The Court of Appeal has increased the sentence imposed on a sexual offender after allowing the Public Prosecutor’s appeal against what it found to be an unduly lenient sentence for kidnapping and outraging the modesty of two victims.
Muhammad Firdaus bin Yunus, the respondent, was convicted of kidnapping X, an 11-year-old schoolboy, and separately outraging the modesty of both X and Y, then aged 18, during a series of offences committed on the same night in Kuala Belait.The appeal was heard by Chief Justice Dato Seri Paduka Steven Chong, Justices of Appeal Michael Victor Lunn and Edward Timothy Starbuck Woolley. Deputy Public Prosecutors Hajah Rozaimah Haji Abdul Rahman and Abdul Hanan Haji Erwan appeared for the Public Prosecutor, while the respondent appeared in person.
The Intermediate Court had sentenced Muhammad Firdaus to an aggregate term of three years and four months’ imprisonment with four strokes of the cane after ordering the two outraging modesty sentences to run concurrently and consecutively to the kidnapping sentence.
The appellant argued that both the individual sentences and the overall sentence were manifestly inadequate, particularly as the sexual offences involved two separate victims and should have attracted consecutive sentences.
According to the agreed facts, the respondent lured X into his vehicle with the promise of a “treat” before taking the boy to his house, where he sexually assaulted him after attempting to persuade him to undress and stay overnight.After returning X near his home, the respondent persuaded Y to accompany him to the same residence by offering him BND40. Once there, he sexually assaulted Y inside a locked bathroom before police officers, alerted by X, arrived and rescued the victim.The respondent, who had a previous conviction in 2022 for the attempted kidnapping of an eight-year-old girl, was also found to have prior drug-related convictions.
Delivering the judgment, the Chief Justice said the sentence for the kidnapping charge was within the range reasonably open to the sentencing judge and should not be disturbed.
However, the Court found that insufficient weight had been given to the seriousness of the sexual assaults and the young age of X.
The Court held that each offence of outraging modesty warranted a starting point of three years’ imprisonment and three strokes of the cane, reduced to two years’ imprisonment and two strokes following the respondent’s guilty plea.The Court further ruled that the two sexual offences, involving separate victims, constituted distinct criminal acts and should have been punished with consecutive prison sentences.
It ordered the kidnapping sentence to run concurrently with the sentence relating to victim X as both formed part of a single transaction, while the sentence for the offence against Y would run consecutively.
The Court therefore set aside the previous aggregate sentence and substituted it with a sentence of four years’ imprisonment and four strokes of the cane, stating that it properly reflected the gravity and overall criminality of the respondent’s offending conduct.