Youth fined for opening shop to sell non-essential items

KOTA KINABALU: A youth was fined RM1,000, in default, one month's jail by the Magistrate's Court here yesterday for opening a premises without a permit to sell non-essential products during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period.

Magistrate Lovely Natasha Charles imposed the fine on Christopher Yan Chung Seng, 19, after he pleaded guilty to a charge under Rule 7 (1) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Rules 2020.

The rule provides for a fine or a jail term of up to six months or both, upon conviction.

Christopher admitted to committing the offence at a row of shops at Jalan Pintas on March 31 on 11.02pm.

The facts of the case stated that the complainant who was on duty for Ops Covid-19, found the premises was opened for business.

Upon checking, the accused was inside the premises and failed to give a valid reason why the premises was still operating at that hour.

In pleading for a lenient sentence, National Legal Aid Foundation counsel Lim Ming Zoong @ Lawrence, who represented the accused, prayed for a lower fine and explained that the reason why the accused was at the premises was because he had a consent from his boss to sleep there since his home was far from the city which is in Papar.

The counsel also submitted that the accused claimed that when he was arrested it was at 9pm and he worked a salesman at the premises.

In reply, the prosecution pressed for an adequate sentence to serve as a lesson to the accused and to deter would-be offenders from committing a similar offence in future.

The prosecution also submitted that the accused should comply with the MCO during this pandemic crisis to stay at home and claiming that he had consent to stay there as his address is in Papar was illogical because the day he was caught, the premises was opened.

The prosecution further submitted that the premises was opened by the accused to allegedly operate gambling activities as stated in the first information report.

Earlier, the prosecution tendered RM66 in cash as an exhibit in court which drew the magistrate's attention on why there was cash tendered for this case.

The prosecution explained that the money was mentioned in the first information report and listed in a police search list, thus, the prosecution submitted that the premises was believed to have carried out gambling activities.

The prosecution said that by tendering the cash, it would show to the court that these alleged activities were wrong and not essential.