MUAR: A carpenter was admonished by a judge at the Sessions Court here today after he pleaded guilty to raping a 12-year-old girl.
"You took advantage of the victim and her family by accommodating you at your grandfather's house despite the family being in difficult circumstances.
"But why did you rape the child?" asked judge Abu Bakar Manat.
The accused, Muhammad Zarul Hashimme Md Nordan @Nordin, 24, made the admission after the charge under Section 376 (1) of the Penal Code was read to him.
The judge subsequently imposed a four-year prison sentence and three strokes of the cane on the accused.
The court was told Zarul raped the victim since December last year, when she and her mother sought shelter at the house due to hardship and a desire to start schooling in Yong Peng, Batu Pahat.
Following this, the accused was charged under Section 376 (1) of the Penal Code.
During the proceeding, Abu Bakar said that the punishment imposed on the accused should take into account the interests of the victim and the public, as well as recent sentencing trends involving such cases.
"If you do wrong, you have to bear the consequences. Most importantly, you need to have awareness within yourself, especially since you are still young," he said.
According to the charge sheet, the accused allegedly committed the act while the victim was resting in a room in the house.
However, the incident was not known to the girl's mother until a health examination session at her school, when she told her teacher that she had been beaten by her mother.
The teacher then inquired further before being shocked to learn of the rape incident.
A police report was lodged by the victim on April 24.
Acting on information, police arrested the accused at 5.30 pm on the same day.
Deputy public prosecutor Danial Munir conducted the prosecution.
The court imposed a four-year prison sentence and three strokes of the cane starting from the date of Zarul's arrest.
The court also ordered the accused to undergo counselling sessions throughout the sentence and be placed under police supervision for a year, in line with Sections 26 and 27 of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.