Molest suspect under six-day remand

MIRI: A magistrate’s court here Friday ordered a man to be remanded for six days to facilitate police investigation into suspected molest of his neighbour’s two girls

Magistrate Kasyfurrahman Abang Ahmad issued the order after allowing a remand application by investigating officer Insp Nur Hasanah Jamil from Miri Central Police Station.

In her application, Nur Hasanah said that on May 1, a 61-year-old security guard of a shopping complex here in his police report said at 3.35pm that day, he was informed by a colleague that an unknown man behaving in a suspicious manner had taken two young girls into the men’s toilet located on level one of the shopping complex.

It was later found that the two girls aged seven and five were at the mall without their parents’ supervision.

The complainant and three other security guards then went to inspect the toilet cubicle but the man refused to open the door. The complainant then asked an employee of the mall on duty at the Information Counter to call the police for assistance.

Acting on information received, the police arrested a man around 4pm that day who was handed over by security guards of the shopping mall.

The suspect was taken to Miri Central Police Station for further investigation.

Meanwhile, at 5.40pm that same day, the 42-year-old mother of the two girls made a police report for both girls to undergo a medical check-up at Miri Hospital.

In her application, Nur Hasanah said that a seven-day remand for the 20-year-old suspect from Pujut Adong according to Section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code was needed to enable the police to carry out thorough investigation on the case filed under Section 14 (1) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.

She added that the suspect and the victims’ family are neighbours and if released early, the suspect might disturb the victims or the witnesses.

However, the court only allowed a six-day remand until May 8.