucky that he was charged under the Penal Code instead of under the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, which imposes a higher penalty for offenders who are in a position of trust over their victims.
Azmi said that in this case, the victim would have been traumatised and scarred for life based on the 105 charges framed against the man.
Deputy public prosecutor Dhiya Syazwani Izyan Akhir submitted that the man had appeared to have sexually abused the girl practically every week in 2018.
“In 2020, she picked up the courage to run away from home and narrate her ordeal to her aunt,” Dhiya said, adding that the man took advantage when his wife was away at work.
“He is sick and he should remain in prison much longer,” she said.
According to the facts of the case, the stepfather sexually assaulted the girl 50 times in 2018 when she was 12 years old, 32 times in 2019, and 23 times in 2020.
On Jan 27, 2021, the sessions court sentenced him to 1,050 years in jail, beginning from the date of his arrest on Jan 20, 2021.
However, last year, Justice Azmi Abdullah reduced the jail term to 42 years. He said it was illogical for a court to impose a jail term longer than the average life expectancy.
Azmi followed a 2009 Court of Appeal ruling which held that a custodial sentence should not be unreasonable and must take into account the life expectancy of an accused person.
The judgment also stated that the life expectancy of Malaysian men was 70, while for women it was 75, but projected that both men and women could live longer in future.
The judge, however, maintained the 24 strokes of the rotan, the maximum allowed under the law, which the Court of Appeal did not disturb.
The man, who was unrepresented during his trial in the sessions court, had pleaded guilty to committing the offences at a house in Sungai Way, Selangor, from Jan 5, 2018 to Feb 24, 2020.
Following the reduction of the jail term to 42 years, and with one-third remission for good behaviour, he could be freed after serving 28 years.