KOTA KINABALU: The Sessions Court here sentenced a man to 16 years in jail on Saturday (Sept 28) for raping his own daughter.
Sessions Judge Amir Shah Amir Hassan also ordered the 36-year-old labourer to be given 10 strokes of the cane after finding him guilty of raping his now 12-year-old daughter.
According to the facts of the case, the man had raped his daughter more than 10 times since she was eight, with the latest in early January at 1am in a house in Papar.
The investigation revealed that accused had been raping the victim from 2020 until early this year.
The rapes came to light when the victim related her ordeal to a friend and class teacher, prompting her grandfather to lodge a police report which led to the man’s arrest.
Further investigations also found that the man had been threatening his daughter not to tell anyone about his crime.
The victim had been living with her father since the parents' separation.
He committed the offence under Section 376 (3) often Penal Code which carries a jail term of between 10 to 30 years, a minimum of ten strokes of the cane or both upon conviction.
During mitigation, the unrepresented man asked for leniency but Deputy Prosecutor Nurul Shafeerah Mad Iskim pushed for a deterrent sentence due to the heinous nature of what he had done to his daughter.
“The accused is the victim’s biological father. It is his duty to protect his own flesh and blood since his wife left them when the victim was only five. However, he betrayed the trust given to him by his daughter by raping her,” she said.
