The Court of Appeals has recently dismissed a Malaysian man's application for leave out of time to appeal against sentences imposed for two instances of unlawful carnal knowledge, and one immigration offence.

The defendant, Mohammad Nizam bin Mohammad Sahari, was convicted after he pleaded guilty to two offences of unlawful carnal knowledge against a 13-year-old girl in August and September 2012.

He appeared before the Magistrate's Court on September 26, 2012 and was sentenced to concurrent terms of three years' imprisonment and three strokes of the cane.

He also pleaded guilty to an additional offence of entering Brunei without a valid pass. For this, he received a consecutive sentence of three months' imprisonment and two strokes of the cane, making an overall total of three years and three months, and five canings.

More seriously, he had appeared before the same court to answer a rape charge of a 12-year-old girl committed almost nine months earlier, in November 2011.

This charge was remitted by the Magistrate to the High Court, on the same day that he received the sentences for the later offences.

He also pleaded guilty to that offence on September 29, 2012, and was sentenced on October 20, 2012, to a term of eight years and nine strokes of the cane.

The High Court ordered the sentence to take effect subsequent to those imposed by the magistrate, making a total of 11 years and three months of imprisonment, and 14 canings.

Mohammad Nizam filed a Notice of Appeal on September 30, 2015, but with the limit for such notices being 28 days from the date of sentencing, his appeal was over two years and 10 months late.

Before granting leave to appeal out of time, the court has to be satisfied that the proposed appeal has good prospects of success and that there is a satisfactory explanation for the delay.

The President of the Court of Appeals, Justice John Barry Mortimer, sitting with Justice Michael Peter Burrell and Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court, Justice Conrad Seagroatt, stated ed these facts in their judgement.

They found no satisfactory explanations for the delay in filing the notice, and ruled that the sentences meted out to him were not unnecessarily severe or excessive.

DPP Sharon Yeo appeared for the respondent In his appeal.

Source:
@BRUDIRECT.COM

by BruDirect.com

If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]