The Court of Appeal has reduced the whipping sentence imposed on a repeat offender convicted of housebreaking, theft and criminal trespass, while upholding his prison term.
Hasmyzan Hamzi bin Haji Hashim had appealed against an aggregate sentence of four years and four months’ imprisonment and three strokes of the cane imposed by the Intermediate Court after he pleaded guilty to three offences under the Penal Code.
In a judgment delivered on June 20, Chief Justice Dato Seri Paduka Steven Chong, sitting with Justices of Appeal Michael Lunn and Edward Timothy Starbuck Woolley, dismissed the appeal against the custodial sentences but reduced the whipping sentence from three strokes to two.
The appellant appeared in person, while the Public Prosecutor was represented by Deputy Public Prosecutors Pengiran Hajah Nor ‘Azmeena Pengiran Haji Mohiddin and Radin Wafri Radin Sufri.
The offences arose from two separate incidents in September 2025.
In the first, the appellant and an accomplice broke into a residence in Panaga, Kuala Belait, stealing cash, a MacBook laptop, a Sony headset, two bicycles and other personal belongings. Most of the stolen property was later recovered.
Five days later, the appellant trespassed into another residence in Jalan Tengah, Seria, intending to commit theft but fled after noticing a CCTV camera.
The Court noted that the appellant had an extensive criminal record comprising 18 previous convictions between 2010 and 2020, including 11 theft-related offences.
Rejecting the appeal against the prison sentence, the Court held that the offences involved planning and deliberation, targeted two separate victims on different occasions and warranted consecutive sentencing for the criminal trespass charge.
However, the Court found that while the trial judge had reduced the custodial sentence by one-third to reflect the appellant’s guilty plea, no corresponding reduction had been made to the sentence of whipping.
The Court ruled that the same principle should have been applied to both components of the sentence.
The appeal was therefore allowed to the limited extent of reducing the whipping sentence from three strokes to two, resulting in a final sentence of four years and four months’ imprisonment and two strokes of the cane.