Duo sentenced to 10 years’ jail, two strokes in Kuching for sexually assaulting teen girl

KUCHING (Aug 28): The Sessions Court has sentenced a 22-year-old oddjobber and a 20-year-old cook to 10 years in prison and six strokes of the cane each for sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

Oddjobber Daniel Arrazy Salmi Abdullah also received an additional three-year prison term for possessing child sexual abuse material.

Judge Musli Ab Hamid convicted both men on their own guilty pleas to the charge under Section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 (SOACA), which provides for imprisonment of up to 20 years and caning upon conviction.

Daniel committed the offence against the 16-year-old at a house in Simunjan Bazaar at around 1am on May 20, while the cook, who is an Indonesian national, sexually assaulted the same girl in a hostel room in Serian at around 9.30am early this month.

According to the facts of the case, the cook, who is the victim’s colleague, groped the teenager before pulling her into a hostel room, where he sexually assaulted her.

She tried to break free but was unable to.

Following the incident, she lodged a police report, which led to the cook’s arrest on Aug 16.

Investigations also led to the arrest of the oddjobber that same night to assist with investigations into the sexual assault case.

Further investigations revealed that the same victim had been sexually assaulted in two separate incidents, each involving a different accused.

During a search of the oddjobber’s smartphone, police also found nine videos containing child sexual abuse material.

He was subsequently charged under Section 10 of the Act in the same courtroom, where he also pleaded guilty.

Judge Musli ruled that Daniel’s three-year sentence for this charge would run consecutively with the 10-year sentence imposed for the sexual assault offence.

Deputy public prosecutor Adriana Maisarah Mohd Farid appeared for the prosecution, while both Daniel and the foreign cook were unrepresented by counsel.

The case was investigated by Insp Victor Buckand Dusim Oh.