MOHAMAD ZABIR HARITH BIN BIDIN v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Illustrates the proportionality and appellate-restraint principles applied to sentencing for sexual offences against a child under section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, the court upholding a sentence within the proper range as neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle.

This High Court decision forms part of a group of consolidated appeals against sentence by an appellant convicted in the Sessions Court of a series of sexual offences against a child under section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 (Act 792). This record relates to a further set of charges within that group. The appellant's principal complaint was that the aggregate sentence was disproportionate to the offending and manifestly excessive. The court restated the principles governing appellate intervention in sentence: an appellate court will not disturb a sentence merely because it might itself have imposed a different one, but only where the sentence is manifestly excessive or inadequate, wrong in principle, or otherwise improper. It underlined the gravity that the Act attaches to sexual offences against children, providing for imprisonment of up to twenty years and liability to whipping under section 14(a), and reflecting Parliament's abhorrence of such conduct, and held that the public interest is the paramount consideration in sentencing, outweighing personal mitigation such as the hardship that a long term of incarceration would cause the offender and his family. Measuring the sentence against the trend of sentencing for comparable offences under the Act, the court found that it fell within the proper range and was neither excessive nor improper, and that a deterrent sentence was justified. It observed that Parliament's inclusion of provisions such as section 25, which allows whipping even of an older offender notwithstanding the general exemption in the Criminal Procedure Code, signals the seriousness with which such offences are to be visited, and that a sentence reflecting that legislative policy could not be characterised as disproportionate. The court further held that hardship to the offender or his family is not a circumstance to which undue weight may be given where the gravity of the offence prevails. The court accordingly dismissed the appeal against sentence. The judgment illustrates the proportionality and appellate-restraint principles applied to sentencing for sexual offences against a child.