Canteen worker gets jail, cane for kissing pupil

KOTA KINABALU: A school canteen worker was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and ordered to be given one stroke of the cane by the Sessions Court here yesterday for kissing a pupil of a school.

Judge Noor Hafizah Mohd Salim imposed the sentence on Abdul Kadil Jemar, a 45-yearold Filipino, after he admitted to committing the sexual offence against the 11-year-old boy at the school’s male toilet on February 13.

He was convicted under Section 14 (a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act which is punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years and whipping, upon conviction.

Deputy public prosecutor Megat Mahathir Megat Tharih Afendi told the court that two days after the incident, the pupil confided to his parents that the accused had kissed him on the cheek, touched his hands and invited him to have sex.

The victim also said that the incident occurred when he was about to go to the toilet. After the accused kissed him, the victim ran away.

When the accused was aware that the victim’s parents knew about his act, he ran away to the city to avoid arrest.

However, following a police report, the authority managed to arrest the accused at a barber shop and upon investigation, police found that the accused had no valid travel document, and during an identification parade, the victim identified the accused as the person who had kissed his cheek.

In mitigation, the unrepresented accused pleaded for leniency as he had only kissed the victim once and requested that he is immediately sent back to his country of origin after serving his sentence.

The prosecution pressed for a deterrent sentence as a lesson for the accused, submitting that the accused as a canteen worker had taken advantage of the victim, who is only a little kid.

The court ordered the accused to serve his jail term from the date of his arrest on April 8.