MOHAMAD ZABIR HARITH BIN BIDIN v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Illustrates the sentencing framework for repeated sexual offences against a child under section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, the court upholding separate and consecutive deterrent sentences, subject to the totality principle, as reflecting the paramount public interest.

This High Court decision is one of the consolidated appeals against sentence brought by an appellant convicted in the Sessions Court on numerous charges of sexual offences against a child under section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 (Act 792), the offences having been committed on separate occasions at the premises where he had access to the child. This record concerns a further set of charges in the group of five cases, comprising thirteen charges in all. The appellant challenged the sentence as manifestly excessive, contending in substance that its cumulative weight bore a crushing effect and that the several sentences should have been ordered to run concurrently. The court reiterated the framework governing sentencing for these offences: the public interest is the paramount consideration; Parliament's abhorrence of sexual offences against children is reflected in the twenty-year maximum and liability to whipping under section 14(a) and in the special provision in section 25 permitting whipping even of an older offender; and mitigating factors personal to the offender are entitled to limited weight where the gravity of the offending prevails. It held that offences committed on distinct occasions are separate and distinct, so that separate sentences, and consecutive terms subject to the totality principle, may properly be imposed to mark a sustained course of offending against a child. Measuring the sentence against the trend of sentencing under the Act, the court found it neither excessive, illegal nor improper, and considered that a deterrent sentence was warranted in the public interest. It drew on the guidance in authorities such as Public Prosecutor v Teh Ah Cheng that in offences of a sexual nature the offender's hardship yields to the public interest, and on Ibrahim bin Mahd Nazri v Public Prosecutor confirming that sentences within the established range will not readily be disturbed on appeal, and it observed that consistency of sentencing across the five consolidated cases reinforced rather than undermined the fairness of the outcome. The court accordingly dismissed the appeal against sentence. The judgment illustrates the sentencing framework for repeated sexual offences against a child under the 2017 Act, and the deference an appellate court accords to a Sessions Court sentence that conforms to the statutory scheme and the sentencing trend.