A three-judge panel led by Justice Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim also restored the whipping sentence of three strokes of the cane imposed by the sessions court on Faiza Rizza Ropi.
The 38-year-old, now a pump attendant at a petrol station, had been acquitted and discharged of the charge by the High Court after successfully appealing his conviction, which led to the prosecution’s appeal to overturn his acquittal.
The panel also ordered that the time spent in prison by Faiza, following his unsuccessful attempt to obtain a stay of execution of his sentence pending disposal of his appeal in the High Court, be included in his total sentence.
Justices Zaini Mazlan and Azmi Ariffin, who were also part of the panel, also restored the sessions court’s order for Faiza to undergo counselling during his imprisonment and be placed under police supervision for two years after completing his time in prison.
Azmi, when delivering the court’s unanimous decision, said the prosecution had successfully proven all the elements of the charge under Section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.
He said the court disagreed with the judicial commissioner’s earlier findings that the charge against Faiza should have been brought under Section 14(d) of the same law.
Section 14(a) refers to “touching any part of the body of a child”, while Section 14(d) refers to “any other acts that involve physical contact with a child without sexual intercourse”.
Azmi also said the court found no contradictions in the victim’s testimony and his police report.
Azmi said a police report by Faiza, filed two years after he was charged in court, claiming he was falsely accused by the victim, was an afterthought and a fabrication.
Faiza was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison and three strokes of the cane by the sessions court on Nov 26, 2021, for physical sexual assault on the 17-year-old student in the warden’s room of a tahfiz and orphanage hostel in Temerloh, Pahang, at 2am on June 2019.
On May 11, 2023, the High Court overturned the sessions court’s ruling and acquitted and discharged Faiza. The prosecution subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Deputy public prosecutor P Sarulatha appeared for the prosecution while lawyers Shashi Devan and Nazreen Jaafar Abdullah represented Faiza.