Shying away: The accused being led to court when charged for the first offence on Nov 21.
SEREMBAN: A former bank officer had debts to pay off – so he resorted to letting other men sleep with his Sabahan wife, charging them RM1,000 per hour. He will have to pay a heavier price.
The 35-year-old man was jailed 10 years after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court to a charge of using his wife for sexual exploitation.
Judge Datin Surita Budin ordered the sentence to start from the date of arrest on Oct 30.
The man was charged with committing the offence at a hotel in Kuala Pilah at about 1.30pm on Oct 30.
He was charged under Section 12 of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling Migrants Act read together with Section 34 of the Penal Code. Offenders can be punished with a maximum jail term of 20 years and fine.
According to the facts of the case, the man charged “clients” RM1,000 per hour to sleep with his wife so as to pay off his debts.
A police probe revealed that he had been using his wife for sexual exploitation since July this year.
The couple were detained in a police operation at the hotel.
In mitigation, the accused said he was already serving a seven-year-jail term and had been ordered to be given three strokes of the rotan for another offence.
“I hope the court can give me a similar punishment so it can run concurrently. I also want my wife to be released from the protection centre so she can go back to her family in Sabah,” he said.
Deputy public prosecutor Hafizah Zainul Hashimi urged the court to impose a sentence commensurate with the crime.
“The public interest is greater than that of the accused. He has not only exploited his wife for sexual purposes. This is a human rights violation,” she said.
On Nov 21, the man was jailed seven years and ordered to be given three strokes of the rotan by the Sessions Court for prostituting and living off the earnings of his wife.
