Man jailed 14 years for rape of underage niece

KUCHING: The Sessions Court in Sri Aman on Monday sentenced a man to 14 years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane for raping his underage niece.

The man, 50, pleaded guilty to committing the offence before Judge Jason Juga who convicted him of three statutory rape charges under Section 376B(1) of the Penal Code which carries a jail term up to 30 years and whipping.

The case was fixed for trial on Monday when the accused changed his plea to guilty.

According to the facts of the case presented by DPP Mohd Afif Ali, the incident started some time in July 2014 when the girl was about 11 years old.

In the first incident that occurred some time in July 2014, the girl had followed her uncle to a supermarket in Sri Aman to buy food.

After that, she was brought to the bushes near a school where she was raped.

The second and third incident occurred some time in September 2014 and January last year respectively, also at the same place, after he brought the girl to the supermarket to buy stationery.

He had warned the girl not to tell anyone or else he would not buy the stationery for her.

The case came to light after her teacher saw some changes in her physical appearance: she looked like she was pregnant.

She was then sent for a medical check-up and a report showed that she was 33-week pregnant. A police report was immediately lodged.

She gave birth to a baby boy later and a DNA test conducted on the baby showed that the accused was the biological father.

The judge ordered the jail terms to run concurrently from the date of his remand – Aug 23 this year.