KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 — The High Court in Kuantan has slashed a man’s sentence for statutory rape from 10 years’ imprisonment and six strokes of the cane to one year’s jail and two strokes.
In allowing the 23-year-old’s appeal against the penalty, Judicial Commissioner Samry Masri ruled that the Sessions Court had failed to give adequate weight to the accused’s youth, his clean record as a first offender, and his strong prospects for rehabilitation, FMT reported.
The accused was 19 years old when he committed the offences on October 8 and October 29, 2022. At the time, he worked in the dining hall of a residential school in Kuantan where the 15-year-old complainant, identified in court documents as SP4, was a student.
He was initially convicted after trial on two counts of rape under Section 376(1) of the Penal Code. The Sessions Court had handed down five years’ imprisonment and three strokes of the rotan for each charge, ordering the sentences to run consecutively.
Samry upheld the underlying convictions, affirming that because of the complainant’s age, consent remained legally irrelevant under Section 375(g) of the Penal Code.
However, the judicial commissioner held that sentencing must remain nuanced and tailored to individual circumstances.
“The appellant’s prospects of rehabilitation also remain relevant. He was a young first offender and the evidence did not show a continuing predatory risk requiring a lengthy period of incapacitation,” Samry said in his 40-page written judgment.
Samry noted that the circumstances were “materially different from sexual offending involving predation, grooming, coercion or exploitation”.
In mitigating the penalty, the judge took into account the pre-existing relationship between the parties, the victim’s proximity to the age of 16, the manner in which their meetings were coordinated, and the absence of systemic grooming or calculated exploitation.
Under the revised sentence, the appellant will serve six months’ jail and receive one stroke for the first charge, and one year’s jail with one stroke for the second charge. The custodial sentences will run concurrently, meaning he will serve a total of one year behind bars.
The High Court maintained accompanying orders requiring the man to undergo rehabilitative counselling alongside two years of post-release police supervision.
Samry emphasised that the reduced sentence should not be misconstrued as recognising a minor’s agreement as a defence against statutory rape, stressing that judicial penalties must remain “just, proportionate and responsive to the circumstances of each offence”.
