The Star, Kuala Lumpur, 11 May 1999

Rapist dad's caning sentence enhanced

ALOR STAR: The Court of Appeal yesterday not only upheld a Sungai Petani Sessions Court decision to sentence a rubber tapper to 12 years' jail and seven strokes of the rotan for raping his six-year-old stepdaughter, but went on to add another three strokes.

Justice Shaik Daud Mohd Ismail, who sat with Justices N.H. Chan and Haidar Mohd Noor, said that Ishak Ahmad should have taken care of his stepdaughter and not raped the child.

Justice Shaik Daud said that Ishak, 38, did not have any grounds to appeal for a lesser sentence.

On June 27 last year, Sessions Judge Ghazali Cha had ordered that Ishak be given seven strokes of the rotan and be jailed 12 years for raping the girl at his house in Batu 2, Jalan Jeniang in Gurun between September and November 1995.

Ghazali ordered the jail term to take effect from the date of sentencing.

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